by B. G. Thomas
Also, there were the jokes. Just like the ones in that National Lampoon movie.
“Hey,” the kids would say. “We’re the damned kids who live in the damned town of Damview! There’s not a damned thing to do here except go to Bull Shoals Lake and swim.”
And there really wasn’t a damned thing for them to do either, except as residents of the local town they had stickers on their cars and didn’t have to pay the prices the tourists had to pay. They knew the places to sneak to as well. To smoke pot and skinny dip. It’s where Wyatt saw a naked boy for the first time—as well as he had been able to see with nothing but the light of a quarter moon. It was also where he gave his first blow job. Which had been wonderful until the next day when said boy made fun of him at school and called him a faggot.
Faggot.
How many years had that word followed him until it became what Howard called him—
Silly little faggot!
—and then was scratched on his beloved Mini Coop.
Gods, that had hurt.
He’d never found out who did it either. Figured it was one of his customers. He’d even had the horrid suspicion that it was someone from work, but who? Sometimes he would look around the store, look at the coworkers he thought of as friends, and wonder: Was it him? Or her? Was it Melrose? Or Kitty? Surely it couldn’t have been Kitty. Kitty likes me…. Or did she? He had gotten the manager position over her, and she had certainly wanted the job pretty badly when Buddy, the previous manager, left. Left because he wanted a job with benefits and a future. Except what the shit had Buddy done since leaving Treasures of Terra? Not shit.
But speculating about who at work might have scratched up his car was dangerous thinking. Thinking that Wyatt couldn’t let himself do. He had to work with those people.
He had to believe it was someone else.
Oh, and hadn’t Howard been furious? Howard—who hadn’t helped him pay one dime on his car. Who hadn’t helped him fix it. That had been Cedar, who had all kinds of talents. And the door hadn’t looked the same—not showroom—but it looked better than FAGGOT.
Wyatt had kept to himself how much that word—faggot—had hurt him. Hadn’t told his best friends. He’d even blown it off when Scott saw it. “Kind of fun, isn’t it?” he’d said. “Kind of like what happened to Brian’s Jeep on Queer as Fuck….”
Except he hadn’t thought it was the least bit fun.
Faggot!
Scratched into the paint.
He had paid for that car. Had worked his ass off at a part-time job as well as his manager job at Treasures of Terra to be able to make the down payment. If it hadn’t been for Men’s Festival, he wasn’t sure he would ever have told anyone what it had done to him.
But again.
Dangerous thinking.
Then quite suddenly he was passing the sign.
Damview—Pop. 706
More kids went to his high school these days (which was in Mountain Home; Damview was too small to have its own high school) than people lived in the entire town where he grew up.
Minutes.
He was just minutes away.
His mother was expecting him. He’d called home from Midway.
Wyatt almost drove right past the turnoff, but that would have been stupid. Where would he go? Back to Terra’s Gate? Another seven hours?
Wyatt turned his car in and passed the little itty-bitty police station and then took another left, which curved to the right, and there it was.
Home.
Or what used to be home.
It had barely changed. It even had those tacky tree-trunk pillars he had loved as a little kid—the sawed-off branches had been great for his GI Joes—and then come to loathe as a teenager. The driveway was full. Three cars—none of which he recognized—so he parked on the street. There was a sidewalk now, lo and behold, and he wondered when that had happened.
Wyatt was just climbing out of the car when the front door of the house flew open and his mother rushed out onto the front porch. He froze.
Mom.
He hadn’t seen her in nearly eleven years. From here she looked like she hadn’t changed one bit.
He tried to move. Tried to say something. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t move.
And so she did.
She was a big woman, and she came across the lawn like some cruise ship plowing through the ocean, arms outstretched and crying out his name. “Wyatt! Baby!”
He broke.
Wyatt tore around the car to meet her halfway and was almost knocked from his feet when they met in a great crash of flesh. She threw her arms around him, crushed him to her ample bosom, and burst into tears.
There was a yapping sound, like a small dog, but Wyatt was so encased in her big arms that he couldn’t see anything but her dark blue blouse.
And he didn’t want to move. This from his mother—it had been the last thing he’d expected. He wanted to start crying again, and suddenly realized he was crying.
Then it was his sister: “Mom! You’re going to smother him. Let me have my turn.”
The grip relaxed and his mother started to let go, but then she surged forward and crushed him tight again. Thank goodness he’d gotten a chance to take a breath.
Finally, with his sister’s apparent help, she let go of him enough to hold him at arm’s length. She shook her head, and gods, she didn’t look the same after all. Her face… it seemed… bloated. There were lines around her eyes and mouth that he didn’t remember, and gray in her shoulder-length blonde hair that he certainly hadn’t seen before.
Of course, it had been a long time….
“You look wonderful, baby,” she said, voice cracking.
“You too, Mom.” And really it wasn’t a total lie. Just a little white one.
His sister cleared her voice, and he turned and she was the one that really shocked him. The last time he’d seen her, she was fifteen. The Wendy who stood before him today was a woman.
She was bigger. Nearly as heavy as their mother. Her cheeks pudgy and her breasts startlingly large. But the weight suited her. And her dark eyes twinkled, and she had let her beautiful dark brown hair grow, and damn, she was lovely. She took his breath away.
Her nose crinkled and she laughed and said, “Well?” and held out her arms.
Wyatt went to her then, amazed that this was happening.
What had he expected?
Certainly not this.
It was nearly impossible to believe.
At last the hugs were done, and when they got inside, he was hit by the smell of cooking food. “It’s your favorite,” his mother was saying.
His mouth was watering. “You mean…?”
She grinned and quite suddenly looked ten (or eleven) years younger. “Chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, and fried green tomatoes.”
“Oh my….” He stopped. Had almost said “gods” and didn’t even try to abbreviate it. “God” would have been just as bad as far as the Dolans were concerned. Even that was considered taking the Lord’s name in vain.
“Wait until you see what she made for dessert,” Wendy said.
“Shouldn’t we be going to see Daddy?” he asked. “You made it sound like I needed to rush. Do we have time to eat?”
His mother nodded. “He has this procedure they’re doing, and then he’ll be eating and the nurse told us we didn’t need to show up until after six. That will give us a few hours. Visiting hours are over at nine.”
They sat down at the kitchen table. The same table. With its gray faux-marble top and chrome sides. The salt and pepper shakers were different. But the little wooden lazy Susan in the middle was the same one he could remember from as far back as he’d been on this earth.
“Where are your kids, Wendy?” Wyatt asked while his mother got things out of frying pans and the oven. He’d never met Mary and Norman Jr. The idea of seeing them was very exciting.
His mother placed a platter of gorgeous chicken-fried steaks on the table, and Wendy got a fun
ny look on her face, but it vanished in a second. Had he imagined it? “They’re with their father,” she said. “He thought it would be best if we had time to catch up, you know?” But she didn’t look him in the eye with that last part. Somehow he thought maybe she wasn’t being entirely truthful.
It was then that, out of nowhere, he heard the high-pitched barking again. He’d forgotten about that, almost thought he’d imagined it. He looked under the table to see that a little Chihuahua had grabbed the cuff of his jeans and begun to shake its head.
“Joseph!” his mother shouted and scooped the tiny dog up in her arms. “Sorry, Wyatt. His bark really is worse than his bite—”
“She says that,” Wendy broke in, “because he’s never bit her!”
Joseph snarled, eyes nearly popping out of his head. Wyatt laughed anyway, despite the fact that it looked as if at any second the dog could launch itself out of her arms and into his face. But he knew just the way to a dog’s heart.
He picked up his fork and cut off a piece of meat (because his mother’s chicken-fried steak had always been tender enough to cut with a fork) and then pierced it and held it out to the snarling dog. Joseph sniffed it for all of 1/100th of a second and then scarfed it down.
And Joseph and Wyatt were friends for life.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE DRIVE to the hospital seemed almost as long as the one from Terra’s Gate to Damview. Hells, longer than the one from Treasures of Terra to the health clinic to get tested—and had that only been days ago? It seemed like years. Wait! Only yesterday? How could that be?
Wyatt’s stomach was tied in such knots that he felt his favorite meal might come springing from his stomach like one of those trick snakes from a bogus can of mixed nuts.
He kept the meal down somehow.
Mountain Home had grown. There were all kinds of businesses that he didn’t remember being there before. The town seemed to have doubled in size. He didn’t remember the Home Depot or the Lowe’s, and there was actually a Petco. It seemed like civilization had arrived in this part of the world.
The hospital was beautiful. Things really had changed since he’d left, and he said so.
“No,” his mother told him. “This is how the hospital looked when you still were here.”
He guessed that he just hadn’t had the need to visit the hospital then. Thank goodness.
So they went through the big glass doors of the hospital, and Wyatt found he was breaking into a cold sweat and dinner really was dying to be tasted a second time. Yeah, right. And how would that look? “Hey, Dad,” after eleven years, followed by, “Blaarrggh!”
He might have laughed if he wasn’t actually ready to puke.
They made their way to the ICU—and it was all painted pink! He couldn’t help but think of the line from Steel Magnolias: “That sanctuary looks like it’s been hosed down with Pepto-Bismol.” They checked in with a nurse, and then before he even realized it, they were told they could go in.
Wyatt found he couldn’t move. He was paralyzed. A chubby Grecian statue. Medusa had turned him into stone. How was he supposed to go in there? How was he supposed to face his father?
“Come on, honey,” his mother said, reaching out and touching his arm. “He wants to see you.”
But somehow Wyatt wasn’t sure. It was something in her eyes. What was it? Was it what he was feeling? Was it fear in her eyes?
No, he didn’t want to go in.
But he did anyway.
At first he couldn’t quite take in what he was seeing. He gasped in shock. The man in the bed was huge. Bigger than his mother by at least a hundred pounds, and his father had always been thin. He was almost completely bald (which Wyatt imagined was possible as his father’s hair had been receding back in the day). But how could he have changed this much? It was deep shock that made him step back, unable to say a word.
“Honey?”
Wyatt jumped and spun around. It was his mother. “Come on,” she said and walked past the bed and beyond the curtain to the other side of the room.
Then it hit him. The man wasn’t his father.
Of course it wasn’t.
There was a second bed even though he hadn’t expected that in the ICU. And in that bed was his father. No doubt. He was sitting up in bed, and gods, the left side of his face had an actual noticeable sag. He was older, no doubt, grayer, his hair had receded (but not like the man in the other bed), and he still had the mustache (although it was now a silver color)—but it was him. Wyatt almost turned and ran.
The old man struggled to sit up straighter, and Wyatt’s mother rushed to help him. “Look, Charles… it’s—”
He swung his right arm to stop her, and she visibly flinched.
“Wyatt,” he said. “Is that you?”
Except it didn’t sound like that, and Wyatt wasn’t sure how he’d understood him. It was more like “Waaay-ah, ith tha ooo?”
“Y-yes, Charles,” said his mother. “It’s Wyatt. He came like you asked him.”
“Wayyy-ayt….”
Again Wyatt wanted to run. This was like something out of a horror movie. Somehow, he didn’t. “Daddy? I’m here….”
This time his father let his wife help him sit a little straighter, and then she used the control on the bed to raise him even more.
“Son?”
Wyatt trembled. He’d called him son?
“You’re here….”
“Yes, Daddy….” Tears. They wanted to come. And Wyatt wasn’t sure he could stop them. Son! His father had called him son!
“My son. It is you. You came. Thank the Lord God. You got here in time. I prayed, Wyatt. I prayed you would get here before it’s too late.” At least that’s what Wyatt thought he said.
Wyatt took a step.
“Wyatt (Way-at). Your sister tells me that you aren’t with that man anymore….”
Wyatt nodded. Took a step. “No, Daddy. I’m not.”
His father gave a single nod. “That’s good.” Thasth gud.
It wasn’t good, but at this point, why the fuck not? Wyatt took another step. “Yes, Daddy. I’m not with Howard anymore.”
His father seemed to hiss at the mere mention of Howard’s name. Then he took a deep shuddering breath and said, “Thank Jesus. I’ve prayed and prayed that you would escape that man…. For years I’ve prayed.”
Escape? How had his father known there had been any reason for him to escape? He’d never told Wendy about their problems. But hell, the old man was actually talking to him. Did it matter?
“Yes, Daddy,” he said. “I escaped.” If being kicked out was escaping. If he had wanted to “escape” or not.
His father motioned him toward the bed. Were those tears in his eyes? Wyatt took another step.
“And the Satan stuff?”
That one took Wyatt a little longer to figure out. The slurring of his father’s speech was hard enough to understand. It was horrifying as well. To see the big, strong man in this state. But stroke or no stroke, this one—Satan stuff—he couldn’t let go by.
“It’s not Satan stuff, Daddy. I don’t even believe in—”
This time his father did hiss, long and drawn out, cutting Wyatt off. “It is! That witchcraft stuff. Fortune-telling cards. Candles. All of it. Those people deceive you. Tell you it’s all nature. But where do you think they get their powers, son? It has to come from somewhere.”
Son. He’d called him son!
“They get their powers from Satan.”
“Daddy, it’s not—”
Wyatt’s mother turned and fixed him with a pleading stare. Please, those eyes said. Just let him say whatever he wants.
So Wyatt said nothing.
“I called you here to save you, son. Come to me. Before it’s too late.”
Wyatt did. He stood close enough that his father could reach out and grab his arm in his still-strong right hand. Wyatt winced at the clawlike grasp.
“Kneel, son. Ask for forgiveness.”
Wyatt started. Forgiveness? You want me to ask for forgiveness?
His father nodded. “Yes. Ask the Lord God Almighty. Ask Him to forgive you of your sins. Kneel and ask Jesus into your heart. Ask Him to be your savior.”
Wyatt could barely believe what he was hearing.
“Tell Him you want Him to save you from Satan. That you have turned your back on worshipping the cloven-hoofed one. We can be a family again.”
Wyatt’s eyes went wide. Cloven-hoofed one? This is why his father had wanted him to come? Not to condemn him. Or not—and Wyatt had only secretly hoped for this—to ask Wyatt’s forgiveness. But to ask him to become a Christian? His father thought he was a Satan worshipper? He didn’t even believe in Satan!
But his father wanted them to be a family again. It was almost too much to believe.
Could he do that for his father? At least tell him he’d turned away from Satan? After all, hadn’t he? It was years and years and years ago—when he stopped believing in the devil. But if it might help somehow? This was his father after all. And from what the nurse had said, there wasn’t much hope he would leave the hospital.
But then…
“Tell Him you are no longer a sodomite and fornicator. Tell Him you renounce your faggotry!”
And there was that word.
Faggotry.
Faggot.
Silly little faggot.
“FAGGOT” scratched into the red paint of the Mini Coop.
All the times he’d been called faggot by the kids at school.
By the boys he’d blown. By boys who had blown him! Eagerly sucked him.
His father shouting, “Two faggots can’t make a home. It takes a man and a woman.”
The word that had been hurled at him on the street, even in Kansas City.
The signs that had said God Hates Fags when Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist group had protested Gay Pride one year. A Baptist church. Baptist like his father!
And quite suddenly Wyatt couldn’t do it.
He shook his head.
“No, Daddy. I can’t. I can’t ask to be forgiven because I don’t have anything that I need to ask forgiveness for.”
His father’s eyes went wide, flashing.
“I don’t even believe in Satan!”