by Pat Henshaw
“Nick, you still got the picture?” Max asked.
Nick looked back at me, then Max. “Of course, but….”
“Show Fredi,” Max urged. “My boyfriend. Told you I was bringing him.”
“But Mr. Zimmer….”
I sighed. “Which one, Nick?”
Now it was Max’s turn to look confused.
Nick turned and led us into the second gallery space, where a large painting of the wide Sierra hills with the mountains in the background dominated the wall space.
“Ah, Sierra Daybreak,” I said, studying the painting as if seeing it the first time. I could understand why Max liked it.
The sun was just coming up over the treetops. Viewers were supposed to feel the crisp mountain air and hear the chirps of the birds. Or at least I hoped Max could.
“You like it?” Nick and I asked in unison.
“Yeah. Only I never had anywhere I could put it before,” Max answered. “I thought maybe over our bed.”
I blushed, from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes. “Oh, Max.”
As Max started to take me in his arms, Nick broke in. “I don’t understand.”
I just squeezed Max’s hand and patted him on the chest.
“He doesn’t know,” I explained. I turned to Max. “I’m FIZ. It’s my painting.”
Max stared at me looking puzzled. “What? I don’t get it. You already bought it?” He stopped and stared at me a moment. I watched him think until the light went on. “Okay. But what does it mean? We can’t put it in the cabin?”
Max looked so confused I hugged him.
“It’s already ours,” I whispered. “I painted it. You don’t need to buy it.”
Max grinned. “Okay. All right.”
Nick watched us with a silly grin on his face. “You’re both so cute together!” he crowed. “I just love you two. Do you want all your other pieces for this cabin too?”
While I snuggled next to Max, he was staring at the painting.
“Course you painted it.” He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe his stupidity. “You’re an artist. Course you painted it. It looks like those other pictures you made.”
He meant the renderings of the remodel and the paintings on the walls of my condo. I was blown away that he recognized my style in all of them.
ON THE way back to the foothills, I gabbed about the play we’d seen and the club we’d visited. Every once in a while, Max would break in with “I love you. I love the painting.” Then he’d pull me closer to him and bend to kiss the top of my head. “Love you, babe.”
Having Max know all of me made me feel so free I nearly soared home. Max’s arm across my shoulders trying to pull me closer and closer as we skimmed through the inky night was the only thing keeping me Earth-bound.
12
SHERIFF LLOYD Campbell was at Max’s door bright and early the next morning.
I rolled over and groaned.
“What’s with all the crack-of-dawn visitors?” I asked Max, who hadn’t moved at the sound of the pounding on the front door. “Why don’t you have a doorbell? Didn’t I include a doorbell in this design?”
I poked Max in the side, but he only pulled me closer so I didn’t have poking room.
“Go back to sleep,” he muttered.
The pounding kept going.
“Okay, okay,” I grumbled. “I’m coming. Keep your pants on.”
I got up, slipped into my underwear and jeans, then walked slowly to the door.
The sheriff looked me up and down, then grinned.
“Max doesn’t feel like getting up this morning?” he asked, strolling past me and going to the kitchen. “How come you don’t have coffee made yet?”
As he walked by me, I murmured, “Good morning to you too. Would you like to make yourself some coffee, darling?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Lloyd answered, then turned and yelled down the hallway, “Greene, get your butt out here. We need to talk.”
He turned back to the coffeemaker and shook his head.
“What’s wrong with you people that you don’t have any coffee brewing in the morning?” he asked, then as we heard Max’s groan and the bedsprings squeak, Lloyd yelled, “And put some clothes on!” He muttered, “I don’t need to see you buck naked early in the morning. I can already imagine what you smell like.”
I sat at the table. “Why are you here?” I asked irritably to his back as he bent and rummaged around in Max’s fridge.
“Hold on. Looks like you got some kinda orange juice back here. What’s the date on this? Ah, drinkable.” The sheriff pulled three glasses from the cupboard and filled them with juice. He put one glass in front of me and took a healthy swig from one of the others. “You coming out here sometime today, Max?”
The hardwood floor creaked and groaned as Max shuffled down the hallway toward the kitchen. “Morning,” he said to Lloyd and bent to kiss me. “Did I miss anythin’?”
Lloyd scanned him from head to toe. “Nope. Don’t think you missed a thing from the looks and smell of it.” Lloyd grinned as Max slumped into a chair next to me.
“So what’s up?”
“Thought you’d like to know while you two were out of town gallivanting, we caught the arsonist. Need you to come down and fill out a little paperwork so we can charge him.”
Max and I exchanged a glance.
“Anybody we know?” Max asked.
“Oh yeah.”
“Gonna tell us?”
Lloyd grinned and nodded.
“Today?” Max scratched at his chest. He sighed and peered at me. “Do we care?”
I shook my head. “Not really.” I looked up at Lloyd and stifled a yawn. “We got back pretty late last night. Then we stayed up hours later talking.” My hand again raised to cover an even bigger yawn.
“Talking? Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
Neither Max nor I rose to the bait. I just wanted a few more hours of sleep.
“Just tell us who it is and we’ll sign off on whatever charges you think are appropriate,” Max told Lloyd.
Max looked at me. I nodded.
Lloyd sighed. “Well, I guess I’m not getting either one of you to move this morning.” He fiddled with his empty glass a few minutes. “It’s Steven Myers’s boy and his friends who lit the fire, but I’m pretty sure it’s the old man who set the fire under them.”
Max nodded. I sighed. No big surprise there.
“I was hoping I could get you both down to the station while Steven was there arranging bail. Hoping he’d say something incriminating so I can arrest him too.”
I looked at Max again. He had his stoic face on, the one I’d seen a few times at the diner and other places where we’d been confronted.
“Want us to come down and be yelled at,” he muttered.
“For a cause,” I added, still staring at him. He wasn’t giving me much. Did he want to do this? Or did he want to forget about the big fish and let the little ones take the rap?
“Whatever you want to do.” I rubbed his back, feeling the pool of tension. “Anything you want.”
Max squeezed his eyes shut. Then let out a huge sigh. When he opened his eyes, I saw misery in them. “You up for this?” he asked me quietly. “Don’t want anyone to hurt you.”
I shrugged. “With you by my side, we can do anything we want, right? We’re the gay fuckers, right?”
His mouth turned up in a begrudging smile. “The gay fucking fuckers,” he agreed. He turned to Lloyd. “Sure, give us a few minutes to shower and shave, and we’ll be there.”
WE GOT to the sheriff’s office as Steve, his son Walter, and Walter’s friends were gathered in the main waiting room. Steve was rumpled, like he’d been dragged out of bed and had put his suit on in a hurry. Walter and his friends, dressed in jeans, T-shirts, and work boots, reeked of beer and cigarettes. Nobody looked like he’d gotten a good night’s sleep. Including us, thanks to the sheriff.
“You might wan
t to stick around a few minutes, Mr. Myers, while we file all the charges against your son and his friends,” the sheriff said as we cleared the doorway. “Mr. Greene and Mr. Zimmer might have more to add to the current list.”
Steve rounded on us. “Fuck you, and fuck them!” he yelled. “It’s getting to be like a gay version of the Old West around here. The fucking faggots move in and take over the place, pushing out the God-fearing upright citizens to live their… their….”
“Fucking lives?” I asked with a grin. “You know, Steve, I’ve never understood why people like you fear God so much. Have you done something to displease him?”
“I don’t fear God!” Steve sputtered.
“But you just said you’re God-fearing. I’m not God-fearing.” I turned to Max. “You God-fearing?” Max shook his head. “Sheriff, are you God-fearing?” Although he was grinning, he shook his head, so I turned back to Steve. “Looks like of all of us here, you’re the only one who fears God.”
I put a hand on my hip and ran my eyes from the top of Steve’s head to his toes. “Of course, if you do unto others as you’ve done unto us, I can understand why you’d fear God.”
By then Steven Myers had had enough of my deliberate provoking.
“You cretin!” he yelled and stepped toward me.
I must admit, my reaction was to grab on to Boner and not let go, but Max put his arm around me, blocking my hand from slipping into my pocket.
Then Max stepped in front of me. “Steve, I think you should get out of here and calm down,” he said softly, his shoulders ramrod stiff, maybe even stiffer than his dick the night before.
“What? You’re telling me what to do, faggot?” Steve faced Max and shook himself. “Don’t you dare tell me what to do, boy! Didn’t your parents teach you better than to….”
“My parents were better than you’ll ever be. They loved and supported me,” Max shot back.
“Your parents died because they brought a faggot into the world. God took his vengeance out on them. Then you came here and polluted your uncle’s house. Everyone could see you were a faggot, a God-hater, one of the devil’s own. The boys would come home from school and tell me how you were looking at the other boys in the locker room. You’re an abomination. You deserve death. The Bible makes it plain. Leviticus says it’s my duty to kill you! Then you meet up with this fairy. Me and the boys have been planning to get rid of you since you met him.”
As Steve finished yelling to catch a breath, the foyer changed into a whirlwind of activity. Lloyd’s hand was wrapped around Steve’s arm, and the deputies were herding the man’s son and friends back toward the bowels of the department.
I turned to Max. He was pale and looked as stunned as I was by what Steve had said. He and his kid had talked about killing Max? What the fuck? Max looked like he was about to faint.
I shook myself. I had to help him. We couldn’t dwell on Steve’s hateful words. I wrapped my arm around Max’s waist and slowly shuffled him toward a bench along the wall.
“Take it easy, honey. Let’s just sit here a minute, okay?” I had to tug to get him to bend his knees and sit. I’d started to cry at the desolate look on his face.
“He wanted to kill me? He was my uncle’s best friend,” Max whispered.
“That’s what he said, but we don’t know for sure. The sheriff will get it all straightened out,” I soothed even though I was so damned furious that if I’d had a gun, I’d be tempted to run in and shoot Steve. Not to kill him, mind you, but to make him suffer for wounding Max. A clean shot through a kneecap should do the trick.
“Why would he hate me so much?” Tears started falling down his cheeks. He didn’t wipe them away or acknowledge them in the least.
“Guess you weren’t as far in the closet as you thought.” I wiped away his tears as they fell.
A female deputy approached us with a box of tissues. “Mr. Greene?” she whispered.
I took the box from her and put it on the other side of me. “Thanks.”
As quietly as she approached, she left.
I guided Max’s head to my shoulder. As he and I cried, I patted his back, holding him tightly to me.
I didn’t say it would be all right. It wouldn’t be all right. It was just what it was. I knew from my own experiences only time would get us through this.
13
STEVEN MYERS and his son developed diarrhea of the mouth after we left. Seems the old man was rabid. He said the Bible told him Max must die. Steve said he owed it to his best friend, Max’s uncle, not to let their faggot relative live and sully the family name. He added Max’s engagement had given him hope, but when Max broke it off, he remembered all his sons’ words as they were growing up about Max’s eyeing guys in the locker room and at parties, and concluded the boy was lost in the clutches of the devil.
Max became the target for radical extermination after he met me. Max didn’t take the news well. I was long acquainted with the absolute fear a person felt when he knew for certain someone wants him dead. Mortality looms large at the moment absolute fear strikes. So I completely understood Max’s vacillation between fear and anger.
Lloyd found us at Max’s at twilight huddled together away from all windows with the doors locked and booby-trapped. He’d had to yell at us to open the door a number of times before we did.
“The Myerses are in jail and will be put away for a long time,” he said after pouring stiff drinks for everyone and passing them around. He scratched his chin and added, “You know, this used to be a peaceful place.”
“Before the gays moved in and queered it up?” My voice dripped with sarcasm.
Lloyd didn’t smile exactly, more grimaced. I knew he was married to a very nice man, but still, the “peaceful place” crack sounded awfully damning to me.
“No, it wasn’t.” Max, who had been leaning on my shoulder, sat up. “This wasn’t a happy community. The Greenes were all bitter, resentful people. And the Myerses too.”
“Seems to me,” I said, although I had no actual proof of it, “the straight whites came here and started a gated community without a gate. Then the new rich Silicon Valley types infiltrated, and then the queers. The Greenes and Myerses and their ilk probably felt like the Indians in the Old West.”
Which caused me to start giggling and made Max and Lloyd stare.
“I’m just saying,” I managed on a gulp, “they felt like they were being overrun and hunted.”
Oh shit. I lost it again.
“I don’t get it. What’s so funny?” Lloyd asked.
It took me a minute to calm down. “You don’t think it’s funny that the persecutors were feeling persecuted? Wouldn’t Steve say God works in mysterious ways?”
A WEEK later I’d canceled my lease on my condo and moved into Max’s house—my house—our house. He was amazingly agreeable to letting me gobble up oodles of space and even turned one of the spare bedrooms into a studio. He had the sash windows replaced by a wall of plate glass and added a slider so that I could walk out onto the patio he had built out there.
He was busy planning his next guidebook, which he’d persuaded me to illustrate. Okay, well, not “persuaded,” because I was overjoyed when he asked me to do it. All in all, he was a bundle of energy, a real turnaround from his usual laid-back woodsman self.
“Been thinkin’, Fredi,” he said one night as we watched the moon rise. “We need to have ourselves a party. A barbecue.” He squinted at me in the sudden brightness from the moon’s full face. “Saturday.”
“What? No, no, we can’t have a party on Saturday.”
“Why not?”
“I mean, there’s so much to do, to plan. It’s Tuesday. We can’t have a party Saturday.” I knew I was hyperventilating, but really, a party in just a few days? He couldn’t be serious.
“Won’t be any trouble. Some steaks, some potatoes, a bunch of drinks. No problem.”
He was serious. I studied his face. He was serious. I had to step up or disappoint him.
/> I sighed. “Okay, how many people are we talking?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know. Everybody from the store. Jimmy and Guy. You’ve been wantin’ to get us together with them. Maybe some of the guides. Maybe fifty or so.”
“Fifty?” I sat up and shrieked.
“Or so. Probably most of ’em won’t come.”
“You want to invite people on Wednesday—because I’m not calling them tonight—to come on Saturday?” I sighed when he nodded.
“Can’t you just text ’em?”
“With an invitation? Now? Tonight?”
“Sure?” He nodded. “Tell ’em it was my idea and you’re humoring me.”
He wasn’t far off there.
“Why’s this so important to you?” He was making me suspicious. Sure, he often sprung things on me at the spur of the moment. But usually when I wasn’t too excited about his plan or I outright said no, he dropped the whole thing or said we could plan it for another time. Why was he adamant about this Saturday?
“Want to make sure everybody knows we’re together. Everybody important. Oh yeah, and I made some decisions and wanted to share them.”
“Decisions? Like what?”
“Thinkin’ about downsizin’.”
I laughed. He was an outsized man. How in the hell was he going to downsize?
“What do you mean?”
He grinned at me. “You’ll see. I’ll tell everybody at the party.”
Well, he’d definitely boxed me in a corner. Now I had to plan this party just to find out what he considered downsizing. Was he selling the cabin? God, I hoped not. It was going to be beautiful when it was finished, which wasn’t too long now.
SATURDAY BLOOMED a rose of a day. Beautiful clear skies, mild temperatures, the perfect day for a barbecue. Surprisingly, at least to me and not Max, nearly everyone, including the sheriff and his husband, accepted the texted invitation almost immediately. Everyone was enthusiastic about getting together with Stone Acres’ newest gay couple.