Brimstone

by Peter van der Walt

  Gustavo still said nothing.

  Brad’s hand shot up and stopped just sort of Gustavo’s eyes. This time, the old man flinched.

  And there it was – that wonderful feeling. When Brad felt the rage, and the rage was allowed to flow as it wanted, and someone he hated showed some reaction, finally.

  Brad spoke slowly, carefully, annunciating every word carefully. “You exist to serve me, you fucking Latin piece of shit. You do as I say. Say ‘ignorant immigrant’ – or I’ll crush your fucking windpipe right here in the parking lot. I’ll walk right back in, hand myself over, and serve another thirty years. But you say what I tell you to right now, or I will take your life. ‘Ignorant immigrant’.”

  Gustavo tried. The lips and tongue could not let the letters flow the way they did for real Americans. Brad laughed so hard and so long that tears were streaming down his face.

  “I’m just kidding, Gustavo. You know I couldn’t hurt you. You’re too funny. ‘Immignominigo’…”

  Brad spent another minute or so laughing.

  Then, slapping his leg and smelling a wad of cash, he gave Gustavo’s shoulder a friendly little fist bump. “Oh Jesus that’s funny. That’s really funny. I’m just kidding around, Gustavo. I’ve always liked you. You’re good. It’s just – that shit is so funny.”

  Gustavo turned his attention back in front of him.

  This freaking guy would never take the bait. He just wouldn’t. Inside that head of his, he must be cursing Brad. But so what? What could he do about it?

  There was no point in treating him well.

  “Just fucking sit there until I’m done thinking.”

  Brad got out of the car. He looked at Devens.

  He had plans when he got out. Plans that died with Alex.

  The world really was so fucking unfair to him.

  First, to live your first year of life as a hillbilly. Then, to be taken to your father’s home. Then, to always get in trouble for stealing or bullying or running wild. Then, to have three of your six cherries tell the law that you raped them. Then, three and a half years caged like an animal. Follow that with news that the one cool dude in your entire fucking gene pool was killed. Only to have a fucking gardener who knew how to drive tell you that your father did not want you home.

  He would have gone home, get some clothes, get to California.

  Still not a bad idea. Go to California and be discovered. His fucking body and his attitude would take him anywhere he needed to go.

  But it was clear that he had some unfinished business.

  Go to Fairbridge first. Figure out what happened to Alex. Give the polite society of the rich and sensitive to chill out a bit.

  Then go get a nice big down payment from daddy, and head to California after.

  He got back in the car. “So where can we go, amigo?” Brad said, rocking wildly in the passenger seat.

  “Mr. Jensen, he say I drive you anywhere. Just not Rhode Island.”

  “Anywhere?”

  Alex, first. He would go to that shack the Keegans lived in. He would go see his mother and her bible bashing husband. And he would ask the hicks what happened to Alex. And then, maybe, he’d ask them how they could let it happen.

  Go pay Old Man Keys a visit to. Get that fucking retard Virgil to drive him around.

  “It’s going to be a long trip.”

  “No matter. He say I drive you anywhere. Just not home.”

  “Okay. Drive South. Get on the 95. We’re going to Fairbridge.”

  Gustavo made no move.

  “Fairbridge North Carolina. Andale andale, arriba arriba, you stupid fucking Mexican bitch.”

  Chapter 7

  Disconnect

  On his first day back in town, Paul kept himself particularly busy. He completed the training materials for pretty much every course he would run in the next year. He did a little bit of email networking, checking in with contacts in law enforcement and the military first – and making sure he had a pipeline of sales lined up where it mattered.

  He also emailed some schools in the surrounding counties. He sent off some posters and leaflets to graphic designers so he could drop them off with any tourist offices or outdoor gear and supply stores throughout greater Fairbridge.

  He had a look at what the accountant had in the books so far, and he worked out how much taxes were due to be paid to the IRS at the start of the second quarter the next year.

  He demarcated land for new improvements.

  He finished with the obstacle course.

  He cleaned both his own and the office cabin.

  By the time the sun went down, he was thoroughly exhausted.

  He suspected it was the potentially massive legal fight ahead, but he couldn’t be sure – something was chasing him. He was worried that it might be connected to the dream he had the other night… like it was circling back to make a comeback. Just circle around to slap him with another flashback, for the hell of it.

  But it could be just the normal wear and tear. It could be anger over some polluting sons of bitches destroying a pristine wilderness that Paul felt obligated to safeguard.

  Bit of presumption there, but without kids of your own, what the hell else could you do?

  If he had a wife and some kids, Paul would be more settled into the rhythm of life, perhaps. To do what he was expected to do, what was customary, what was traditional. Or if Reuben was around, they’d probably be creating a new adventure somewhere. But he was gay and he was alone, and so Paul wasn’t sure what to do once the work was finished and nightfall came.

  This time of the year, the darkness fell across the skies suddenly.

  One moment, cars lit up the dusk, bumper to bumper on Kellman drive.

  The next, and night has fallen. The traffic vanished, most folks disappeared into their homes with their families, and only the nocturnal creatures were active.

  Despite the proximity of the city lights, Paul could see a lot of stars from his place.

  It was cold – and getting colder. Up here in the mountains of Western North Carolina, the weather was seldom extreme. The white sands of the coast could experience hurricanes. The piedmont had its share of very hot days or storms. Up here, though there was plenty of rain but seldom too much of it. Some snow but seldom the kind that closed down schools or messed with traffic.

  Yet Paul felt a crispness in the air that promised a very cold winter.

  He was alone on his land.

  Work was complete, even tomorrow’s work. Lawyers were off trying to get a massive corporation at least behave like it gave a shit about not spoiling the terrain. However long they made him wait, but had no choices in the matter. The spill has to be cleaned. The land had to be made pure again. Or as unspoiled as possible.

  They trespassed on the land, they dumped the coal sludge and they were caught. Paul backed up his fight with his very expensive, very capable law firm. The money and network was available for a long, protracted battle. But none of that could speed things up.

  The fight was on, but now it would be the hurry-up-and-wait show. There was nothing more he could do. Nothing he could speed up, or finetune. Tom Hamilton would run that the way he always did.

  So now Paul felt restless.

  He had a quick sandwich for dinner. He didn’t feel like cooking. He had the sandwich sitting on the porch of his home cabin. He drank some strong coffee and listened to the noises of the early evening.

  Some crickets. Some birds. He saw a few bats. He also knew there would be some vermin and some reptiles around.

  When he finished his meal he sighed, leaning back against the railing of the three steps that led up to his porch.

  He pushed his dinner aside and slowly scrolled through the contacts he had saved on his mobile phone. Most of the contacts there were professionals or friends, and tonight Paul r
eally wanted a different kind of connection.

  It was, he supposed, his own fault that a connection like that was hard to find.

  He always only got to it after all the work had been done. Only when he was tired, even drained. Only when there was no time to plan or arrange anything… but always some sort of spur-of-the-moment thing when everyone was asleep, busy or really far away.

  He could call up a few once and future flames. But that would require conversations he was almost too tired to have. He didn’t feel like conversation.

  Part of him felt sleazy for wanting what he wanted, even though he was an adult, even though he did not have any promises he had to keep, even though he came out young and was not ashamed of what and who he was.

  But actively looking for some sort of hookup always made him feel like he was breaking some moral rule. A commandment of a spiteful God. A social norm or a cultural standard of the American Southeast. It just wasn’t the way things were done in Appalachia.

  It felt like transgression, to look for the simplest human contact.

  It didn’t even have to culminate in sex.

  He would be happy just to lie on the couch with someone. Just to hold someone or to be held, to feel a different skin against his own. To listen to him – anyone – breathe, or to put an ear on his chest and just hear the slow beating of his heart. A reassuring drum that beat the idea that, as alone as Paul was, and in a way always had been, that he was not totally, eternally alone.

  Like there might be some connections to be had along the way.

  Little moments that made the orphan forget.

  Paul scrolled faster, annoyed at his train of thought. That kind of thinking, that kind of self-pitying, self-indulgent bullshit, was how Paul knew that there might have been some bumps and bruises along the way that he wasn’t over. That he might never be completely over.

  It was ridiculous. He was an unattached gay male, still young. He probably was in no shape to start looking for serious relationships. Who would do it, with him, out here in the woods, far away from the big centers of queer culture or some fancy apartment with all the right appliances to host cocktail or dinner parties?

  You couldn’t replace human beings once you lost them. You could rebound a breakup but not a death. And it may have been a long time since Reuben passed away, but the fact was he never found anyone who could measure up to that.

  So why did it feel so wrong to want to make love to someone?

  Some residual revivalist morality? Like he was some horny teenager still convinced that Jesus would strike him down dead if he dared to touch someone that he yearned to touch?

  Some morality, that. Fearing hell because you yearn to do what comes so naturally to all living creatures.

  Upstanding moral character with qualms? Internalized homophobia? The desire for any combination of some good solid sex and a meaningful and deep relationship? Or trying to emulate heteronormativity because some preacher on the radio condemned him to always second guessing his impulses for as long as he lived?

  Tina’s little pep talk the other day made it sound so simple.

  It was all good that he sat here, alone and in the dark, on his porch. Grappling with the big questions and scrolling through his contact list looking for someone to have casual, meaningless, but necessary sex with. And there was no one on that list that would be either deep or shallow enough.

  It all just made him feel like he was moping.

  And moping around feeling sorry for himself was worse than depressing. It was useless.

  He took his dishes to the sink, and broke his own rule of washing them right away.

  He sat down behind his desk and turned on his computer.

  Not the kind of thing you’re ever seen doing by anyone. Not the kind of thing your students imagined, or your friends. Not the kind of thing you told the members of your squad, even after Uncle Sam changed his mind about wanting your blood to be spilled along with everyone else’s.

  He would go to two of the best websites and look for a hookup. It had to be casual, and it had to be tonight.

  That’s why, Paul thought to himself when he got through three pages of pictures and promising headlines – all disappointing and all leading nowhere. Maybe he was being too hard on himself, convinced that he is being a horrible skanky-ass ho when the electronic dating pools seemed designed to alienate people from each other.

  But where the hell else were you supposed to meet someone?

  It’s not like you meet them in church. Most churches were no go zones. Dangerous places, where they smile at you but rip your heart out and stomp on it. Either all the time or just every now and then, to remind you that you were still, progressive optics aside, a fag.

  You don’t bump into someone at the mall and then go on a date. You don’t have a fender bender that leads to a happy family and a dozen kids. You didn’t meet your partner at work.

  All that romantic Hollywood shit was worse than formulaic fantasies. They were straight. So completely irrelevant to Paul, even though the seemed to work for everyone else. Maybe straight people didn’t have it easy, either. Grass always looked greener on the other side. Still though, on nights like this, Paul envied how they could assume things about how relationships worked and mostly be right.

  The dating sites were not the friendly places one might imagine. Neat grids with photos, nicknames, bullet pointed lists of desires or requirements or fetishes – checklists that were supposed to bring people together but ended up just driving them apart.

  Paul saw familiar faces he once chatted with. Some he had very unsuccessful first meetings with. Hopefully, the most annoying one wouldn’t bother him.

  He scrolled past them and saw a whole parade of faces. The more pictures he saw, the lonelier he felt, as if each photo just reminded him that there were many, many, many lonely people out there. And none of them a fit. Not for the long haul and not even for the short.

  Some new faces and their nicknames didn’t make the pool any better. For darn sure, neither SUCKMONSTER76 and BIGDADDYCOOL sounded like anyone he could relax around.

  There were some who were too young – some with shocking profile pictures that if nothing else, reminded Paul that not everyone had to first struggle with themselves before getting off. In his most debauched, horny, desperate, salacious state – Paul wouldn’t dream of putting photos of himself out there like that.

  The end of the night became a bit predictable, and Paul didn’t feel like it was heading any way happy.

  He was going to look through a whole hell of a lot of dating profiles, and then, finding nothing, he would probably log off, disappointed.

  Probably watch some porn and jerk off.

  And he would do what needed to be done and still find neither climax nor release. A whole bunch of nothing that he wanted. Lots of everything that didn’t matter. Nothing fulfilling, nothing beautiful.

  But it didn’t matter.

  He would come, and that would be it. For the evening at least, the yearning for closeness would fuck off and leave him alone. And in the morning, it would be there, again, of course. But jerking off would get him relieved. He could then have a great meal, chill out for the evening, go to bed with a book. Plus, it would take less time than driving to a date. Less cost too. And less risk.

  He read a profile that initially seemed interesting. Then he closed it abruptly as he saw the signs of mental illness. Language that is needy and inappropriately, disproportionately emotional.

  Perhaps SUCKMONSTER or BIGDADDY weren’t such bad deals after all. If you’re worried about morals and consequences you might be better of being blown next to a dumpster than you would be dipping into emotionally unstable and batshit crazy.

  A direct message popped into his screen.

  The guy’s name worried him a bit.

  FREEinJC. The church guys have hang-ups abou
t sex, despite there being objectively, consequentially, far more devastating sins.

  You think it’s hard to find a decent spouse, partner or hookup – try finding one in the Church Morality underclass: after they’ve had their hearts and minds bombarded with their pastors, their daddies, their quarterbacks.

  Still, he had no weird pictures, gentle eyes and a killer smile. Nothing too professionally done or stages, just a candid, casual snapshot of a guy enjoying boating in the open air.

  But Paul wasn’t in the mood for dealing with yet another homosexual grappling with faith. Someone trying to live up to an impossible standard, or to reconcile what half the population had already decided, firmly and in a deeply held way, they didn’t want to see reconciled.

  Paul ignored the message and closed the site, moving to the next one.

  Grown gay dude jerking off alone at home was a bit pathetic.

  Paul felt increasingly determined to not end the evening so disgracefully. He wanted to hit a homerun. Self-esteem issues? Sure. Still.

  One seemed really interesting.

  Cute face. Not a bad build. Likes and Dislikes that seemed compatible.

  Paul found the prose approachable, if cryptic.

  A long list of kinks. My, my. Quite a long list.

  Either Azure80 was really into all kinds of fetishes, or he was being funny.

  Paul scrolled back up to face again.

  Cute.

  Good eyes. Solid jawline.

  Paul scrolled back down, leaning forward.

  Discretion A Must.

  “Fuck that.” There was no way.

  Suppose you finally do manage to scrape together your psyche, and suppose you do not become cynical and bitter. Suppose you meet someone and you’re happy, comfortable or even conflicted. But you have that other person there.

  They may not be Reuben. Reuben really was one in a million.

  But suppose you do find someone. And there they are, screwing around behind your back.

  Paul would not be that guy. Azure80 could discreetly fuck off.

  He sighed and continued searching. And came up with nothing.