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CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER THREE:

Much to my surprise, Stacey's entire team of writers fell in love with my song of unrequited longing for an unattainable man. Despite their almost excessive plaudits, I couldn't help but feel like I had just given up a part of my soul that was never, ever meant to surface above that sole stair deep in my spirit where it lurked and fought and rarely slept. Now, just with one offering of my writing, it was no longer a secret. There were now five men in the same room with me, five men who perhaps knew me better than any of the dippy Springfield folk that I had shared a town with for the past 43 years. And God did that thought unnerve me.

Nevertheless, when Stacey requested my presence the next week to record a rough version of the song to air on a little-known Ogdenvillian radio station called "EANLR: New Music, Politics, and A Bunch of Other Stuff That Most People Don't Take the Time to Listen To", the only word that had the capacity to exit my mouth was an involuntary and solid "yes". I afterward decided that my mouth was right to have said what it said: as long as the song would not be broadcast to Springfield, I didn't have too much of a problem with it being heard, and I knew that "EANLR" was a dignified station, as it was the only one Mr. Burns would ever turn on during the very few times we were ever in Ogdenville.

It did feel extremely strange as I recorded it though, in front of those vigilant eyes that gaped into mine as I expelled my heart's wounds in the form of slightly off-key crooning and straightforward banjo-plucking. I had never felt so exposed and susceptible in my life, but I had also never felt so proud. I had written a song, and it was beautiful and it was real. Even I couldn't deny that, and for once, I didn't want to. Hearing the song play over the speakers of that tiny recording studio, I began to think that perchance Stacey was right about me.

I was actually a bit sad at the thought that no one I actually knew was going to hear my work, but I knew that that was with neither doubt nor vacillation for the best. So, after leaving the studio and bidding my farewells to Stacey and the crew, I headed home filled with poignant pride and prepared for the evening that Mr. Burns had planned for us. He came to pick me up promptly at seven and we leisurely drove to the Gilded Truffle. Everything seemed perfect that night: I was being driven around town by my love, I felt accomplished and excited for what the future held, the stars were glinting with a rarely discerned patina of polish, the delicious aroma of the meal that awaited us could breathed in from miles away...I sighed with delight as Mr. Burns parked the car and we began to saunter into the restaurant.

"What do you mean you lost our reservation?" exclaimed Mr. Burns at the blemish-laden teen behind the counter. I stood behind Mr. Burns, arms crossed over my chest in instant anger that our perfect night had been marred. My anger then quickly turned to guilt as I wondered why I had been so confident in the perfection that seemed to be offered to me; usually when things seemed without fault, I would become fearful of ruination and do everything possible to prevent it, but tonight, I didn't do my job correctly and now here we were.

"I'm sorry, sir, but we don't have your reservation, and we're completely booked tonight," the teen began in a squeaky voice that sounded like teeth scratching against a chalkboard. He then eyed Mr. Burns' Armani suit and lush mink coat with interest. "But we could always…make a place for you…"

"I'm not giving you any more of my precious money when it's you tomfools who aggrieved me so with your unforgiveable solecisms! Smithers, get the car."

"Yes, sir."

"Wait, sir!" cried the teen as Mr. Burns slammed the door in his homely face.

"Where to now, sir? The Singing Sirloin?" I asked as Mr. Burns gripped his hands on the steering wheel and for a moment he merely stared ahead into the diamond-spangled canvas of the night. He then looked at me and said, "No, Smithers, we're getting out of Springfield tonight." He began driving.

"What? Why?"

"I'm so sick and tired of the rut I'm in: go to the plant, hang out with you, get ripped off by the townspeople…So, for tonight I'm going to depart from this rut and try something new. Let's be wild, Smithers. Let's go slumming. Let's get ourselves some fine, young ladies and not call them back the next morning."

I grew more concerned with each new idea that Mr. Burns offered. "Sir, I really think we should stay in Springfield, go have dinner…or we could go back to your house and I could make you dinner: duck a l'orange, your favorite…"

"Oh, my dear, boring old Smithers," Mr. Burns replied, shaking his head. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you were the old man here."

Embarrassed that his claim was accurate, I attempted, "Well…I suppose we could modify our routine a bit, but getting drunk and using women doesn't sound like the most appealing evening to me, Mr. Burns."

"Balderdash! You're a man of parts so don't try to deny the magnetism of the natural game,"

Every time Mr. Burns complimented me in such a way, my heart would become a hot air balloon and usually simply float to arcadia, but on that night my anxiety was at war with my need for Mr. Burns' love. I suppose this was because I knew that if anything were to go wrong, I could lose that love forever, and I had an increasingly bad feeling about our leaving town.

"Sir, what can I say to convince you to stay here in Springfield?" I pleaded, even trying to use my puppy dog look that always got to him, but he merely kept his eyes on the long shadowy pathway ahead and asked, "Why are you protesting so amain?"

I had no notion of how to answer. "I just think that…Well…we don't even know where to go…"

"Claptrap once again, Smithers. I know just the place. It was whilom quite the 'hip' locale for young men to gather and find a bit of romance with the…friendly ladies occupied there, and still comparatively is," Mr. Burns told me.

"How do you know it still is?" I asked.

Mr. Burns turned to me, angrily mortified. "Oh, shut up."

"Oh," I uttered, now embarrassed once again. I began visualizing Mr. Burns leaving the plant after the workday had finished, after he and I had bid each other our goodnights…him feeling a bit more in tune to his urges than usual…driving down away from Springfield, his sunny skin a rare blend of yellow and red...flirting up some beautiful woman and finally having his way with her. The image made me burn with both jealousy and desire. I then forced myself to snap out of my reverie and inquire, "Where is this place, sir? Shelbyville?"

"Shelbyville?! Never! I haven't set foot in Shelbyville since 1961 and don't plan to anytime soon."

The revelation in my heart almost killed its rapid beating altogether. I looked at Mr. Burns with dreading eyes. "…North Haverbrook?" I asked, hoping against all hope that I was right, even succumbing to the last resort of praying to a God in which I didn't even really believe.

"Nope, guess again!" Mr. Burns demanded playfully.

Taking a deep breath, I asked, "Ogdenville?"

"Correct! You get a sticker!"

My stomach lurched and I began to feel the need to pull the car over, but my mind calmed me by saying, So what if we're going to Ogdenville? It doesn't necessarily mean that Mr. Burns will hear your song. He might forget to turn on that station. And if he does turn it on, what are the chances that your song will be the one playing? Or the one after that? It's possible but not overwhelmingly probable.

"Smithers, are you quite all right?"

"Oh, um…yes, sir, I'm fine. I just don't feel too well," I groggily answered.

"Well, that will change once we get to the Lovejoy House of Burlesque."

For a moment I had forgotten about my fear and simply laughed. "Lovejoy? As in Timothy Lovejoy's father?"

Mr. Burns chuckled, "Great-great-great-grandfather actually. Oh, perhaps we should take the reverend and his irksome little family there one day and show them a good time."

We both shared a laugh and I realized that my stomach couldn't be aching while it was convulsing with mirth, but it wasn't long before Mr. Burns decided to turn the radio on, and predictably to "EANLR".

My jollity soared out the window as I waited to hear what song would first play. I couldn't have been more thankful to hear that it was currently a political debate that was airing instead of any type of music. I couldn't have been more nauseated when the announcer a moment following declared that the debate would be back after a debut song from a new country singer from two towns over.

I reached my hand out to turn the station off, but Mr. Burns held it in mid-air and asked, "Smithers, what is wrong with you tonight? I want to hear this song, thank you very much. The person may be from Springfield and if so, I probably will have some new ammunition against them."

"Sir, please…I…I just really don't like country music." It was an extremely poor attempt but the only one the sweating folds that comprised my brain could come up with at the time.

"What? Yes, you do. Now shut up and let me listen," Mr. Burns commanded.

I literally considered jumping out of the car and making a run for it when my voice began singing those words: "The frame of your body; your eyes of joys and of woes; your pale, porcelain skin; your carefully-chosen clothes; the sound of your voice; clarion yet whispery still; the way of your sauntering with relaxed, composed will. You're the man of my dreams, of my deepest reverie. And it kills me when it seems that you don't even see. I don't know how to tell you. I probably never will. Just know you cause the tears that southward my cheeks do trill. Go ahead and break my heart again; hammer it until its death. I'll still love you until the very end, until you breathe your final breath. Because you're the man that I canonize, the only god I'll ever adore. You're the dearest friend I've ever had, and yet I know you can never be more."

What the hell were you thinking recording that, Waylon? What in God's name could you have possibly been thinking? What?

Mr. Burns turned the radio off and stopped the car on the side of the street. He then looked over at me with an expression I had never once seen on his face before; he looked like he didn't even know me at all. "Smithers…what…I…why…" he stuttered. I had never heard him stutter before. "I can't believe…I guess I should have known, but…no, it still doesn't…"

I merely waited in the passenger seat listening to Mr. Burns try to make sense of what I had just indirectly revealed to him until he finally formed a coherent sentence, the very one I had expected and dreaded: "So, you're…a homosexual, Smithers?" I could hear the repulsion trickling down from each word as he said them.

God, I hated this question more than any other. It was possibly the only one in the world that I didn't know the answer to, and possibly the only one that really mattered. "No…sir, I…I'm…well, I…sometimes, I'm…"

"Is there some confusion about this?" he asked, now sounding dangerously angry and impatient.

I know he didn't mean it the way that I interpreted it, but I still hung my head and sighed, "Yes. So much."

Taken aback by my response, Mr. Burns looked ahead into the night and began drumming his fingers nervously against the steering wheel. "So, you're not …?"

Damn it, it wasn't supposed to happen like this! "Two thirds of the time I am…um…homosexual. But there are times when I'm not…"

Looking more confused than ever, Mr. Burns asked, "So, you enjoy concupiscence with men and women?"

"You make it sound so tawdry," I said unthinkingly.

"Well, excuse me!" exclaimed Mr. Burns. "I'm just attempting to figure out how it works!"

"I know, I'm sorry…" I began, still unable to look him in the eyes. "I suppose that is how it works."

At that point, Mr. Burns just shook his head and widen his eyes in disbelief, asking me: "But why, Smithers?"

"'Why'?"

"Yes, why. Why would you partake in such grotesque practices…sodomy…" He looked over at me finally and must have seen something in my eyes that prevented him from finishing his interrogation. "Nevermind, Smithers…I'll just take you home, then."

"Okay."

We turned around and drove to back to Springfield in complete silence, the worst I've ever endured, as my mind spun achingly with thoughts I don't even now have the strength to relive. The only words that broke our painful quietude were Mr. Burns' as he pulled into my driveway: "Smithers…who was the song about?" he questioned.

He doesn't know? He doesn't know?! I stared at him, jaw agape, congealed in a moment of both rhapsodic hope and gut-wrenching disappointment. "Sir, it's about…"

Tell him. This could be the day that you confess everything. Just get it all out. He knows you're not straight. Now just come clean about everything.

No, he will never understand this way. This is all so new to him; I have to let him process all this first. And then I'll tell him.

No, you won't. You always say that but you never do it.

I will this time.

Stop living in denial. If you don't tell him now, you never will.

"Sir, it's…it's not about anyone in particular. It's just something I thought up."

"Oh…okay…"

I got out of the car and wondered if I'd ever return to it. I offered a small, "Goodnight, Mr. Burns," but I couldn't even finish before Mr. Burns zoomed out of the driveway without so much as a final glance at me.