Common Sons

by Ronald Donaghe

  “Yes!” Tom said. But he felt apprehensive. “What brings you out here?”

  He took Tom firmly by the arm, close to the shoulder. His grip hurt. He walked Tom to the porch and sat him down. Then he paced back and forth while Tom watched, resting his forearms on his thighs, squinting at the sun in his face, his father between him and it like a dark cloud. His father didn’t say anything for a few moments, but the muscles in his jaw alternately bulged and relaxed. Thick veins in his neck began to swell, which Tom knew was his preparation for a bombshell. He couldn’t imagine what his father could be concerned about, but it must be something serious.

  Finally he said, “I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt. I’m going to tell you exactly what has been told to me. Then I’m going to give you a fair chance to answer. If what you say strikes me as truthful, I will consider the other source and see what action needs to be taken. But I promise, if I feel that you are not telling me the truth, or if I find out later that you’ve lied to me, I will make certain you shall never forget this day.”

  Tom was glad he knew about the rumors Paul was spreading, but he assumed that his and Joel’s real secret was safe from his father. He was genuinely confused and, therefore, appeared innocent as his father studied him now.

  “Do you agree, Thomas?”

  “Well, sure, Father.” He couldn’t imagine what would happen if he didn’t.

  “I will be blunt: it has been said that, as you told me, you went to that dance, but in addition you got drunk and danced with Joel

  Reece. It has also been said that you and he got kicked out of that place, your behavior upsetting even those people. And then, a few days ago, you were seen right here in this yard, lying with Joel. Is this true?”

  Tom squinted at his father’s silhouette. “Father, it’s true only that I got drunk. I danced with a girl named ‘Betsy’. I didn’t get kicked out.”

  Mr. Allen waited for his son to begin explaining. But he was not prepared for Tom’s simple admission of guilt. He took this to be a good sign, because he took into account his son’s extraordinary show of faith in front of the congregation. Although the truth was repulsive to him, he felt pride that his son did not flinch from it.

  “Good. I believe you. But this other thing with Joel—I am ashamed even to speak of it—fondling? Kissing? Is any of this true? Is it!?”

  Tom felt his chest caving in. He was unable to draw a breath. Yes. And worse. To deny it was a lie. To admit it would be.Tom searched for a way to tell the truth, as he had been commanded to do. He faintly heard himself asking, “In the front yard?”

  “Paul Romaine says he saw you one afternoon lying on top of Joel right here—laying with him—as it has been implied. Now you tell me why he should say that.”

  Tom remembered one day. He felt his father’s eyes searching his face. Then it struck him. He managed to brighten. “Father, Paul must have seen us wrestling. We do it all the time.”

  His father visibly relaxed. “That is a logical explanation, after all.” Then his face grew stern. “I believe you about this, Thomas, but just this time. If I hear just one more hint of something deeper, just one more.” He didn’t finish. He looked back toward the field at the green liquid shimmer from the crops. “You and Joel are taking care of all this?” He waved his hand across a wide arc from south, east, and north. “Why, this is truly magnificent!”

  Tom still couldn’t relax. His stomach fluttered nervously. He watched his father’s whole body arch as he waved his hand in the direction of the fields. His father could appreciate such work. He had been generous, Tom realized, in holding back just now. His father walked toward the car and turned back to Tom, still sitting on the porch. “Better get back to work. See you in church!”

  Tom returned to the garden. He could barely breathe and felt like he was about to faint. He sank to his knees in the soft earth, intending to pray. He intended to pray about deliberately lying to his father. I’ve never done that before, he thought. No. That’s a lie. I’ve been lying for years…He bowed his head and tried to think of a way to begin. But he was unable to concentrate. He had sunk to his knees in the shadow of the fence, just inside the south entrance to the garden. At this hour, the sun bore down everywhere. But the earth was cool against his knees. He had fallen into a moist patch of ground. He dug into it with his fingers, and was surprised that the earth was crumbly, like old cornbread. It was dark and its aroma had a musty under-odor. It was different than the dirt he had been shoveling out in the field; it was richer. The mustiness came from the final stages of rot, he imagined, the rot of plants, the rot of insects that once ate the plants. But the things of which the earth was made, this soil was alive and only waiting to give life, from the rot of dead things. He let it fall through his fingers and stood up.

  Praying was no use. The garden pulled his thoughts to it with too much force, denied him the choice of thinking of anything but the garden. He looked around feeling dimly anxious that he hadn’t prayed, but everywhere he looked, plants in various stages of growth caught his eye. The garden was an organized conspiracy against his senses. In the play of sunlight and shadow, in the smells that ripened in the heat, in the gentle sounds, the garden was alive. A light breeze rushed through it and dried his sweat. The garden remained serene, but its indifference somehow soothed him. He began working again, stepping carefully among the plants, looking for weeds in the garden. Joel’s mother was thorough.

  Soon, he was absorbed in his work again. He felt relaxed and able to consider what had just happened. Lying. That was another step away from his old life. He had let his father assume his innocence mainly because his father hadn’t wanted to believe Paul’s accusations. At least there had been a good explanation for what Paul had seen. But he’d deliberately clouded over the kissing of which he was being accused. Father believed me, Tom thought, astounded. He believed me, but I was lying. As he worked, this realization became a litany in his head. He believed me, but I was lying; the fact echoed in his mind, but Tom felt much better. He thought of Joel.

  From the day they met over nine months ago until now, Tom realized, he’d been progressing to this day. He would remember it, just as his father said. But not for anything his father could do to him. He would remember it because of what Joel had said to him earlier this morning, when they awoke from their night of lovemaking. It wasn’t just sex between them. It wasn’t just lust after all. How could it be? Joel loves me, he thought, and because Joel had promised that Tom could trust him, and because he accepted the truth of that promise without question he felt, just then, as if a wall inside of him had been razed. I am a homosexual, because my feelings say so. And, he thought happily, it isn’t lust. That was a dirty little lie he had allowed other people to put in his head, he concluded. It was love between them. And that truth, Joel’s declaration of it, made him feel stronger, made him determined not to flinch away. It was clear to Tom, as he left the garden near eleven o’clock to look for Joel, that he would soon have to test his own commitment.

  He peered across the field. The tractor was coming up the road but was still far away and seemed to be traveling at a crawl. He returned to the garden and put away the tools, locked up the shed, and walked to the house.

  He washed his face in Joel’s bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. His face had a shocked expression, but there were no tears, and his dark brown eyes had only a bruised, wet look. He was presentable. He didn’t want Joel to make a big deal out of anything. This could have been serious but it was over. He was sure he could keep Joel from getting excited.

  He was wrong.

  Joel wanted to confront Paul, and do it fast. Joel’s anger would not be soothed. “Listen, Tom, Paul can’t get away with this. If it wasn’t for him, we could have worked everything out just fine, and taken our time to do it, but that fucker almost blew it. If you hadn’t lied to your father you’d be gone right now, stuck at your house. And you think it was hard getting to see each other last time?”
r />   The more he talked, the angrier he got. “That fucker, Paul, is bad news!”

  * * *

  “Tom?” Paul said into the telephone. “I thought you’d be calling—What? No, I only told my father. I can’t help it if he—What? Yes. About the dance. I know I wasn’t at the dance, but everybody’s talking about it.”

  On the other end of the line, Paul heard rustling, the phone being bumped, then Tom firing a rush of questions. Paul let the receiver fall to his chest. He was sitting at his desk with his feet on the desktop. On the wall behind the desk was a mirror. Paul watched himself smile with satisfaction. Then he put the receiver back to his ear and listened.

  Finally, he said, “What am I trying to do? Simple. Your friendship with Joel should stop. You know it’s a disgusting sin, my friend. What? Oh, I think it is my business. You see. I told my daddy about you two in Joel’s yard, too…Come on, Tom, I saw you lying on top of him. He was holding you! Wrestling! Boy, that’s a good one. Who’s gonna believe that?”

  Paul couldn’t believe what Tom said next. He saw his face fall with disappointment and looked away from the mirror. “He believed you, huh? Spying? Kenneth Stroud and I were just driving by!” Paul looked at his hands, studied the perfect clip of his nails. He listened to the tirade on the other end.

  “Sure, Tom. Look. What did you expect? I only told Daddy. I was concerned, and I still am. You should be, too.Don’t cuss. It’s disgusting!” Tom’s anger surprised and pleased him. Tom had a surprise coming, anyway. “Now listen, Tom, I haven’t even told anyone that I saw you and Joel one night in his living—”

  The telephone went dead.

  He stared at the receiver, surprised. “How…dare…you…hang up on ME!” He slammed the receiver down hard. Catching a glimpse of his red face in the mirror, and turned away, again, his temples pounding. He took in small breaths to calm himself, his mind spinning. Gotta think! Can’t lose! Can’t let him get away with that!

  When his own anger had subsided, a realization came to him. Tom’s anger was completely out of proportion to what he had expected. So intense. But why? Paul thought about Kenneth’s fantasy story, which he’d assumed was a lie. But then, “the guilty dog barks loudest,” he mused. Could it really be true? Could they both be so out of control that they were reckless? A grin crept onto his lips. Even if Reverend Allen believed Tom this time, the seed could be tended, and soon be made to bring forth.Even without real evidence to back him up, it would do for now. All he needed was proof that they were having sex. And he would watch for a time, with or without Kenneth.

  * * *

  They took a walk before supper. The sun was turning yellow just above the distant mountains to the west. They crossed the road with the house behind them. On the west side of the road the desert began—an area of untilled soil, lying fallow until irrigation rights became available. It was here that Joel had always played as a boy. Here he went hiking, toting the. 22 rifle his father gave him on his thirteenth birthday. And it was in this patch of desert, leading farther away from the farms, farther west toward the rough terrain of the Red Mountain district, where he and Tom had hiked on other days.

  The air was still hot. As they got farther from the road, the silence became more complete. When they spoke, their voices sounded loud in the stillness. But they talked little. Joel was content to walk and feel Tom beside him.

  They came to the clearing where they usually ate lunch. The mesquite bushes completely surrounded them, thick and tangled and tall enough that even standing up, Joel doubted any one could see them. He liked the privacy. The clearing was flat and nothing grew on the pale dirt. Nothing but the wind sounded in the clearing. The place brought back Joel’s most pleasant memories of the times he and Tom had walked out here while getting to know each other, Tom telling him about all the places he had lived. Joel hadn’t been any place much and doubted that he ever would, but he enjoyed hearing about New Orleans and Atlanta and the lush greenery of the South. Joel had listened, imagining all those places. His own knowledge of the world seemed so small by comparison and, at first, he felt he had nothing to share, nothing to make Tom’s imagination soar as his did.

  “Remember the first time you asked me to spend the night?” Tom said, now, as they sat, Indian style, in the clearing.

  “Yeah. I had been working up to it for days. That was about a month after we met, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right. In all the places I’ve lived, I never felt as good as out here with you. And your mother and father were so nice. I was excited to spend the night. I didn’t know that you really liked me all that much.”

  “I was just shy. I was only a junior. I couldn’t believe a senior and someone so sophisticated could like me. I couldn’t believe that night in early September last year at the junior class slave banquet when you called me by name. Remember?”

  “Of course I do. You were one of the slaves serving us seniors. I was with Debbie Benson. She’s the one who pointed you out. She thought you were the cutest guy in your gold toga and sandals with your blond hair and tan. I didn’t want to seem too interested, but the rest of that night I couldn’t take my eyes off you. I had a crush on you from then on.”

  “You did?” Joel laughed, delighted, feeling giddy.

  “Yes. But I promised myself you’d never know.”

  “I thought you were nice. I’m sorry I acted so weird when you first started saying hello at school after that. I thought you were teasing or something. You know how the townies act about us farmers.”

  Tom nodded. “I haven’t been happy at home since we moved here, since I met you. My father is a hard man to live with, Joel. Not like yours. I respect him, what he lives for. But sometimes he asks too much of me. I’ve never had a chance to question anything, or learn anything from him except religion. He’s always right. Perfect. And there’s no room for mistakes. But when he came out here today, he seemed really glad to see how I was doing. And then he just dug right in, throwing up all those accusations. That’s his way. But it oppresses me. I could have told him it was true about how I acted at the dance and pleaded being drunk. But I didn’t. I heard myself lying to him.”

  “So you could quit lying to yourself,” Joel said. “Which is more important?”

  “Telling him the truth. And facing the truth about myself, about us. Telling him the absolute truth, everything. And then living my own life and making my own mistakes.”

  “I’ve wondered how my parents would react, too,” Joel said. “It feels strange to think of telling them. But I’m going to, and one of these days, we’ll be able to live together without fear from either of our families. We’ll be adults, too.”

  They stayed in the desert until night had fallen and the first slice of the coming full moon had risen to guide them back to the farm. In the moonlight, Joel took Tom’s hand. It was warm, as always, and felt familiar, yet still held a mystery about it, partly the indefinable thrill of holding hands with another guy. At bottom that was it. He couldn’t explain why. But he knew that if Tom were a girl, something would have been lost in the transformation.

  The ghostly cooing of night birds was magnified in the darkness. Wind whined soft and low all about them and, ahead, they could hear the pickups and cars on the road. Here and there they heard car doors slamming in someone’s front yard. As they drew closer, they could see the trees in the yard—tall, black shadows, and through them shined the outdoor yard light in the Reeces’ yard. It was fixed onto a tall pole that stood beside the driveway. Then a shotgun blast cracked in the darkness and simultaneously the light exploded. They heard a faint tinkling of glass as the light fixture hit the ground. Then silence.

  “What the hell?” Joel said. Tom was startled but he followed as Joel began running toward the house.

  They followed the moonlit shine of the dirt and found an easy path through the bushes. They bent down and walked low to the edge of the road and looked across it in the darkness. The trees were hard to see through but part of the house
was visible. From where they were, they could see the edge of the porch and the driveway beyond.

  They saw shadows but nothing else. Then, on the side of the house facing the road, they clearly saw a figure crouched below the living room window with his back to them. Some light in the house allowed them to see into it. The figure below the window rose up. Caught in the light from the house they saw his shotgun.

  They hid behind a mesquite bush and listened. “I know you’re in there, girls! Come out and suck my dick!” The familiar sound of Kenneth’s voice echoed off the side of the house.

  Then he moved from the living room window to the front yard, standing just off the porch.

  “What’re we going to do, Joel?”

  Joel’s face was set in anger, but it was controlled. “He’s not going to touch a thing, or I’ll cut his balls off.”

  “But you can’t fight him! He’s got a gun! Joel, he’ll kill you!”

  “That’s my house, damn it, and I’m going to take care of it!”

  “WE are supposed to take care of it, remember?”

  Joel sucked air through his teeth. “That bastard!”

  They moved through the darkness and slipped quietly across the road. Joel led the way north, planning to slip around the house, to get a better view from the other side, but then Kenneth yelled, “I’m coming in!” Another shotgun blast echoed through the night, followed by a sickening crash of glass. “Holy shit!” Joel whispered. “He’s destroying the house!”

  They crouched by the tool shed near the garden, with a clear view of the house in the moonlight. It was about a hundred feet to the driveway. Joel motioned for Tom to stay, then ran to the east side of the house.

  Forgetting his fear, Tom ran after him. He could make out Joel’s figure at the corner, so close to the porch that if Kenneth appeared, he’d have a dead drop on him. In the pale light against the whiteness of the house, Joel looked small and vulnerable. Just as Tom drew closer, Joel jumped away from the corner and ran around to the front, out of sight.