Chapter Twenty-Three

"Thanks again for helping me move my things back in," said Smithers as he sat up on his couch.

"You're welcome," said Julio from the kitchen. "Which soup did you say you wanted?"

"Vegetable beef."

"Are you sure you don't want me to make you a real meal?"

"No, thanks. Soup is all I want. Besides, if I get hungry later, I can always get something from the hospital cafeteria."

"Are you sure it's such a good idea to keep seeing Monty?" he said, opening the can of soup and emptying it into a pot.

"I'm just helping him stay clean and healthy. The nurses don't know how to take care of him properly like I do."

"Uh-huh."

"We're through. I'm not going to tolerate his lying or callous behavior anymore."

"Sure, Waylon."

"I don't know why you're so skeptical. Sometimes a sponge bath is just a sponge bath."

"Maybe I'm skeptical because this is like, the fifteenth time I've heard you swear you weren't going to go back to him."

"What do you even mean by 'go back to him'? We've only been a couple since my accident a few months ago."

"So you've said."

"What, you don't believe me?"

"Well..."

"Monty told me himself, he made our whole relationship up. That's why I'm not going back to him."

"Maybe you two weren't officially dating, but... Do you remember that spread in Gayfield News in 1998?"

"As if I read tabloids, even gay ones."

"Not even the one headlined, 'Springfield's Nuclear Power Couple?'"

"It sounds vaguely familiar."

"It should. I found a copy of it in your hope chest."

Smithers rolled his eyes. "It's a travel trunk."

"Whatever. It had pictures of you and Monty out on the town, and you both seemed pretty 'out.' One picture even showed him holding your hand. Another showed him hugging you and resting his chin on your shoulder on a Ferris wheel."

"Let me see it." Julio stirred the soup, then went into Smithers' room and retrieved the newspaper pages from the trunk. When he returned to the living room, he unfolded the paper and showed him the pictures and accompanying article. "Oh, that's all. I remember the time he held my hand," he said, pointing at the picture. "We were going to a restaurant without valet parking for the first time, and he was frightened to be in such a bad neighborhood. He was a lot more sheltered at that time."

"I can kind of buy that. But can you look at that photo of you in the Ferris wheel and tell me he had no romantic feelings for you?"

Smithers scrutinized the photograph. "He held my waist because he was afraid the wind would blow him away. That's all."

"Does that also explain why he's nuzzling his chin against your shoulder?"

"He was probably cold."

Julio's voice dropped in incredulity. "Seriously?"

"Why would he have lied to me about this if we had actually been a couple? Why would he break my trust in him and screw with my sense of reality if it wasn't true? It doesn't benefit him."

"I believe that you two weren't officially a couple, even in private. When we were dating, you said he never reciprocated. But it's pretty obvious you two both wanted to be a couple, even then."

"So, what are you saying, that I should get back together with him? Even after he consistently blew me off, then lied to me over and over?"

"No. I've always thought you'd be better off if you got over him. Like, everyone has. What I am saying is I don't think he made up everything about your relationship."

"Oh, so you're siding with him? Saying I'm responsible for making up a fairy tale about us, too?"

"I meant that some of what he told you may have been more real than you think." Smithers furrowed his brow, staring off as he mulled. "Now un-furrow that brow, honey, your soup is ready." Julio brought him a bowl of soup on a potholder and held it in front of him.

It took him a moment to snap back to the present and take the soup from him. "Thanks, Julio."

That afternoon, when he went to visit Burns, he brought a photo album with him. He entered Burns' private room with the photo album and a crutch under one arm and a newspaper under the other. "Waylon, how good to see you!"

Smithers sat beside Burns' bed. "We need to get a few things straight."

"I know, you're still upset with me. I wouldn't expect you to forgive me overnight."

"I need to know the truth."

"I've already told you about my deception."

"Yes. And you promised you would tell me the truth from now on." He set the photo album on a tray over Burns' lap. "I want you to start with the truth about our past."

Burns nodded with trepidation. "Yes, I suppose I owe you that." He opened the album at the beginning. "Here is the first company picture taken since you began to intern at the plant. You were, oh, twenty or so. You were such a hard worker, so eager to please. You started out in accounting, but you were so impressively sycophantic in my presence, I quickly transferred you to work directly for me." Other pictures on the page showed Smithers working in Burns' office, ending with one of Smithers standing by Burns with some tea at a board meeting. "I confess, I saw you as little more than a good deal then. But you quickly grew on me.

He turned the page. "I was sad to see you go when the internship ended, but you had your degree to finish, and then you spent a year or so in the Navy." He pointed to some pictures of his going-away party. "When you returned, I was so puzzled that you'd left with anything but an honorable discharge, I was sure it was an error. You were much too impressive for me to believe you had done anything to deserve anything but highest honors."

"Here we were at our first company retreat together at Lake Springfield. You organized most of the activities." There was a picture of them out on a boat, Smithers holding a fishing line while Burns reclined sipping a cocktail, then a picture of them relaxing on adjacent lawn chairs. "You caught and cooked some fish for me, and that's when I decided I needed to expand your duties to include being my primary chef. Oh, and these are from our plant production of H.M.S. Pinafore," he said, pointing to Smithers in his naval costume. "I saw you had a real artistic talent and put you in charge of arranging my entertainment. You picked out which shows we'd see, which gallery exhibitions were worth our time, and so forth."

"What about this trip?" said Smithers, turning a few pages to the pictures of them at a camping trip, Smithers looking irritated and exhausted. "What's the story behind these?"

"That was our last camping trip upstate, as I told you."

"But you never told me the story about what happened. You glossed over it."

"Let me begin by telling you about our first camping trip together."

"No, Monty. I've heard you talk all about how things were wonderful between us. I need to start hearing about what went wrong."

"I'll get to that, all in good time. But first, you need to understand what led up to that." Smithers parted his lips, planning to object but not finding the needed words. "Our first camping trip was about fifteen years ago. It was the first time I had taken you on vacation with me instead of us taking separate vacations. You had always spent your vacations visiting me at the plant, checking in on me at the manor, or arranging for us to see a show together after I left work, and efficiency plummeted whenever we weren't working as a team, so it seemed sensible to merge our vacations, although technically you were still on duty to serve me.

"We shared a cabin on the lake, and for a week, we enjoyed each other's company and no one else's. By day, we relaxed by the lake, fished, took walks in the woods. By night, we dined on your gourmet-level cooking and washed it back with fine wine, then sat by the fire, regaling each other with stories. They were merry anecdotes, for the most part, but one night, we delved into darker territory without ever leaving the cabin.

"I think you started it, telling me of some time you'd been bullied in school, and I told you of how my grandfather beat me into submission, and I vowed that once he went to his grave, I would never let anyone push me around again. I would never let myself be vulnerable to anyone again. But I just couldn't help but be vulnerable to you.

"I started to cry, and you held me to your bosom and comforted me. I let you hold me for hours until I fell asleep. When I awoke the next morning, you were slumped over in my bed, still holding me. From then on, comforting me became one of your unofficial duties.

"It was ironic, thinking of it now – you wished you had grown up with your father, while I wished I never had a father, or a grandfather. When we left the lake at the end of the week, I felt a much deeper bond with you, and neither of us had to say it as we both knew – we were officially friends. You were the only one I could trust enough to be vulnerable around. You were the only one I could trust not to take advantage of me.

"For years, I continued to think of us in that way – just two very close friends. I was utterly in denial. You were, for all intents and purposes, my life partner. I craved whatever physical contact I could eke out of you – whenever inspectors visited the plant, my anxiety warranted a hug from you. Whenever idiotic employees vexed me, I needed a scalp massage from you. Whenever I shook hands with you to apologize, I made it last as long as possible.

"In the last ten years, I began to dream about you. I confided to my old psychiatrist about these dreams, and he gave me some Freudian cock and bull story, which I was all too happy to accept as long as our intimate physicality had some non-literal interpretation. I had been with other men before, but I had attributed those dalliances to youthful exploration and had decided I would settle down with a lady. I had no intention of falling in love with a man, least of all a subordinate.

"And yet, I continued to dream about you. My analyst would posit the source of my dreams as anxiety about profits, but then profits would soar, and I continued to dream about you. He proposed a variety of theories about the source of my conflict, each one revealing a fatal flaw, until about five years ago, he shrugged his shoulders and suggested that I am deeply attracted to you. I dismissed him angrily, and I took it out on you.

"I had to prove to myself that I didn't love you. I began dating women again, I rebuffed you at every turn. When you struck up casual conversation, I would chastise you for your excessive familiarity. Anything to keep a cold, professional distance between us, even as I craved your scent. You were late once in your time working for me, and I rebuked you sternly. Every morning when you woke me, I repeated in my head, 'He is only a lackey,' over and over, and I did the same every night you tucked me into bed.

"I made you drive me in a rickshaw during the Springfield Marathon. I let you take the fall for me when a whistleblower revealed environmental violations at the plant. I let you take the fall for buying opium for me in Morocco. I dangled a promotion in front of you for outstanding performance but never let you have it even after you continued to exceed my expectations. I used you as a human shield to protect me from assorted rotted foods flung at us by adolescent miscreants. I even refused you access to the escape pod I'd had built for us during an accident at the plant.

"So it should come as no surprise that at our last vacation at the lake, I barked orders at every opportunity and made you sleep outside in the rain when you failed to carry out the impossible ones. I had behaved similarly the last few years during our vacations, instigating fights for no real reason except to keep us from getting too close. I wanted to move on from you, but short of firing you and moving away, I didn't see how that would be possible. So I tried treating you with a callous distance.

"I was a damned coward and a fool. I don't deserve to have you back, but I don't know how else I'd live."

"Monty..." Smithers stood, leaning on one crutch and wiping the tears from Burns' eyes. He stroked Burns' cheek, then leaned in and kissed him. "In spite of everything, I still can't stand to see you cry." Smithers sniffed back a tear of his own. "So I can't understand how you could stand to treat me so callously for years on end."

"I didn't want to own up to my feelings for you. I was brought up to see such affection as a mental problem at best."

"So was I. I even got married, Monty! But I still treated you like gold, even when you were broke, and even when you treated me as a subordinate. Because I loved you." He turned the page in the photo album to the time when Burns lived at his apartment. "But you didn't love me."

"No. I didn't." Burns stared into the candid Polaroids Smithers had taken of him – one of him sleeping on the couch, one of him at the breakfast table in a cheery mood due to the success of his new recycling company, and another of him at the breakfast table, scowling as he didn't understand what Smithers found picture-worthy of them having breakfast. "I was deeply attracted to you, and I longed for a more intimate connection, but I didn't love you. Not as you loved me. Not as I love you now." He turned the page in the album to a picture of Smithers and himself at a cocktail party. "I think it should be clear by now I do love you. I wouldn't be in this hospital bed if I didn't love you."

"I know you love me, Monty. You might even love me as much as it's possible for you to love someone. I just don't know if that's enough."