Language


Joey told Chris, probably when Joey was drunk, about this thing that he had heard, that someone had told him about how there are sounds and words in languages that you never learn to pronounce unless you hear them in your first six months or two years or something. The point was, Joey had explained, Brianna would never be able to speak Chinese properly unless she had someone speaking Chinese around her. "Because there are these sounds, these consonants or some shit, you have to hear, I guess, a lot, when you're a baby."



Chris nodded, looked engrossed for real to Joey, not the fake interest of interviews, and said, "You gotta get her - have someone Chinese and probably Arabic and maybe, hey, those guys that click? From that movie with the Coke bottle? Those guys too -- you have to get one of each and have them come in and like, read to her or something, like, once a week." Chris nodded again, took a long drink, said very clearly, "Cause you know, you don't want anything, any avenues closed to her. She should be able to do anything."

But Joey was still a little surprised when Chris showed up at his place with a list, a list he had someone put together of native speakers of languages with consonants that don't occur in English. Chris waved the list and jumped on the couch, said, "You can get these guys to come by and read to her. She'll be a language whiz, man. Nothing she can't do!"

Joey just grinned and looked at the list, handed Chris a beer. Good to see Chris excited about something, even if it was this weird thing Joey had only mentioned because he couldn't think of anything else to say when Chris had that scowl on his face. Joey flopped down next to Chris on the couch, put on MTV and they looked at the list.

While Chris rambled on about the importance of speaking Chinese in a global economy, Joey just looked at Chris's profile, the dark eyes and sharp cheekbones. Chris could be hot, sexy, smoldering and he never chose to be. Mostly, lately, he chose to be pissy. Bitter. Maybe Chris thought that better befit someone who was about to be thirty and stood behind and to the left of the kid about to turn twenty-one.

Chris could be hotter than a Playmate of the Year in short shorts leaning over a convertible with her ass in the air. Mouth like a demon sucking at your soul and so damned flexible, back in the day, that the fucking left you sore and stretched like three days of rehearsals crammed into one hour. Joey had left his experimental phase behind and he was pretty sure Chris had, too, but he still remembered that part. A lot. He remembered it late at night and jerked off in his bed thinking about Chris back in the day with his back arched and his legs bent.

So maybe it wasn't so experimental, maybe it was just good and fun with potential. But they called it experimental and over once they reached the point where people looked at them twice and almost remembered their names. People talk. And options aren't open if you choose certain paths or however Joey had phrased it, pushing away Chris's hand. They had already had to get rid of Jason. "Just checking it out, anyway," Joey had said. "Just an experiment."

And he'd maybe fallen off the wagon, slid off the main street once or twice cause Chris really was sexier than any silicon'ed chick in a porn mag and how often do you get to fuck someone who makes you laugh and come at the same time, really, and no one else had ever left Joey drained and sated and so full of bliss he was drunk on it after fucking. But Joey had put his foot down and stopped all of it after the third party where someone had called Chris a fag, had said things about Howie and what the Backstreet Boys' name really meant. Where there's smoke, there's fire and Joey had decided to stay away from things that burned. And it really was just an experiment.

"Oh, the places you'll go!" Chris said, sitting back. "Like Lance's book, man. That's what, you know, the parenting thing is all about. Right? Especially you, cause you can give her everything and she'll be able to do whatever she wants. So, you know, it's maybe worthwhile looking for someone who speaks Hindi. I couldn't find anyone who spoke Afrikaans, but I don't know if that one's so important." Chris looked down at the list again, made a note. "You know, let Brianna decide. Let's track down that Afrikaans guy and the Hindi guy!"

"Thanks for the list, man," Joey said. "I should maybe do that."

Chris looked sad for a split second and said, "We want things to be better for our kids than for us, you know?" Joey hated Chris looking sad, the downturn of his mouth and the pull on his cheeks where there would be wrinkles someday. Chris should only have laugh lines, Joey thought, and that, plus the beer, made him reach over and start his experimental phase all over again. See how it turned out for real this time.

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