Time Warp: Ain't many guys travel around together

[Joshua Bernstein]

Spring Break '79

---

Josh pressed the phone receiver to his ear, heart pounding. Each ring brought a fresh wave of nerves; what if nobody answered? What if he was too busy to talk? What if he didn't want to talk?

But then the ringing stopped, and a calm deep voice that wasn't Sean's but was so similar answered, "This is the Neville Residence."

Josh inhaled deeply and said, in a rush, "Hello! I'm calling for Sean! Is he available? This is Josh, from school."

"Just a moment."

And then all was silent, except for a momentary rustling. He could tell when the phone was picked up again, because he could hear breathing, and he asked tentatively. "Steve?"

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean had stopped participating in political discussions with his family somewhere around freshman year. He voted Democrat and identified as a liberal and a hippie, and most people around him also viewed him as a hippie, while his family remained conservative. They were united in their Catholic worldview, although the telepath interpreted several tenets through a different critical lens. He didn’t mind keeping his thoughts to himself most of the time, since, with the telepathy, nobody else could keep their thoughts to himself.

As of a few months ago, he had even more reason to keep his thoughts to himself. He had no intention of telling his parents that he was dating another boy; he wouldn’t know how to initiate that conversation, even if he’d wanted to have it. Instead, he thought about Josh frequently, but didn’t verbalize it to them.

That proved easy enough most of the time, since he lived with Greg at college. But with spring break, he had come home to Long Island, while Josh remained behind in the City. While the miles between them weren’t many at all, to him it felt like Josh and he were on another planet.

Yet, while watching a movie with his mother and sister, his father informed him that Josh had called for him. His heart skipped a beat as he scrambled to take the phone in the kitchen.

He smiled upon hearing Josh’s voice on the other end, using their nicknames. “Hello Slim.” He had only recently introduced Josh to Humphrey Bogart movies, but his boyfriend had taken an immediate liking to To Have and Have Not. “It’s great to hear from you.”

[Joshua Bernstein]

The answering voice was Sean's! Josh's shoulders straightened, and his expression brightened.

"I hope I wasn't interrupting anything."

Even if he was, the fact that Sean would put it aside (even if temporarily) for his sake warmed his heart.

"How are you?"

[Dr. Sean Neville]

While Sean didn’t resent telephones or otherwise dislike them, he found them a pale shade of face-to-face interaction. His telepathy didn’t work over the telephone, which already halved his ability to interact with another person, and over the phone, he couldn’t see Josh’s face or body language. Instead, he had to imagine it while listening attentively to the cadence of the freshman’s voice. Better than nothing, but far less than they had when school was in session.

“You weren’t. We were just watching a movie, nothing important.” Something on television, nothing that could compare with speaking to his boyfriend right now.

“I’m not bad. I miss you.”

[Joshua Bernstein]

Talia wound around a corner, arms laden with tubs of plastic beads and thread.

"A movie, huh?" Josh asked, waiting until his sister's footsteps receded and her door thudded closed before he added, "I miss you, too."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. It came out a couple of years ago. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. It’s Sherlock Holmes.” Sherlock Holmes in a story written long after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had passed on and adapted into a movie by the same author/filmmaker who had penned the novel. Sean had read the book; he owned the book, one of the many paperbacks in his collection. The movie wasn’t as good as the book in his opinion, but he and his mother and sister could all sit down to watch it with only minimal discomfort as happened when anything involving psychology or the mind occurred in his family when around him.

“What did you do today?”

[Joshua Bernstein]

"I love Sherlock Holmes!" Josh enthused. For once he wasn't only interested because of Sean; he enjoyed the stories for their own sake. "Is it a good movie? Maybe we can watch it when we get back to school..."

He would always look for e

[Joshua Bernstein]

"I love Sherlock Holmes!" Josh enthused. For once he wasn't only interested because of Sean; he enjoyed the stories for their own sake. "Is it a good movie? Maybe we can watch it when we get back to school..."

He would always look for excuses to spend more time with his boyfriend.

"I read some books, and I met some friends for ice cream."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“It’s pretty good, but very different from typical Sherlock Holmes. But I’m sure we can find a way to see it.” Either as a rebroadcast on television, or else because one of the many local theaters might do a theme marathon at some point in the next few months.

Sean, too, looked for excuses to spend more time with Josh, although he possessed more self-discipline than the freshman did.

He smiled as Josh explained his day. All of that was so typically Josh. His boyfriend so loved reading and so loved people and found a good way to balance the two. “What type of ice cream?” Of course that caught the telepath’s attention; such was his sweet tooth.

[Joshua Bernstein]

"I had coffee flavored ice cream, but Mabel had Pina Colada and I think hers was better. She and Rich are dating now, so that's weird. I wanted to see Bekah, but she didn't come home. Can you believe that, not coming home for spring break? If I were going to school in another state I would want to come home."

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“I like coffee-flavored treats, so I should try that next time,” Sean mused aloud. Of course, he only enjoyed his coffee sweetened, but to turn it into ice cream involved sugar and cream, so it should be fine. His attention turned from ice cream to Josh’s ex-girlfriend, and so, for perspective, he said, “My first girlfriend didn’t come home for spring break a lot of the time.”

She had gone to school out west as well, and she hadn’t come from New York, of course. But the point remained that not everyone felt like coming home, or had the ability to come home for what consisted of only about a week to a week and a half depending on the school. “Some of us are homebodies,” he added.

[Joshua Bernstein]

"Well...but...." Josh stammered, feeling rather put on the spot by Sean's mild rebuttal of his judgment, "But I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want to. I would miss my family too much to stay away."

Of course, he would miss his family too much to even apply for anywhere out of state, let alone all the way on the other side of the country.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean had noticed this about Josh, that the other boy could be very judgmental. He attributed this to the fact that Josh was naïve and inexperienced, to which the telepath attributed several of his boyfriend’s personal flaws. He remained sure that Josh would grow out of them as he experienced more in the world and met and interacted with other people. After all, not everyone could benefit from telepathy the way that Sean had; it upturned one’s worldview at a young age.

“We’re homebodies,” he repeated. “But people are different and not everyone likes staying near one place. Some people really like to travel.” Kathleen was a freshman this year as well, and she had gone farther from home than Sean had, even if she hadn’t gone as far as Hammel had been.

[Joshua Bernstein]

"I'm not a homebody!" Josh protested. He left his house all the time. He would be miserable cooped up in his family's apartment. He needed to be out and about among the people of the City, needed to spend time with friends at the park or the library or the neighborhood deli.

Just because he liked his family and wanted to spend time with them didn't make him a homebody.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean found his boyfriend’s protest as unnecessary as it was perplexing. After all, the telepath had begun that sentence with “we”, which meant that he included himself in the label and didn’t intend it derogatorily. He made that point. “There’s no shame in it. You and I aren’t wanderers. We like familiarity, and we like our families and friends and the other people we know.”

Just then, his father stepped into the kitchen. “Is everything all right?”

Sean pressed the receiver to his chest and nodded. “Everything’s fine. We’re just used to talking every day, and he’s a little sad that his ex-girlfriend didn’t come back home to visit.”

William Neville nodded in understanding. “It’s good to take people under your wing.”

Sean couldn’t argue with that, even if he wouldn’t quite describe his relationship with Josh that way.