Disclaimer: RENT is Jonathan Larson's. I'm just playin'.
Roger awoke to a dark room and a sleepy thickness in his mouth. He rubbed his eyes. What time is it…? There was no clock in his bedroom, but the sun had set. "Jesus." He forced himself to stand. Something felt strange, wrong, not the sleepy heaviness to his body but-- "Oh." Roger chuckled. Somehow the condom had manage not to slip off completely, though he had been purely negligent not to dispose of it earlier.
"G-d," he said, shaking his head with laughter as he tied off and tossed out the condom. He buttoned his jeans and found an old sweater that still fit him.
From down the hall, Roger heard voices. He headed towards them, stumbling through the dark. Everything felt so dreamy, thick and slow. Mark sat at the table with his mother, looking at an old photograph album. "…in, um, must have been second grade," Mrs. Hobbs was saying.
Roger peered at the picture over Mark's shoulder. "Oh," he said. It was a picture from his eighth birthday, gap-toothed Roger wearing a silly conical hat with a group of equally gappy, grinning boys around him. There was a birthday cake in front of him, candles still lit.
"Roger!" Mrs. Hobbs looked at her son. "Um… why don't you sit down?" she asked. "Are you hungry, honey?"
Roger shook his head. "I'm not hungry," he mumbled, sitting beside Mark.
"You okay?" Mark asked.
"Just tired," Roger assured him.
"Do you mind…?" he asked, indicating the photograph album.
Roger shook his head. "No, go ahead," he said.
"Where's this?"
It was a little white house with a porch, a brick path through and a tire swing on the patch of grass that served as a lawn. "That's… we lived there," Mrs. Hobbs said. Her voice was stretched thin.
Mark seemed not to notice. "Is it here in Jersey?" he asked.
"No," Mrs. Hobbs said. Roger raised his eyes, squinting. How did Mark not hear how strained her tone was? And yet, it did not bother him that Mark persisted. "It's… it's in the San Fernando Valley. Still there, for all I know. We left when Roger was thirteen."
It was a natural question, yet it clearly made Mrs. Hobbs uncomfortable: "Why did you leave?"
Roger's eyes were fixed on his mother. "Things there just weren't working out," she said.
Mark nodded. "It must have been tough," he said, "for a single mother with a teenage son. I can't imagine it was ever easy for you." An uncomfortable blush burned across the back of Roger's neck as Mrs. Hobbs nodded. What are you doing? What was Mark up to, trying to form an alliance with his mother? What was happening here? Then Mark asked another question, and Roger understood: "What happened to Roger's father?"
Mrs. Hobbs turned to the next page in the album. "You know," she said, "I could have sworn I had some pictures here from some of the shows Roger did--"
"Mama," Roger interrupted. "Tell him."
She looked at him sadly and pursed her lips. "Roger--"
"Tell him," he said, his voice rising. "Tell him about Daddy, tell him why we left the valley."
Mark's eyes widened behind his glasses. He grabbed Roger's hand. "It's okay, baby," he whispered. But Roger could not hear him. He was watching his mother intently, daring her to tell the truth.
"It's in the past now," Mrs. Hobbs said.
Roger shook his head. "No," he growled. He stood, jerking his hand away from Mark's. "You're lying. Where are the pictures? You kept them, I know you did, where are they?"
"Roger," Mrs. Hobbs said, trying vainly to calm him. "Roger, we left that behind--"
"No, you didn't!" Roger cried. "You didn't or why can't you talk about it, Mama? I know you kept them. I know you kept the pictures, Mama! Where are they?"
"Roger, you're shouting--"
With a groan of disgust, Roger turned away. He stormed into the living room. "They're here," he said. "I know they're here." He opened the ornamental box on the mantel. He pulled the cushions off the couch and checked beneath it, opened the coffee table books and leafed through them, all the while ignoring his mother's pleas to stop, think about this for a moment. When he did stop, he took the trembling woman by the shoulders and asked her, his face not inches from hers, "Where are they, Mama? Where are the pictures?"
He barely whispered the words, but she cowered away, shaking her head. "No, Roger…"
"Roger!" Exactly how much of this Reggie had seen, none could say, but he had, apparently, decided that he had seen enough. "That'll do, Roger."
Roger shook his head. "No," he said. "Christ. What does he think, Mama? Does he think he's your first husband? Your first boyfriend after Daddy?"
Mrs. Hobbs began to cry, silent tears slipping down her cheeks. "Roger," she pleaded, "don't do this."
"I have to, Mama! I have to… I… where?" he asked. His lips had gone dry; he licked them, but it did no good. "Just tell me where the pictures are--"
"Roger, stop this--"
"You stay out of it!" he snapped at Reggie. "It doesn't concern you!"
"It does concern me, Roger. You're a sick kid, you always were, but if you don't stop this right now I will kick you out of this house!"
"I'm already gone! Just tell me where the pictures are--"
Mrs. Hobbs appealed, "Roger-- Roger, honey… none of it happened. Huh?" She stroked his cheek. Roger lowered his head, and Mrs. Hobbs smiled. "It didn't happen," she insisted gently.
"None of it--"
"None," she echoed. Her voice had softened to sound, Mark thought, exactly as a mother ought. Mark, who sat at the table through Roger's outburst, too terrified to speak, now began to relax as Roger's shoulders trembled. "It didn't happen. It was all… just a bad dream."
"A bad dream?" Roger pulled away. He shook his head. "No, it wasn't, Mama! He-- they--"
"No. He didn't exist," Mrs. Hobbs insisted, following her son as he stepped away from her.
Something burst within Roger. He began to cry. "He tried to fuck me, Mama! You're telling me that didn't exist? He tried… he…"
Mrs. Hobbs stepped forward. She was at least a foot shorter than her son and weakened by age, but she pulled his head easily to her shoulder. "It's okay," she whispered. She stroked his hair, flattening the wild curls that never had and never would obey her. "It's okay, Roger. It's okay."
"It's not okay!" Once more Roger tore out of her grasp. He looked around the room at all the destruction he had caused, at the strewn books and cushions and knicknacks.
"Fuck!"
He spun and burst his foot through a chest. Mark had seen some of the drawers opened as Roger withdrew napkins to set the table. Mrs. Hobbs shrieked. Reggie began to shout at Roger, but the sound died on his lips as Roger fell to his knees and tore chunks of thin wood off the chest. Photographs spilled out.
Panting, Roger shoved them around until he found the one he wanted. "Here!" He stood and thrust the photograph at his mother. "Tell them about Ken, Mama!" He picked up another photograph. "Tell them about Daddy! Tell them, Mama, or you're the same weak coward you always have been." He held out the pictures, trembling, chest heaving with exertion and hope that his mother would, finally, do the right thing.
"Roger… I…"
"Forget it," he spat. He dropped the photographs at her feet and stormed out of the house.
TO BE CONTINUED!
It's not over yet... nor is it supposed to make sense completely. Next chapter...
Reviews would be awesome!