Brimstone

by Peter van der Walt

  When the previous, progressive Mayor was pushed into an early vote held right after the massacre in June, no one expected a reactionary victory. Nearly everyone at the table supported Althea Madison.

  The surprise election result felt like a little aftershock to the massacres themselves.

  “There. Not only will we kill some of you people, but the ones who survive can do so in a family values, God-fearing environment,” Kenneth kept going. He was relentless.

  Paul could actually see Tina wince.

  Classic Kenneth. So busy being a damned intellectual the whole time that he couldn’t care less that his blasé polemic one-liners hurt more than they informed or convinced.

  It’s not that he meant to hurt or offend. He just didn’t think about it and couldn’t help himself.

  “Really, Kenneth. For God’s sake,” Kurt said.

  The room would have fallen into an embarrassed silence, had Clay not rescued it. He stood up, producing a bottle of champagne from the denim bag that followed him everywhere.

  “Well, since you gentlemen have exhausted all talk of religion and politics, I propose a toast. To sex. May we all have tons of wild, awesome, mind-blowing sex.”

  “Amen to that,” Anna said. Raising her glass.

  Paul winced a little inside. Tina actually laughed.

  Paul could tell that staying calm was hard work for her, right now.

  Funny. The well-educated, philosophies of Kenneth – all the enlightenment and intellectual achievement of higher education – did little more than rub salt in everyone’s wounds. It took a hedonist like Clay to counterbalance him and bring some joy to the room.

  Finally, Tina stood up.

  “Well folks,” she said, and the whole of Tina’s seemed to go quiet at once. Even Kenneth, mercifully, shut up.

  “I guess I should just come right out and say it. I’ve run this bar since the summer of 1985. Pride next year will be 35 years. And it will be my last.”

  Anna and Clay sat back, needing to process the information. When Tina closed, it would be awful confirmation that the gay little mecca that was Loveday was over. Socially, economically, over.

  “Thirty-five years,” George said, patting Tina’s back with one of his pudgy mittens.

  Kenneth was speechless – a not-unwelcome development. TJ and Kurt just smiled, not knowing what else to do.

  “I’m glad. Tina, you deserve break,” Anna said. “But it’s bad news for neighborhood.”

  “Jesus,” Clay said in total agreement.

  “It’s a good thing,” Paul said – and everyone but Tina looked at him.

  “Tina took me in when I was younger than Adam is now,” he continued, referring to the latest of the twink boys taken into the care and guidance of Tina. “She took in tons of lost young men over the years. She’s lived here and worked here, taking three days off since I’ve known her. Fourteen- to sixteen-hour days. She deserves to rest.”

  It was the right thing to say. Paul hoped they all understood that Tina deserved to have her decision respected.

  “The neighborhood,” Kenneth ventured.

  “The neighborhood will be fine. Tina’s Saloon is getting new management,” Tina said.

  Clay stood up and lifted a bottle of champagne.

  “Screw it! Tina, good on you! You beat me to it.”

  Tina smiled. “Three and a half decades is not a bad run. But I want to play some music and take some trips and do things that don’t involve prepping meals or cleaning up after people. I’m a little over it, to be honest. One more Christmas, one more Pride. Then I’m out.”

  “You deserve to rest,” Anna said. There were dutiful hear-hears, spoken first by the Rev and then by everyone else.

  “You can retire? You have money?” Anna asked. Crude, but always to the point.

  Tina nodded, looking at Paul, who shook his head no. There was no point in letting everyone know.

  It didn’t matter, he didn’t want credit. The way he saw it, Tina had provided him with a stable, safe and educational place to live – a gay kid alone in a cruel gay and cold straight world.

  When his mom was dead and he had nothing and no one else in the world, Tina stepped up. Like she did for dozens of boys just like him.

  Giving her enough money to enjoy her golden years was no big deal to Paul.

  “Sure.” Tina said, closing the topic down.

  “We’ll all be okay,” the Rev said.

  “From your mouth to God’s ears,” Kenneth replied sardonically.

  Then Kurt spoke up. “If you need anything. Or any help...”

  It was assumed he was speaking to Tina, but Kurt knew Paul a bit better than most at the table.

  Paul nodded his thanks.

  The dinner kind of wound down after that, with everyone leaving eventually, except for Adam, who was crying as he carried the last dishes to the wash-up, and Paul and Tina, who uncharacteristically stayed seated.

  “What’s done is done,” Paul said to her, taking one of her hands.

  “And thank God it’s done.”

  “Adam? Mind bringing an old dyke a beer?”

  Adam showed up moments later with two beers, one for Tina and one for Paul.

  Two glasses of wine and a beer was more than Paul had had to drink in one evening for years.

  Still, he undid the screw top and took a swig, if only so that Tina wouldn’t have to drink alone.

  “Enough about me,” Tina said when Adam was gone. “How’s that dumping thing of yours going?”

  “It’s going to take some time and cost some money. But I’ll win, eventually. I’m just so pissed off that people would dump hazardous materials like that. Not just on my land but on any land. What happens when that shit seeps into the groundwater? Or what if it dries in the soil and some plant grows there and a deer or a bear or some other critter eats the plant and dies? Pisses me off.”

  “Anna was saying.”

  “Yeah. And the thing with Sutherland Ridgefield is that they are in deep at the State Legislature, and with the new Mayor, God help us all. And they are the biggest employer either way in twenty counties.” Paul brought his beer down hard. “But they may underestimate this fag.”

  “Don’t use that word.”

  “Fag? Why not? It’s a badge of honor.”

  “If some real fag said that, I’d buy it. But the crude and forward never fit you, kid. You are a very decent person. I just wish you’d meet a nice boy.”

  Paul shook his head.

  “No, seriously, kid. When was the last time you went on a date? Had some Clay-style, hardcore, anonymous sex?”

  “Time…”

  “Bullshit, time! You work for yourself. And you have more money than you could spend in a lifetime. You stay as busy as you do because you want to, not because you have to.”

  Paul said nothing.

  “And thanks for giving me some of it, Paul. I’m really grateful. But you don’t have to worry about money and your time is your own. You don’t date because you’re still hurting. Listen to me, kid – thirteen years is a long enough.”

  “I miss him.”

  “Of course you miss him. Reuben was special. He meant a lot to you. You can cling to the memories all you want. That’s fine. But you’ve been beating yourself up about it for thirteen years now. And that has to stop.”

  Paul leaned forward, looking into his bottle. He wasn’t going to finish the beer, and Tina knew it.

  She moved the bottle away. He now had no choice but to look right at her.

  “You never forgave yourself. And it wasn’t you, kid. It was policy. It was American law. It was Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

  “I should have outed myself. I should have left when he died and I couldn’t even mourn.”

  “And what would that have achieved, Paul
? An end to your career? You were the man all three branches looked to, in many ways – hell, they still look to you. And you would have been dishonorably discharged. For admitting that you were, as you call it, a fag.”

  “Reuben was my everything.”

  “Oh, crap. Reuben was a great guy. But by the time he came around, you were already a great guy. You had a work ethic none of these new young ’uns could match. You give so much to this town and the people of this town, and even if you insist on doing so in secret, people know. You were awesome before you met Reuben. You were awesome after he passed away. You were just in a system where you could not – at that time – admit that you loved him. That’s it. It was never something you should be ashamed about. That shame there is on the fucking family values types. Who bitchslapped Bill Clinton into signing that godawful policy? It wasn’t you, kid. Forgive yourself.”

  She was right.

  Maybe.

  “Back to my point. I spent my life around gay guys. I know y’all. Y’all can’t keep your damn trousers on if your lives depended on it. When did you last get laid, fag?”

  Paul laughed, but Tina kept looking at him, serious as a heart attack.

  “It’s been… four, five years.”

  Tina’s eyes swelled in shock.

  “That’s not healthy.”

  “Not having casual, anonymous sex isn’t healthy?”

  “No, it’s not. And those who say it is are lying little shits. You’re a hottie. A fine-assed young man of mating age. Go out there and mate, damn it!”

  Paul actually chuckled. “I’m in no rush…”

  Tina retorted with a vehemence Paul didn’t expect:

  “Maybe you should be. None of us live forever, kid. Stop making excuses and fucking listen to me. I’m may just be an old dyke, but I know this life, and I know you, Paul. You work your ass as hard as you do partly to not deal with your shit. You tried Kurt, or he tried you. You could have at least gotten a blowjob before you called it off.”

  “He called it off.”

  “Whatever. Whoever. It’s just that all you do is work, help people, and spend time by yourself, moping. Reuben was excellent, nothing will change that. But don’t miss living, kid. You’re too nice a guy to die someday, on autopilot, having said no to all kinds of things you should have said yes to. Let yourself go a little, kid. Jesus, you’re really too hard on yourself. Just give yourself a break. Get away a bit. Treat yourself. Get laid. Something, anything. Pig out on dessert if you have to. Just make sure you live a little, Paul Draker.”

  Paul saw no point in arguing. “Comment noted and taken on board, ma’am.”

  “Great. So now go home, go online, find some horribly loose thing and have a fucking orgasm before you make the rest of the town explode in frustration. I’m tired, I want to go to bed. Adam will lock up.”

  Leaving the beer, Paul gave Tina another hug and went outside. On his way out the door, Tina yelled: “You know I’m right!”

  He looked up and down the street. Loveday has changed since June. And the streets were emptier. He got into his car …

  Then Paul went home and slept.

  Chapter 2

  Caged

  From the day he was born, they all wanted to cage Brad Jensen. They wanted to cage him because he was perfect – because he was more beautiful than them, smarter than them, more driven than them. They wanted to cage him because he reminded them of their own imperfections and shortcomings.

  They looked at him and they saw everything about themselves they hated to admit. They had less material to work with, physically and intellectually. And what little they had they squandered, never coming close to even approach reaching their own potentials.

  His hick mother saw it, and for the ten years he spent with her, before his Yankee father took him away, she wanted to cage him. Like she wanted to cage his half-brother Alex. That snake-handling fire-and-brimstone husband of hers also wanted to cage him and Alex – that was for damn sure.

  So did his daddy, that bitch of a wife and her two bitch daughters. They lived in a world of money and as much taste as the merchant classes could afford to buy, but even they sensed that this little boy they brought back to their home from Appalachia was better than them. In every way. So they wanted to cage him.

  The school they sent him to – all those fancy private school kids and their uptight teachers, with their fucking preppy outfits and their country club junior memberships. They wanted to cage him too. They tried to catch him out. They threw unfair tests at him. Demanded unreasonable performance for a little boy who had to catch up – a lot. But he passed every test and they couldn’t catch him out – because he was strong, and he had endurance, and he was smart. Fucking smart. Smarter than all of them, and smarter than any of them ever could be. So they wanted to cage him too.

  But they never could. They tried, but they were no match.

  He got through high school, got into a small but esteemed little university. Where the Ivy Leaguers tried to cage him too. And he would have beat them, except for first one little whore, and then two more, who couldn’t keep their mouths shut.

  He made mistakes, and those mistakes tripped him up. And for the past 38 months – three years and two months, as close to a maximum sentence as the judge could give him – FMC Devens was where they all finally did manage to cage him up.

  It was clear from the outside that Federal Medical Centre Devens was a prison. Security was tight and the fences were high. But the building itself, and much of its interior, kept reminding Brad of a corporate office park.

  Except most of the people here were inmates. Convicted sex offenders in an in-depth rehabilitation program. There were some white-collar guys that moved through the place once in a while. Here and there, even a celebrity of some sort, someone the guards described as “high profile”.

  In short, it was where they kept the rich and famous, and convicted sex offenders who were lucky enough, rich enough or connected enough to serve their time in a “medical and psychiatric” facility instead of some more hardcore prison.

  But FMC Devens was still a prison. There was nothing friendly between prisoners and guards.

  Thirty-eight months without freedom of movement. Thirty-eight months in khakis. Getting up and following the same routine, day in and day out.

  But Brad decided to put his time to good use.

  He was given a cell with someone already in it. His celly, Danny. An older, fatter guy who was into little boys. For the most part Brad didn’t mind him, although he knew Danny lusted after him and looked at him when he did his morning routines. But then, Brad couldn’t blame him. Anyone who got to see him in action was lucky.

  Day after day, same routine, same showers, same breakfast hall, same work at the library, where Brad was placed.

  Same outside time. Same drills.

  Always, always the same.

  That’s what they do to you if they get to cage you.

  But they only got to do that for as long as your sentence ran. No more. Brad earned a lot of credits, which by rights should have been used to reduce his time. But that fucking Jew who ran the prison – Dr Stein – somehow managed to keep Brad caged for as long as possible. No doubt with some help from the letter of Old Man Ways who lived back up at the Creek.

  Stein wasn’t one to underestimate. He could surprise you. His mind wasn’t easy to manipulate.

  How he’d love to stab that son of a bitch. Take a tire iron and beat him into mush. Or take a rope and hang him, watching as the life slowly drained out of him. Or take a big kitchen knife and stick it between two of his rubs, all the way, so he could feel the tip of steel slice through organs and the old fucker just croaked – writhing in agony.

  The thing about the sex offender program was that over time, they tried to get into your head. And Brad never allowed that.

  He followed
their routines. Fine tuning all his skills to perfection. When he trained, he trained. When he studied, he studied. He practiced what worked on the more talkative prisoners.

  Brad smiled, cooperated and played the game. It seemed everyone took Brad at face value, except for Stein. However much or little that son of a bitch knew, he couldn’t nail Brad for thought crimes.

  In his head, Brad had been free all along.

  He just did his workout every morning. Then read every book he could find, including textbooks, during the endless days in the library. He would chat with the other prisoners. A few decent guys were in for rape, like Brad was.

  But the rest were either high profile people or perverts. Brad didn’t judge them. He kept on friendly terms with most, kept his head down, minded his own business, and got through the days. He had no choice and nowhere to go – and he thought of it as a training period for when he got out. Sentence served.

  When Stein played his mind games, Brad played along. Yessir, smile. Be constructive. Be an active participant. Play along like he was some high schooler trying to impress his teachers.

  But being caged was still punishment. It took away experiences. Fun he could have had. Chicks he could have fucked. Sunsets, and that kind of sentimental shit. There’d be none of that.

  And why? Because chicks ganged up on him. After the first one talked, two others started chirping as well. The mistake he made was not making it clear to them to keep their mouths shut afterwards.

  Chicks are all the same. They throw themselves at Brad. But they were all players, and they tried to outplay him.

  And thanks to the incompetence of his daddy’s lawyers, three of them did.

  Time inside takes experiences. For most, it also takes potential.

  But Brad used the time. Because he was young, and he had his life ahead of him. And despite the years they took – he still had a good few ahead of him.

  But, just one more night.

  Because tomorrow, baby, tomorrow is the day that the cage opens up. And Brad Jensen will walk out of it, free as the wind. Sentence served in full. Excellent record with a lot of credits. No extra time out, early release, or anything. Whether Stein liked it or not.