Uncle Sean

by Ronald L Donaghe

  Unlike our two oldest sisters, May wasn’t in a hurry to get away from the farm, and she sure wasn’t interested in getting married any time soon. So, except for the shadow of Daddy being put in the hospital, and Mama not being home, too, it was kind of a neat evening with just May and me and Lance there.

  May and I had always been the closest in age to each other, and the closest in the way we preferred working outdoors, but that night, she wanted to talk about herself, and how until now she had kept her own secrets about the girls she ran around with, and again it felt like we were driving down into a dark canyon without knowing where the bottom was and what we would find when we got there.

  The last thing she said before we turned out the lights and went to bed was, “I’m glad for you, Will. I know how much you hurt, because of the way you felt about Uncle Sean. So I’ll wait up for Rita and steer her off to bed. You and Lance should have at least this one night together.”

  So Lance and I said good-night to May and went off to bed. There are no real words to say how it felt. Was it like a married couple’s wedding night? That’s the only way I could describe it, though I’m not dumb enough to think that Lance and I are married. We’re still strangers, and that’s for sure the truth.

  Do I love him? Does he love me? I can’t even write these words without shaking and feeling that sweet hurt down in my guts about him. I can’t keep from grinning from ear-to-ear, either, as I think about my child self who just wanted to lay against Uncle Sean with no clothes on, knowing so very little of what else there was to do when you made love—especially to another boy.

  Uncle Sean had given me a hint, a long time ago, when he said if I knew what a man and woman could do together, I knew what two men could do. Only it wasn’t like I imagined at all. Next time I talk to Uncle Sean, I will thank him for not ruining it for me by telling me what two boys could do together! He was right to let me discover it on my own.

  I was shaking so bad when Lance and I had undressed, because despite the kissing and hugging we had done, my dream was finally coming true to lay in bed with another boy. Lance knew I was a virgin, and he did make it special. But I think it was special for him, too.

  I had turned out the lights in the bedroom, but we could still see each other because of the moonlight coming in through the west and north windows. It softened our skin to a glow, and even the bruised side of Lance’s face wasn’t so harsh and beat up looking. Since it was so hot, we just got under the sheet, and it floated down over us, feather light and kind of cool against our skin.

  At first we didn’t touch, but we each lay on our backs on our own pillows, and Lance said, “Your sister May was nice to help us do this.” In the dark, in the bed, his voice was also soft, but still had that nice, deep resonance I had come to love hearing.

  “She surprised me,” I told him.

  And then we just turned toward each other, and I put my left arm under his neck, and he kind of just rolled into my chest, and then he laid his leg over my side; and when I felt his whole body slide into me and our naked skin came together, it was so wonderfully soft and warm and smooth, without Levi’s or under shorts between us, my whole body filled with a kind of heat I’d never felt. When our lips came together in the close embrace, like that, I felt like we were finally connected.

  But I had to learn the final thing and, again, I’m glad Uncle Sean did not describe it. Lance had prepared himself in a way I had not noticed, and when he began to move upward a little, where his penis was pressing against my stomach, I was confused, until he took hold of mine and, then, made one last movement. Even now, my eyes fill with tears, and I close them to recall the intensity of the slick warmth he guided me into.

  But words fail me, and that’s all right. We made love, and he took me the final step into manhood.

  Do I love him?

  I can’t breathe without him! He is my lungs and heart, and my entire being, and I have to live through this day, without him. We came awake in each others arms just as sunup began to light the room, and we made love again, and if anything, it was even more sweet than the night before. But when we had finished and got up reluctantly, I noticed that he had a troubled look on his face. He put back on his own clothes that May got out of the dryer. Even the blood-stained t-shirt which, more than anything, made him look like the pitiful beat-up kid I had met only two days before on the rock ledge.

  “Is there something wrong, Lance? Please tell me that last night was as special for you as it was for me.” Even before he answered, I had to fight back tears, because I was afraid—really frightened that Lance was going to tell me that it had been fun, but as always with his ‘tricks,’ it was over. Something anyway, to explain his troubled expression.

  In answer, Lance wrapped his arms around me. “It was unbelievably wonderful, Will. Please believe me. I feel like shouting to heaven in thanks for one of its most beautiful angels.”

  “Then what? You look kind of weird.”

  He attempted a smile, but it made him just look sad. I noticed that the violet of his eyes turned a little darker, almost brown, when he was troubled or sad, and I intended to take all the darkness from those eyes, if I just had the chance.

  “I have to go home, Will.”

  “Then you’re not running away? I thought you couldn’t take it any more!” I heard the hysteria in my voice and I knew it wasn’t what he needed, so I took a deep breath, as I did when I was getting a little too emotional before a play on the football field. “I don’t understand,” I said in a softer voice.

  He shook his head. “No, Angel. You don’t understand. I’m not going home to stay with that son-of-a-bitch! I just need to tell Mom good-bye and thanks for the way she always stood up for me.”

  I knew he was being sarcastic and bitter, and I hated to hear his rough language after last night. But I bit my tongue and waited for him to continue.

  “I also need to let that SOB know I’m walking out of his house for good. I doubt that either of them will care, and I’m glad, now, that I have you.” Then he looked at me nakedly, unable to hide the fear in his eyes. “I do, don’t I?”

  In answer I just hugged him and drew him close and tight. “Don’t doubt it for a minute, Lance.”

  ***

  Although that was settled between us, I was becoming agitated over breakfast, because I knew Lance was taking a big chance going back home, just so he could tell his mother and stepfather that he was leaving home. I realized, too, that Lance was probably hoping his mother would finally show him the love he craved, and I hurt for him, especially if he found out that she didn’t.

  I was also afraid he’d be hurt physically. So I offered to go with him. Even though Daddy was supposed to be operated on this morning and I would be in agony if I wasn’t here to find out how it went, I made my decision. I had to be with Lance.

  But he refused, and at breakfast, it was just like the morning before. Rita came in and got coffee, and Mrs. Collins brought Trinket back. When Mrs. Collins offered to stay, May and I both told her “no” at the same time, and I think, even though she was hurt, she understood.

  Then May offered to take Lance home, and when he told her he would appreciate it, I felt hurt. I didn’t understand why he didn’t want me to go with him. I was an emotional wreck, trying to understand that, and so when Lance and May went out to the pickup, I pulled him aside and told him I didn’t understand.

  Right there in front of May, he pulled me to him and kissed me on the mouth. “Don’t be hurt, Angel! I don’t want that SOB to know what you look like. And I don’t want to give you a chance of taking him on in a fight. Trust me?”

  I couldn’t fight the tears that welled up in my eyes, but I tried to make a joke out of it. “Then you should know that May’s the one who likes to fight. She’ll probably beat your stepfather to a pulp.”

  Nobody laughed, though, and I didn’t either. I just stood in the drive and watched the pickup disappear down the road. I felt lost and afraid and agitated, but I r
ealized that I had to trust Lance, trust that he did love me as I love him. Of course, it was ridiculously too soon to think in terms of love. But Uncle Sean had said the same thing about him and Theodore Seabrook, and I think my feelings for Lance were at least as genuine as Uncle Sean’s feelings for his boyfriend.

  Eleven

  ———————▼———————

  They said Daddy died from internal bleeding. They couldn’t pump enough blood into him to keep him alive, and Mama said it was like trying to fill a bathtub without a stopper.

  I haven’t cried a single tear, not because I’m not sad. It just seemed to happen so fast, and we didn’t get a chance to visit with him. The first thing that struck me when Mama called, though she could hardly talk, was now what am I going to do? I suddenly feel all the responsibility of the farm resting on my shoulders, and I still have a year of high school left to go. I’m only seventeen years old.

  Daddy was only fifty, and this farm got him. I don’t want that to happen to me. But now…if I don’t stay here and take care of Mama and Rita and Trinket, who’s going to? I think May can take care of herself, now that she’s graduated and can get a job. So I don’t think I’ll have to worry about her.

  I’ve brought the spiral notebook into my room. I suddenly don’t care who notices what about my writing. May kind of helped that along when she encouraged me and Lance to have our special night together.

  But Daddy. He always said you can make it if you’ve got hard hands and a strong back, and I have both, and in a way, he had neither, because this farm got him so young. I see ranchers around here that are at least ninety years old, and they seem as strong as mesquite branches and as gnarled, and when I recall Daddy’s face, I realize he didn’t have many wrinkles, and yet, inside, he must’ve been a mess, torn up so bad he just bled to death—like trying to fill a bathtub without a stopper. I don’t think Mama realizes what a horrible image that is—or maybe she does.

  Even worse, there won’t even be a funeral. Was it something Daddy and Mama had worked out and never discussed with us? It makes me feel like a little kid, again, to just have Daddy go away one day and not have a chance to tell him I loved him! Not have a chance to say I’m sorry for all the times he and I fought!

  Mama came home with his ashes in a box this afternoon, and all of us walked out over the farmyard and each took a handful and sprinkled it around; and that was it. We gave him back to the land that took him. She called Julianne and Marsha and told them, and they said they’d be coming home in a few days. She also called her sisters and brothers and, like she said, they were too busy to want to come out here for a funeral, anyway. And Daddy, Mama said, was the youngest in a big old family that was scattered to the four winds years ago when his parents died, which may be why Daddy was like he was: independent, self-made, and not “beholden to nobody” (as he also used to say). We don’t even know where his kinfolk are. None of them.

  It was too hot this afternoon to think deeply about the meaning of us scattering his ashes, out there, where the temperatures are up past a hundred, where the sky is almost as white as the ashes were. I was surprised at their bleached out color, considering that Daddy was dark complexioned, with black hair and dark eyes, and black hair on the backs of his hands.

  Mama called Uncle Sean last, because I think they have a closer bond with each other than they do with the rest of Mama’s family. So when she called Uncle Sean, I stayed with her and then talked to him myself. It was good to hear his voice, even under the circumstances, even though he was crying. Like me, he felt guilty for ever having fought with Daddy.

  “I’m so sorry I can’t come out there, right now,” he said. “I hope you understand, Will.”

  I told him I did and told him Daddy hadn’t wanted a funeral, anyway. “Please don’t feel bad, Uncle Sean. Mama understands.”

  “And you, Will? Do you?”

  “Of course I do!” I said. “This is a bad time and we just have to get through.”

  Then I told him a little about Lance, how we met, how we kind of knew right off how much we were drawn to each other. I didn’t tell him that we’d already said how much we love each other, but I couldn’t keep the joy out of my voice describing him. I’d done so well up to that point while we were talking, until I told him where Lance was, and just as quick as that, my voice broke. “He’s gone to tell his parents he’s leaving, because of the way they treated him. And I’m scared,” I told him. “He’s been beat on so much, Uncle Sean! I think I need to take care of him.”

  Uncle Sean was silent for a little bit, and I was hoping he wouldn’t advise me to save myself for the right boy or tell me I was too young to know what I was doing, because Lance is the right boy. So I waited, fiddling with a pack of cigarettes Mama had left on the counter by the telephone, and her ashtray filled with half-smoked cigarettes.

  “You were like that with me,” Uncle Sean finally said, and I could hear a kind of break in his voice, too, as if he’d had to take a long, deep breath before he could speak. “But if Lance has any sense,” Uncle Sean said, after another moment, “he’ll realize what a great boyfriend you’ll make.”

  “Do you think so, Uncle Sean? He’s been gone all day.”

  “I’m sure he’s got to work out things at home, Will. It’s a big step leaving home, no matter what the reason. Just trust him, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. A minute later we said good-bye. As always, I didn’t want to stop talking to him, but it was getting on into the afternoon, and I wanted to free up the line in case Lance called.

  ***

  Mama’s in her room right now, probably crying privately and, like me, wondering how she’s going to take care of us. She says she’ll go through Daddy’s things for keepsakes, and take his clothes and shoes and whatnot to the church in Hachita—Our Lady of Siena—that was built out of the old high school that shut down here in 1962. Just another sign that Hachita’s dying as quick as trees that aren’t watered out here in this desert. But nothing rots, not even the carcass of dead animals. What the buzzards don’t eat, the rest turns to leather and then to powder and just blows away.

  Trinket cried a lot when she saw her sisters crying about Daddy, and she cried even harder when Mama came back from Deming with the box of ashes, and said Daddy was in there. Trinket said he couldn’t be in that little box, because Daddy was so big, but Rita got her aside and said that, no, Daddy wasn’t really in that box, and the big part of him was up in heaven looking down on us.

  So now I don’t have Daddy’s advice which, I have to admit, I took less and less in the last couple of years. He wasn’t too swift about handing it out, anyway. I think he preferred to see me make my own mistakes; and I sure have. But I loved him. For me he was strong and, when he gave his opinion about stuff that really matters, like treating people with respect, and not saying things you’d be sorry for later, I never failed to understand what he meant—eventually.

  He was wrong about Uncle Sean and me, though. Uncle Sean was as honorable as Daddy was.

  I can hardly sit still now that the day is closing down. What can be taking so long? I’m trying not to think that he decided he wasn’t going to leave home after all. I can NOT think that. I don’t want him to be beat on anymore, and I doubt that if he did try to stay at home that the beatings would stop. It’s funny, and maybe sad, too, that I can see Lance’s face, bruises and all, a lot clearer than I can see Daddy’s face. Maybe it’s because I just never looked as closely at Daddy as I did Lance, even though Daddy was there when I was born, and I’ve seen Daddy almost every day of my life, and now he’s gone.

  Twelve

  ———————▼———————

  Lance came back late last night. May and I went and got him. I’m glad she went with me. I think she really likes him, and wanted to help, too.

  We were sitting in the kitchen, and everybody was quiet. Mama, because she was probably thinking about Daddy. Rita and Trinket, because they were probably feeling
a little lost without Mama being involved with the supper and stuff. May, because of Daddy, and probably the way she and I now shared our new secrets. And I was quiet, because if I had opened my mouth I probably would have begun screaming. All that afternoon, I had thought Lance would call, or show up; but the sun had already set, supper was over, and I was afraid that when he told his stepfather face-to-face that he was leaving, that his stepfather started in beating on him. By then, that’s exactly what I thought, and I was crawling the walls with dread.

  When the phone rang, everybody jumped. But I flew out of my chair and raced to answer it, and when I heard that soft, deep, oily voice say, “Angel? Can you please come get me?” I began sobbing with relief, and did a bad job of hiding it. So May came over and took the receiver out of my hand and asked the right questions: where was he, was everything all right, and then she took the pickup keys from me, smiling wanly, and said she was going to drive.

  It was a thirty-minute drive up the gravel road from our farm into Hachita, then another fifteen miles west on Highway 9, then another ten miles south, then a few more minutes up to the new town of Playas sitting on the side of the mountain. By the time we got there, it was dark, but May knew right where Lance was. He had called from a pay phone at the Playas town center. He was standing under a street light by the pay phone looking so small and pitiful clutching a small suitcase. He waved when he saw us and before May could pull to a complete stop, I threw the door open and ran across the parking lot like I was going out for a long pass. And when I got close, Lance ran to me and threw himself into my arms. We hugged and kissed right there, and when he cried out in pain, I set him down and looked at his face under the greenish glow of the street light. His lips were big and swollen, and one of his eyes on what had been the good side of his face was black and had swelled up to the size of a golf ball.