“No! Damn that son-of-a-bitch!” I screamed, then growling, “I’ll kill him!”
“It’s okay! It’s okay! It’s okay!” he whispered, putting a hand on my chest when he saw how angry I had become.
But I couldn’t calm down, and I paced back and forth in the parking lot screaming at the whole town, hating everybody there, as if they were all in on it. And as loud as I was yelling, porch lights began to come on and I even saw the silhouettes of people standing in the glare of the lights looking my way. Then May got out of the pickup and grabbed a handful of my hair, and forced me to look her in the eyes.
“Stop it! Will! Shut up! This town has security guards! You hear me? Let’s just get out of here.”
I tried to shake her off. “Look what they did to Lance,” I said, trying to break out of her grip, but May pulled my hair harder, and I realized that my joke that morning wasn’t wrong. She was as strong and capable as I was, and she had me in a hold I couldn’t break without going bald, so I held up both hands in surrender. She gave one more yank on my hair and then released me.
A minute later, we were in the pickup, and May was driving back down the side of the mountain. Lance was beside me, and I had my left arm around his shoulder, and he was speaking softly, rubbing my chest. “Angel. Angel. It’s okay! I’m out of there, okay?”
I was crying at his new wounds, and felt like a kid. I should have been comforting him, but he was comforting me.
May deliberately drove slowly, while I calmed down. I didn’t pay attention to where we were going, whether we were on Highway 9 or near Hachita, or on gravel. And May might as well not have been there, because in a few minutes, Lance and I began kissing and wetting each other’s faces with saliva and tears and hugging hard, trying to get closer to each other. I tasted blood in my mouth, from some open wound on Lance’s face, but he wouldn’t stop devouring me with his mouth, and I couldn’t stop, either, until May pulled to a stop at the house.
“Geez! You guys need to cool it just a little,” she said, her voice full of laughter and alarm. “You’re going to scare Mama to death, Will! Okay?”
So we did stop, and tried to straighten our clothing. I didn’t realize that my face was covered with blood, or that Lance’s was, either, until we stepped up on the porch under the light where the moths and other bugs were buzzing around, and I looked at Lance’s face which, at the moment, looked like something out of a horror movie. And he looked at me and we both began to laugh and look horrified. So I ripped off my t-shirt and ran water on it from the hydrant by the oleander bush next to the porch and first washed Lance’s face as gently as I could, noting where the blood was coming from. It wasn’t as serious as it had looked when he was smeared with blood. Then I scrubbed at my face, until May nodded and took a deep breath. “That’ll have to do,” she said. She was grinning at me and looking shocked at the same time. “Geez, Will, you’re nuts! You know that?”
I knew I was. Uncle Sean had told me how it would be, and it was the truth.
Luckily it was almost ten o’clock when we went into the house. Rita and Trinket were both in bed, and Mama was the only one up.
She looked shocked and angry as soon as she saw that Lance had been beat up again, but she soon calmed down and took him into the bathroom herself and cleaned him up a little better. But when she came back out, saying that Lance was taking a bath, May and I had been talking and decided that we needed to tell Mama what was what. So she started crying when May and I set her down and told her things about me. It was okay that May didn’t mention any of her own secrets. But learning how Lance and I planned to stay together in my room was enough. She objected, saying that Daddy had been right all along, and she wanted to know what Uncle Sean had done to me to turn me “that way,” though I was finally able to convince her he had tried to talk me out of my feelings. Of course, I didn’t tell Mama that Uncle Sean finally gave in and kissed me, or tell her about the letter he’d written, or that Uncle Sean had a boyfriend, himself, now, and that he and I joked with each other when he called.
She didn’t beg me not to have Lance in my room, except maybe with her eyes, nor did she pull rank on me as my mother. But I know that I broke her heart that night, and when I passed by her room and heard her sobbing softly, I figured she was maybe crying even harder for what we told her than she did for Daddy dying.
So when Lance came out of the bathroom, looking a little cleaner, but with all the new wounds, I knew I simply would not have been able to let him sleep by himself down the hall. He and I put his suitcase into my room and we hung up his clothes. He was looking so nervous and all, asking, “but your mom said this was okay? Don’t she know what we’ll be doing?”
I was just as nervous as Lance, but I told him it was going to be all right, him and me, sleeping together. I couldn’t tell him why it was, but I’d been so scared for him, having gone back to his own parents and facing his father. I couldn’t tell him how you had to take things from life, or lose them.
But it’s the truth. Maybe Daddy wouldn’t understand about Lance, or me being homosexual. But I think he would understand what I’ve learned from his death and, hopefully, from his life.
I’ve taken to writing early in the mornings when I wake up and it’s cool. Now that I have the notebook in my room, I don’t have to sneak out, so that Lance wonders where I am. Though he usually sleeps right through the time I spend writing stuff. My mind is clearer in the mornings, too, and as Mama has said as long as I can remember, things always look different in the morning.
I hope they do for her, too. I hope things look different to her, because another thing I’ve learned now that Daddy died at so young an age, you have to do things you have to do and not worry how it affects others. The right things, though. I’m not talking about doing mean things, but the right things. Like me and Lance. Seeing how Daddy died so young, I see that it can happen to anybody. So I’m not going to put off being with him at night, just because Mama doesn’t like it. So I hope things look different to her in the mornings.
Besides, Lance needs me to heal him from all those years his stepfather hurt him, but even more I’m going to love him and show him that somebody really cares about him, because he needs to heal inside from the wounds his mother inflicted on him—wounds that don’t heal so easily. I’m not going to let him suffer a minute longer.
***
Every once in a while, while I’m writing, I look over at him. His face is bruised all over, and the sight in his right eye is a little blurry, but I’m hoping it’ll return to normal in a few weeks. I imagine he hurts even while he’s sleeping. It hasn’t been long enough for the worst of the bruises to heal, and the ones that aren’t so bad look a yellow-blue, now, as though someone rubbed eye-shadow on his cheek.
And sometimes, I lay the notebook aside and prop myself up on an elbow and just watch him sleeping. It hurts, he’s so beautiful, the way his lids lay over those beautiful eyes and mask some of the bad things he’s seen and been through. When he’s sleeping he looks even more like a kid and more innocent.
Then I wake him up by kissing him, and we sometimes make love as the light of day comes into the room, though it’s indirect light and just causes his skin to glow. He’s the angel, if you want to know the truth.
Mama has been coming along really well with things, since that night we told her everything. But she’s like that. She knows that without Lance there with me, I’d have a hard time with the farm work.
May helps out a lot, too.
Trinket has taken up with Lance like she did Uncle Sean. And even though Rita and Mama still lock horns, she and Mama get along better. Don’t ask me why or how.
Not only that, but some of the joy I used to feel in the family has returned. Daddy’s death is passing into the distance, though we all feel him now and then—especially me, I think, when I’m particularly frustrated working on a piece of equipment. Then I remember how he used to hunch his shoulders, dropping his tools for a minute, then pick them up
and go at it again. So that’s what I do.
Summer vacation ends in a week and I have one more year of school. Lance and I went in to Animas a few days ago and registered him for school. He’ll be a junior, as he lost some time and credits, because of a few bad grades. I don’t doubt that he could hardly concentrate on his studies when every night he spent at home was spent in fear of his father. But I’m glad Lance decided he needed to get back in school, even though he’s afraid it will be hard. “I know I need a diploma,” he said, when he told me he wanted to go back. “I just never thought I could make it through the way things were at home. Maybe with you helping me, I can, Angel.”
I’ve even taken him around to some of my friends to introduce him before school starts. It’s such a small school. I didn’t want him to feel quite so new on the first day. It’ll be neat to have him up in the stands cheering for me when we play football. I’m really tickled at the way Dick Lamb looked when I introduced him the other day. Lance and I were in Hachita for burgers, and I could tell Dick was eyeing Lance as soon as we walked into the Hachita Grill. Of course everybody was eyeing him, because strangers are spotted right off. But Dick was looking awfully hungry when he laid eyes on Lance, so I have no doubt that our great quarterback is exactly as I thought. Who knows, maybe Lance and I can help him find a boyfriend.
The worse thing was going over to Lance’s parents’ house one Sunday to get his birth certificate and stuff. Mama went with us, and so did May. You’d have never known that the man who answered the door was a monster. He’s clean cut-looking, though of course muscled from the kind of work he does. He smiled kind of confused when he saw Lance standing there with me, Mama, and May behind him. But I saw a flicker of something in his eyes that gave him away, as if he would have liked nothing better than to get Lance alone for just a few minutes, though he covered it over by turning and calling to Lance’s mother. Nor would you think she was the willing wife of a child-beater. Lance never said, but they’re church goers. She was still dressed in what I’d think was her Sunday best and looked about as normal as you can get. I see where Lance gets his violet eyes, and I have to admit that his mother is quite a looker with a lush head of dark-chocolate hair. Lance is just eighteen, and I bet that his mother had him when she wasn’t much more than that, herself.
When they invited us all in, we didn’t sit or accept the cold drinks Lance’s mother offered. It was awkward, but Mama surprised me, and I was proud of her. “No sense in us pretending this is a social call,” she said.
“We’ve come to get the rest of Lance’s things, including his birth certificate, seeing as how he’ll need it to get his life in order.”
“And just who the hell do you think you are?” Lance’s stepfather asked.
But his wife touched him on the shoulder. “Enough, Richard. This time, just cool it.”
I could’ve filled in the rest of her advice: “Not in front of witnesses, dear.”
Anyway, they have a nice house, and I hope they’re happy together now that Lance is living with us. As Lance says in his best sarcasm, they really deserve that happiness.
***
Seems like I find less and less time to write, as it has been quite a while since I wrote in this notebook. Lance and I drive to school together every day, and get up early to take care of things, and come home early now that it’s just us and May who have to get ready for the harvest. Lance’s face is finally clearing up and his beauty continues to startle me. He eats like a horse and is looking more and more solid. And sometimes, when we’re out in the field, we just stop and make out for a little bit. The newest thing is his laughter, which just rings through the house sometimes, until everyone just starts laughing along with him. Even Mama, but especially May. She and I catch each other’s eyes and smile.
I talked to Uncle Sean, again, the other day, now that Daddy’s death isn’t so close. I told him how my senior year is going and how Lance is getting along in school, that he has a knack for art, and how he just thrilled the art teacher, Mr. Drummond, to death with renderings he did in charcoal of a few kids in the class. Lance had kept his talent hidden from me this whole two months we’ve been together, but I heard kids talking about him after school one day and showing off the quick sketches he did of them. So I told Uncle Sean all about him—and us—and thanked him for not telling me what causes the color in sunsets or what two boys who love each other can do together. Then I said, “Lance sure is pretty, Uncle Sean. He just needs somebody to love him.”
“I’m sure you’ll take care of that,” Uncle Sean said.
---Editor’s Note---
Unfortunately, that’s all there is to the material I found in the barn when I was tearing it down. I choose to believe that Will Barnett and Lance Surfett made a life for themselves somewhere. How and when the farm near Hachita was abandoned or sold will have to remain a mystery. Too much time has passed and the trail is too cold to follow. And it will also have to remain for speculation why Will chose to leave his writing there. Did he intend to return one day and retrieve it? Although he treasured his Uncle Sean’s dog tags, he left them in the old barn, too. I find that strange, though I can also attest that nothing in my possession, either, remains from when I was a high school student. Life just intervenes between us and our most precious possessions without our intending it.
I finished the project—tearing down the barn and salvaging what I could, storing it for some future use.
But I could not leave the documents alone, and even though possession is nine-tenths of the law, I will always remain a little uneasy about publishing these pages. I did try, however, to pick up that cold, long-time-ago trail.
I visited with some of the old-timers around here, but they just shook their heads when I asked about the Barnett family. No one knew when they moved away. Every one recalls the farm south of Hachita just west of the Big Hatchet mountain, exactly twenty miles down what is now a paved highway that leads on into Mexico at Antelope Wells.
I had been asked to tear down the old barn by a rancher by the name of Hill, and judging from his age, I figured him to be Old-Man Hill’s grandson who Will Barnett talked about. But even he did not know when the Barnett family left that farm. From what I can figure out about this younger Hill, he must have been a senior in high school before Will entered as a freshman. When I mentioned the name Barnett, the rancher nodded. “Oh yeah, I remember them, all right. There was some strange things that went on there, as I recall. Something about their only boy,” he said, “but I can’t say exactly what. Some kind of rumors, though. That was a long time ago.”
And so it was.
Will Barnett, if you are out there and can add to this story, I am sure your readers would join me in asking for more!
About the Author
Ronald L. Donaghe is the author of the fiction series “Common Threads in the Life,” which includes four novels: Common Sons, The Blind Season, The Salvation Mongers, and The Gathering. The fifth and final novel in the series, A Summer’s Change, will be published in 2009 and will conclude the series. He is also the author of a major new fantasy trilogy, entitled “The Twilight of the Gods.” Book I, Cinátis, has been published. The author can be reached by email at [email protected] and looks forward to hearing from readers.
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