by Pat Henshaw
We stood nearly toe to toe, him considerably shorter than me. I looked down at him. Had he always been such a bigoted prick? The chain lumber and hardware stores were looking better and better. Behr Construction didn’t have to do business with Mitchell’s. The larger stores would be less bigoted, right?
“Those two guys are ruining our community,” he sputtered. “Can’t you see?”
“How?”
“Well, by….” He took a gulp of air. Paused. Looked to the left. His face shouted “Help me out here!” He looked to the right. Nobody appeared to help him. “Well, it’s all the ungodly things they do.”
“Like what?” I kinda grinned. “Make coffee? Serve drinks? Design buildings? Write books? Watch birds?”
He blanched. “No! You don’t get it. Look at what they do in the bedroom! When they fuck.”
“Oh, you’ve seen them? You watch?” I heard a snicker and realized Jeff was standing slightly behind me. I turned back to Owen.
“You know, I wouldn’t watch if I were you. Not if it upsets you like this.” Before he could utter a reply, I added, “I’ve got a job over at the Winters’, so I don’t have a lot of time to talk.”
Owen and I renegotiated the lumber. Against my better judgment, I bought enough to finish the Winter job. I told Owen I expected to see better stock than I had this morning. I also told him I was disappointed in his attitude about Jimmy and Fredi. I might not love either of them, but they’re human just like the rest of us and deserve our respect.
As we got back in the truck to go to lunch, Jeff was watching me with a silly grin on his face. We’d be back to pick up the load after we ate. Then I’d be telling my brother Ben to find another supplier. I wasn’t playing any bigot games.
“What?” I asked in irritation. I was getting tired of Jeff smirking at me. “What’s the matter with you? What do you want to say?”
“I bow to you, oh mighty Big Bear,” he said with a little dip of his head.
“What the fuck?”
“No. Really. I admire the way you stood up for gay men.”
I glanced over. He was serious. Huh? I guess maybe I had. I wasn’t doing anything any other guy wouldn’t do, was I? At least I hadn’t hit Owen.
We went to Monique’s Bakery. If there’s anything I like better than a well-cooked fish, it’s dessert—any dessert. I’ve been tempted a time or two to come up with a three-course dessert meal and then order it at Monique’s. When the company leak was plugged, I decided it’d be my kind of celebration. Three courses of dessert. Heaven.
Guy, Jimmy, Max, and Fredi were sitting down when Jeff and I walked in. I raised my hand and nodded to them. Jeff grabbed my arm and pulled me over to where they were.
“Mind if we join you?” he asked after we’d all said our hellos.
I grabbed a vacated table that hadn’t been bussed yet and added it to the end of their table. Then I cleared off the used dishes and cups to another table. Jeff and I sat across from each other.
As usual, I let the sound of their lunch chatter wash over me. I tried to keep up a little bit, but I was still bothered by Owen’s remarks. Had he always been such a prick, or was it a new thing? I really couldn’t remember him or any of the other guys I worked with saying shit like that. I really couldn’t.
“Don’t you think, Abe?” Jeff asked with a slight smile. I could tell he knew I was off somewhere else and was bringing me back. “Don’t you think there’s been more hate talk around lately?”
I was startled to find my thoughts and the conversation weren’t as far apart as I imagined.
“I don’t get it,” I said. Oops, guess I growled. Jeff was giving me a surprised stare. “I knew a couple of guys were bigoted assholes. I didn’t think I did business with them.”
“What do you think about a boycott?” Jimmy asked me. “Do you think we should stop buying from guys who talk hate trash? Stop selling to them?”
He was the only one who looked worried. His coffee shops served the public. True, he could withhold service from anyone he chose for any reason. Still, he had built up a lot of clients in the area. I knew because whenever I was nearby, I’d stop in for a drink, and his places were always packed.
“Well, you’d be the only one losing business if you turned people away,” I said. “’Sides, how’d it work? You hear someone slur somebody else in the shop. Sure, you have a right to throw them out. But do you take somebody else’s word that somebody is hate talking? I don’t know. Sounds like it’d start a witch hunt to me.”
Everyone was looking thoughtful now.
“Yeah,” Guy chimed in, “same for the bar. Shit, if there wasn’t slam talk, there’d be no talk most nights. I’d be outta business before you know it.”
“It’d be better, in my humble opinion,” Fredi said, his hands flying wide, flashing everyone with his neon-yellow shirt and green suspenders, “if we could re-educate the masses.”
Max leaned in toward him. “And how you going to do it, baby?”
There’s the real question, right? How do you change haters to lovers? Not by yelling them down or beating the shit out of them. I know. I’ve been railroaded into doing both. Doesn’t work. Ever.
Across the table from us, a guy in his thirties, maybe, sat holding hands with a girl in a tight skirt and deeply cut blouse. He leaned over and kissed her on the lips, not a light peck, but not a no-holds-barred tongue-fest either.
“Get a room!” Fredi said loudly. “Gross.”
Heads swiveled to Fredi and then to the couple who were both blushing.
“What the hell?” the man said and stood. “What’d you say to me?”
Fredi, all of five something, got up too. “Get. A. Room. We don’t want to watch you making out during lunch.”
“Why you….” The man was about to launch himself at Fredi when Guy, Max, Jeffrey, and I rose and turned to him.
“You what?” I growled at him. I towered over all of them. Probably over everyone in the room.
The man looked at the four of us and backed down. Carefully he sat.
“You got something to say?” I asked.
He shook his head.
His girlfriend glared at us.
“You wanna say something?” I asked her.
She blanched and shook her head.
“I think we should all sit down and eat our lunch. If you wanna get sexy with the lady, I suggest taking it out to your car or somewhere private. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?” I swiveled back to Fredi, who was preening and looking self-satisfied. “And Fredi, I suggest you shut it and eat.”
I sat back down, as did Guy, Max, and Jeffrey. Max pulled Fredi down.
“Why do you do that?” Max asked. “Why do you goad them into hating us?”
“Me? I didn’t do anything.” Fredi looked shocked.
I glared at him. “You’re not going to change their minds by being as rude to them as they are to you. Nobody sees himself in that mirror.”
“I wasn’t rude,” Fredi mumbled.
“Yes. You were,” I shot back. “And you know it.”
Jeff put his hand on my arm. I looked down at his hand, then up at him.
“Point made,” he whispered and removed his hand.
The rest of the meal went fine. They talked about sports and bird sightings and other neutral topics.
I thought about what had been going on all morning. I was confused. Everything was all wrong. There wasn’t enough lumber on-site to do the job. Mrs. Winter thought our contract said she fed workers lunch. Owen, who was annoying at best, had turned into a raving homophobe. And Fredi was on the warpath. What the hell was going on?
I was so upset I ordered two desserts, the cherry cobbler with ice cream and the carrot cake with more ice cream. But even dessert didn’t help calm my unease about the day.
6
BACK AT the office—after we finished framing at the Winters’ and Mrs. W had thanked Jeff for restoring her flower bed—I slumped into my chair.
&
nbsp; I sat at my desk studying Jeff. He looked like he’d run a couple of marathons and then slogged through a mud puddle. He was rumpled and hot and sweaty. I would have laughed if he hadn’t seemed to be wearing a bear-sized grump. A day of construction didn’t appear to be his idea of fun.
“You figure anything out today?” I asked.
“No. Just that things are fucked up.” He slouched more, as if he were trying to erase an ache in his back.
I pointed at him and twirled my finger.
“What?” he growled. Coming from a lightweight like him, it sounded kinda cute.
“Turn around. Let’s see if I can make you feel better.”
He gave me a sour look, grimaced, and slowly turned, straddling his chair. I pulled up another chair and sat behind him. I put my hands up, then down again.
This wasn’t going to work with his T-shirt on. I grabbed the ends of the shirt and pulled up. He jumped and looked over his shoulder at me.
“I’m not gonna hurt you,” I grumbled.
He got one of his know-all smirks on his lips. “Do your worst,” he drawled. “Don’t know if I can ache much more than I do now.”
He was hot and sweaty, and smelled wonderful. I dropped my hands and stared off over his shoulder. He smelled wonderful? What the hell? When had I ever noticed how another guy smelled, especially a hot, sweaty one? I must be going crazy.
He looked over his shoulder and arched his back. “You gonna do something, or am I just gonna sit here until the A/C makes me shiver?”
Right. He’d have to be getting cold. I pressed my fingers into his muscles and stifled a shiver of my own. A chill shot through me from where our flesh met all the way to my dick. Was this what everybody in high school and college had been talking about all the time? Damn. No wonder they found it so addictive.
I kept going, massaging his delts and traps, digging in to give him relief. He moaned and groaned as if he were about to come. I had a bear-sized boner by then. I caught myself bending toward him. Then stopped. Shocked. What was I thinking? Kissing him? God, what was happening to me?
I finished, shaken to the core. I gave him a light slap on the shoulder.
“Better?” I asked.
He rolled his back and shook himself. I was helpless. I couldn’t look away, even though I wanted to. My thoughts were a jumble. What had I just done to our friendship? Shit.
“Nice. It helped. Thanks.”
He turned as I scooted back and rose. I nodded to him, feeling the heat in my face and the weight at the front of my jeans. He glanced down at my groin, then back up again. Color bloomed in his face.
“Yeah, thanks,” he murmured, a puzzled frown on his lips.
“No problem.”
“I gotta go take a shower and look at the spreadsheets again.” He glanced over at me as he got to the door. He wasn’t hiding the bulge in his jeans. He hesitated a minute. “Dinner?”
“Sure.” I shrugged, trying to look cool and collected, but probably failing. I could hear the breathiness in my voice. “Where?”
“Stacy’s Steaks?”
“Sure.” I nodded. The tension between us was ramping up past bearable.
“Seven?”
“Right.”
He stood and stared at me a few minutes, holding the door open. His fingers were almost white as he gripped the doorframe. We were both smiling like loons. What the hell was happening?
Finally, he nodded and took the tension with him as he left. It wasn’t ten minutes before Ben and Connor stumbled into the office.
“So did the whiz kid find the problem?” Ben asked, putting his feet on my desk.
“Nope.” I let out a sigh. How’d I gotten in so deep with the whiz kid anyway?
“You gonna keep him on?” Connor asked.
I nodded. I couldn’t let him go. No way. Whatever this was, I was game to see it through, wasn’t I? I took a deep breath. I had to work to get myself back into business mode. My center had shifted. Finding it and hauling it back to the office nearly wore me out. But important changes needed to be made.
“I was over at Owen’s this afternoon,” I told Ben, who sat up a little straighter. “Think we should find a new supplier.”
“What? Why?”
“He made comments I didn’t like.”
“Such as?” Ben asked.
“Hate talk. Faggot this and fairies that. Talked like he wanted to get rid of Fredi and Jimmy,” I explained.
He and Connor exchanged a glance.
“About that. Some of the guys on the teams are asking about why we’re doing so much work for a guy like Fredi,” Connor answered softly. He sounded upset, real upset. “Gary says it’s all wrong. He says we shouldn’t be doing it. Ben and I have been wondering what your opinion is.”
What the hell? My own family didn’t want to work with Fredi? Besides wearing strange clothes, I didn’t have a problem with the man. He wasn’t any more finicky than any other designer I’d ever met. Less so than most. And he was hands-on in the field. He figured out what clients wanted and gave it to them. Following his instructions made us look good.
“What do you mean? He brings us excellent clients who pay up on time and don’t try to nickel-and-dime us to death. What more could you want?”
They were both sitting up now and seemed to be paying attention. Were they getting angry? I couldn’t tell, but I could feel myself getting agitated.
“Some of the old-timers in the community are getting tired of seeing the gay guys waltzing in here and trying to take over,” Ben said. “They say this used to be a nice, quiet place to live and grow up in. Now the old-timers say these people are coming in and riling everybody up. Gary says we just have to look at what they did to Stone!”
The three of us were leaning closer together. It wasn’t in brotherly love.
“What’d they do to Stone?” I demanded.
“They changed his name to Guy, and he’s shacking up with Jimmy coffee.” He took a huge breath. “Then there’s Max!”
His fingers were white on the chair arms where he was clutching them too hard. I still couldn’t figure out what he was so worried about. So Stone had changed his name to Guy? Who cared? Not me. Wasn’t any of my business. He could call himself Marilyn for all I cared.
“What about Max?”
Max had been one of my friends in school. We hadn’t kept up much after his uncle and his family died. Once upon a time, though, we’d been fishing buddies. So what was wrong with him now?
“He got married! Not only is he fucking Fredi, but they’re acting like they’re a family!” He took a huge breath. “Gary says it’s not right. Two guys fucking.”
“Yeah? Who cares what Gary says? Anybody agree with him?” Now I was getting in his face.
“Everybody!” he yelled at me.
“Everybody said we were retards because our dad was a drunk,” I yelled back. “Were they right? Are you guys retards?”
They both looked shocked. They deflated just a little.
“It’s not the same,” Ben said.
“Sure, it’s the same.”
Ben shook his head. He looked shaken, like he wasn’t sure what to think. “Gary wants to know how you can shake their hands. Do you know where they put their hands? Their fingers? Their dicks?”
“No,” I lied. “You want to explain it to me? You think Gary’d explain it to me?” Before they could open their mouths, I plowed on. “We shake hands with all kinds of people. I figure what they do with their hands isn’t my business. And their dicks? Don’t want to know. It’s none of your business either.” They both looked surprised. Maybe Gary was having more influence on them than I’d like. “So next time, ask old Gare if he really believes heterosexual sex is better. Does it make him—or you—feel better when you think of Stu Winter and his wife having sex? Is it more natural and easier to think about? Two sweaty seventy-year-olds naked in bed?”
“God, no!” They both recoiled and rubbed their eyes. “Not the same thing!”
“Exactly the same thing. You want to go around worrying about what people you know do in bed? Well, start wondering about what some of your friends and their parents and their grandparents look and act like in bed. Could be a lot worse than picturing Max and Fredi,” I said.
“You want something fun?” I asked and knew I had an evil grin on my face. “You just go ahead and picture your big brother in the sack with someone. Felicity from the coffee shop? Maybe Dennis down at the barber shop. You just think about me naked and going at it.”
Both of them pulled back, shock and disgust on their faces.
“We don’t think about everybody in bed,” Ben protested. Connor nodded in agreement.
“Good. Maybe we should stick to thinking about the construction business, then.” I turned back to Ben. “Anyway, I won’t have Behr Construction buying from hatemongers. Find another supplier.”
“How will I know they aren’t a hatemonger?” Ben shot back.
“By talking to them. Tell them we pick up a lot of our clients from Fredi Zimmer, and have them look him up. Then ask if they have any problem supplying to us because we work with him.” Sounded like a reasonable plan to me.
“Fuck,” Ben spat. “Pretty soon everyone around here’ll hate us too.”
They left, mumbling about Gary and what he’d told them. Maybe they were even grumbling about me. Who knows? But, dammit, if I’m going to be the CEO of this company, I refuse to let hate guide my path. Besides, who said everyone didn’t hate us already?
7
FOR THE next few weeks, Jeff and I worked side by side, eating together most nights since we were both single, and fishing on the weekends, probably for the same reason. He was growing on me. Something was changing inside my head. I didn’t know what. But it made me itchy. Both my personal and business lives felt off.
We visited work sites with inadequate materials, looked into storage sheds with missing equipment, and scanned invoices with orders for too much material for the jobs they were to cover. Too much of the company seemed to be out of whack. I couldn’t figure out where I’d gone wrong as a leader.