by JD Ruskin
“You know,” Hanson continued, “I really don’t think you should be in here with decent folks, faggot.”
I swiveled the stool around and slid to my feet. That put Hanson’s forehead three inches from my chin, but he wasn’t backing up or backing down. Of course not. He had Mel Evans and two other men behind him.
“Yeah, I know, Brooks. You think you could keep that a secret forever?” His spit hit my jaw as he thrust his chin closer to my face. “Pretty soon, everyone will know all about you taking it up the ass and liking it.”
Fear shivered up the back of my neck, making the hairs stand up, as I confronted Hanson’s mouth. Suddenly, he seemed to be all mouth, large like a gaping black hole threatening to pull me into violent ugliness while all around the bar beyond him, stunned faces focused in on us. People I knew, people I didn’t. Some disbelieving, some already disgusted. Everybody watching us. Seeing me clear but not a glimpse of that ugly threatening mouth. All of them waiting frozen, but Hanson going to spring into action any second. I knew I should do something. I just couldn’t think of what, or a thing to say.
Billy Cunningham started talking though. “Hanson, you stop this bullshit, or I’m calling the sheriff. You hear me?”
“It ain’t bullshit, Cunningham,” Hanson replied. “Question is, is Brooks going to admit it? Is he going to tell all these folks who’ve been sending him their horses to break and their kids for riding lessons that he’s not to be trusted with animals or kids because he’s queer as they come?
“That’s right.” Hanson turned now to talk to the bar at large. “You all thought he had a special touch compared to me. Well he’s touched all right.”
His tone made me want to melt into the floor. But he wasn’t done.
“Do you want a faggot around your kids? Or your animals?”
He turned back to me. “What’s the matter, Brooks? You a chickenshit too, or just not talking because it’s true?”
I didn’t have a comeback. All I could think was that I’d been outed by Ray Hanson of all people, and what would my family say, and where was I going to have to move to.
“I think he’s scared, boss,” Mel Evans sneered. “He’s scared because he knows the real men around here are going to show him what we do to faggots who act like they’re better than us.”
“There’ll be no fighting in my bar,” Billy yelled. “Hanson, you and your men get out of here.”
Immediately, Hanson turned on Billy. “You want to throw me out, Cunningham? How much business do you think you’ll get when folks learn you’re throwing out real men but letting cock-sucking queers drink at your bar?”
Billy surveyed the crowd, then looked at me with anger and contempt.
“That’s enough,” he yelled. “I won’t have this shit in my bar. Get out of here, both of you, and Hanson take your men with you.”
Billy pulled out the baseball bat everyone knew he kept behind the bar and waved it at us. “And none of you come back, you hear me?”
I stared back at him, unable to believe he was ordering me out too. Yeah, I’d imagined the worst if people ever found out about me, but I never thought they’d turn on me right before my eyes. I went to school with Billy. He’d offered me a job more than once. I’d hugged him at his dad’s and his mom’s funerals both.
“I said out, Brooks,” he hissed. “I won’t hesitate to call the sheriff on you too. Believe me, I won’t.”
I wanted nothing more than to be out of there. If only I could make my feet move.
“You first, faggot,” Hanson taunted. “I don’t want you anywhere near my ass.”
He shoved my arm, and I had to right myself fast. It was enough to clear the fog in my brain, and I began to walk, looking at nothing but the door. Hanson’s men parted as I passed, but not without a shove or two of their own. I barely felt them.
I made it through the door, then was vaguely aware that it didn’t slam behind me. That should have told me something, but I was too focused on getting to my truck.
The first blow came across the back of my shoulders. The bar door slammed right after. I stayed on my feet but crumpled in half. A punch to my side spun me around. I pulled myself up and took a swing at the first guy to step in front of me, one of Hanson’s men. He fell at my feet.
A punch from behind sent me sprawling over him. I landed on my knees in the gravel, and that was it for me. I became one of those punching dolls that keeps bobbing up, only to get smacked down again.
Evans threw most of the punches. They were hard ones to my stomach and ribs. Hanson went for my face. He was responsible for the cut over my eye and the blow that had me spitting out bitter-tasting blood.
Someone kept calling me a faggot. And I thought I heard my brother far off calling my name. But that was impossible.
Then somebody, thank God, yelled, “I’m calling the sheriff.” Hanson and his crew disappeared in a haze of slamming truck doors and spinning wheels.
I pulled myself up from the gravel onto my knees and wiped the blood out of my eye. I could see people watching me, but nobody came to help. I was just as glad. Maybe I still had some pride if I could get to my truck myself.
Pain like I couldn’t believe shot through my ribs and gut when I stood up tall. Made me suck in a hard breath, and crap but that made everything hurt worse. Evans had done some major fist-dancing across my torso. I’d be all black and blue before morning.
I fought myself to keep my arms from gripping my gut. Made myself walk to my truck with them at my sides, like John Wayne and Clint Eastwood both. It was a long, blurry, painful way, costing more pain to get the door open. For the first time in my life, I grabbed the grip handle on the ceiling and pulled myself in. The motion made my ribs scream till I thought I would die. My butt hit the seat with a thud that rocked my ribs again, and I laid my head on the steering wheel and pulled the door shut. After a couple tries, I got the key in the ignition and took off. Luckily, it was a straight drive out onto the road, no backing up. I couldn’t have turned around to check behind me for anything. I had to focus hard to keep between the yellow lines. A mile down the road, the sheriff passed me, lights flashing, heading for Cunningham’s.
When I got to my cabin, I parked parallel to the front porch. I had to rest my head on the steering wheel for a bit before I could even think about opening the door. Then I fell out. It wasn’t intentional, but it seemed to make things easier, at least at the start. I didn’t feel any new pain until I landed on my hands and knees in the gravel drive. Then I felt everything throb all over again, plus new pangs in my palms.
As carefully as I could, I pushed myself up once more. I don’t know how long I leaned against the truck before I got my feet moving and staggered to my front door. Thank God there was no one around to see me.
Once inside, I locked the door behind me. And not just it. I went round the whole place slowly, checking windows, locking them, and pulling down shades. Maybe I’d just stay behind them forever.
Much later, after I’d decided that even if any of my ribs were broken they weren’t piercing a lung and my face didn’t really need stitches, I slid into bed.
I hurt too much to think about what to do next, beyond figuring it might be easier and smarter to leave all my clothes on. I had this feeling I wasn’t going to wake up by myself. It’d be at least tomorrow afternoon before my aunt and uncle would hear what had happened and maybe come looking for me. But two former Army Rangers might want to pound me too, one to protect his secret, one to protect his pride.
IT WAS dark when Jesse and Dane woke me up by turning on all the lights in my bedroom. Only one of my eyes would open, and I saw four of them to start. But I knew it was dark outside.
“Have I been asleep for a whole night and day?”
“No, asshole. It’s taken us a couple hours to find you,” my brother said too loudly. I put my arm across my head to kill the light and the noise, but it didn’t help that or the pounding in my head.
“You found me. Now get o
ut of my house.”
“If you weren’t already beat to shit, I swear, I’d do it to you myself.”
When, I wondered, was my brother going to quit yelling?
“Yeah, I’ll come looking for you when I can get up.”
“Shut the fuck up, both of you.” Dane was angry too, but at least he wasn’t yelling.
“Do you need to see a doctor?” he asked.
“No. Now, really, get out of my house, please. And how’d you get in anyway?”
“Oh no, you son of a bitch,” Jesse spit out, still too loud. “I do not get an earful from half the damned crowd at Cunningham’s about you being a fucking faggot and hear you get beat up over the fucking phone and not get an explanation.”
I tried to rise up and was immediately sorry, but I stayed there, propping myself up on my elbows. “You heard it over the phone?”
“You called me,” he snapped. “I kept calling your name.”
“That explains it. I need coffee.”
“Were you drunk?” Jesse yelled.
“Heck no. I didn’t even get a beer before I got thrown out.”
I swung my legs out, but I stumbled when I stood up, and Dane reached out an arm to steady me. His hand felt warm and comforting.
“Thanks.” I couldn’t bring myself to look at him.
They followed me to the kitchen, where I turned on the light, lurched to the counter, and opened a cupboard. I thought I was doing pretty good until I dropped the can of coffee.
“I’ll make it,” Dane said. “You sit.”
He steered me to the table, pulled out a chair, and sat me down, then started making coffee.
“I can do it. I’m sore, and out to half the valley by now. But I’m not drunk.”
“So it’s true. You’re a goddamn faggot.”
I looked into my brother’s face and stared until I could see him clear. For a second, he was thirteen again and holding me while I cried at our parents’ funeral. Then he was in his Ranger uniform, holding me at the airport the day he came home for good. He was the one with tears in his eyes, exclaiming about how I’d grown. But I blinked, and now he was glaring at me like I made him sick to his stomach.
I didn’t look at Dane. Wouldn’t let myself. I pulled together all the courage I had, looked Jesse straight in the eye, and answered.
“The word is gay. You want to hit me for it, you have to wait a couple days.”
Jesse slammed his fist into the table. A cracking sound exploded in the air, but the table held together.
“All that time,” he huffed. “All that goddamn time I thought you were going to marry Sarah, and I loved her and did nothing.”
I watched my hands, gripped in my lap, as his volume increased.
“You lying, fucking faggot son of a bitch.”
Each horrible word hung in the air by itself until he spit out the next one. Then they all flew around the room together.
He jerked my arm hard, and I looked at him. I said nothing. Multiple emotions flashed across his face, until something like contempt settled in his eyes. He shoved me and let me go.
“You fucker. You are not my brother.” He stomped out, banging the door behind him.
Dane put a cup of coffee on the table and slipped my cell phone next to it. Then he followed after Jesse, closing the door quietly.
I stared at the new crack in my table and my blood on the phone and drank down the coffee.
WHEN I woke up again, it was past noon. Since no one had come looking for me, I figured Jesse made sure my chores were covered.
At three o’clock, my phone rang. It was Sarah. I let it go to voice mail. She called again at four and at six. I still didn’t answer.
No one came to my door. I turned on the TV, but nothing was loud enough to fill the sick empty feeling inside me.
IT WAS the middle of the night when my ribs woke me up. Falling asleep in an easy chair isn’t a smart thing to do when your ribs are still trying to find their proper places again.
I began thinking back on everything, replaying the bar scene and the fight a hundred times. Now I had smarter comebacks, and I threw a few more punches. Why hadn’t I managed that when it counted? I’d best them all next time. Then again, if I stayed in my house for the rest of my life, which was looking pretty appealing, I wouldn’t have to worry about next time.
What I couldn’t figure was why Dane hadn’t sneaked over to check on me.
His secret was still safe, I was sure. Neither Hanson nor his crew knew Dane well enough to recognize him that night in the meadow. And Jesse hadn’t figured it out, or Dane would be over here already because Jesse would have tossed him too.
Or did Jesse not mind that Dane was gay, but me being so was disgusting? Jesse had always looked up to Dane, and they were close as brothers, closer sometimes. Still, how could Jesse throw me over and not do the same to Dane?
And how could Dane allow it? Why didn’t he stand up for me?
The thoughts went round and round, making me feel like crap and keeping me awake, even though I tried to shoot them down like the yellow duck targets of that rifle game Jesse and Dane played at the fair in Billings.
And crap, but that had me thinking back on those first times Dane touched me, and how he touched me after that, until my head spun and my cock started up a conversation all its own and neither one would stop. I about cried when it occurred to me that it was all over now for sure.
I got up and made coffee and just wandered around my cabin drinking it and trying to shut myself up. I think I walked five miles by the time the sun came up, and I didn’t have any better thoughts. I was just more miserable.
I DRAGGED myself outside real early and took care of Hector, Hurricane, and Sugarpie. Turned them all out to pasture.
As I came out of the barn, Jesse was headed in my direction. When he saw me, he turned around and walked back into his house.
I sat in mine the rest of the day. I didn’t look at myself in a mirror. Didn’t look at much of anything.
But I finally came up with an idea about Dane. He wanted to stay in the closet, so he had to avoid me. Anybody associating with me would be tagged as gay or a sympathizer.
When I considered why I hadn’t heard from my aunt or uncle, my only thought was that they were ashamed but didn’t want to tell me. I wasn’t their son after all. Maybe I wasn’t even their nephew anymore. I was going to be another of those poor gay bastards who lost their family when their secret became known.
I didn’t let myself wonder too much whether my parents would be ashamed of me too. I’d always imagined that my mom, who I thought made over me a little bit more than she did over Jesse, did it because she knew the truth, even when I was little. I’d read that about moms. I thought it was maybe her way of trying to prop me up for what would come. I couldn’t handle thinking she might hate me too. It felt too much like digging my fingernails into a scabbed-over wound that had never really healed.
At last, I listened to Sarah’s voice mails. First one, she was worried. Second one, she wasn’t talking to Jesse anymore. Great. Another reason for my brother to hate me. There was no third message. I guess she’d finally given up.
I waited until dark before I went out again to take care of the horses. Then I came back and sat in my living room in the dark.
“DID YOU want to say something, or just stare at the poor queer?”
I don’t know how I became aware that Dane was standing in the hallway between the living room and bedroom. He hadn’t made a noise. I just felt him there.
“Wanted to make sure you were okay.”
“I am. But please don’t turn on a light and see for yourself.”
“Can I come in?”
“Seems strange to ask since you already are. In, I mean.”
“I’m sorry, Josh,” he said from the hallway. Guess he was going to stay there.
“Don’t be,” I told the darkness. “Your secret’s still safe, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I�
�m glad.” I really meant that. “How’s Jesse?”
Dane didn’t answer right away. “Madder. Sarah won’t talk to him.”
I wondered what he was leaving out. It was quiet a long time. “You still there?”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “I don’t know what to say, Josh. I don’t know what to do.”
“Nothing you can say or do. Just take care of yourself. You don’t want to be where I am.”
A minute later, though I never heard a sound, he settled his hand on my shoulder, and I let myself sink into it. It felt so good having somebody with me, somebody touching me.
“Get up.”
He was in front of me before I’d gotten out of the chair, smoothing his hands up and down my back real gentle to keep from hurting me.
He brushed his lips over mine, soft so as not to hurt.
I needed more. I pushed my tongue into his mouth, heading deep for his throat, and he let me. I grabbed his shirt and yanked it out of his pants. I needed him touching me everywhere.
But he gripped my hands and stopped me. I pulled my tongue back in my own mouth.
“Who’s in charge here?”
I pressed my forehead into his shoulder. “You are.”
“Lose the shirt and pants.”
I shuddered, but I stepped back and started to remove my shirt. He helped me some when I winced, and he helped me take off my boots and pants too. Then he walked away to sit on the couch.
“Come here.”
I moved to stand in front of him, and he ran his fingers lightly along my bruised ribs. His warmth seemed to heal every place he touched.
Without warning, he stopped moving his fingers and swallowed my cock. I rocked wildly, surprise making me nearly dizzy, and he grabbed my ass hard and tight. His tongue flicked across me fast and insistent, sliding and licking, while his mouth just kept up the suction. I closed my eyes and gave myself up to it, alternately gripping and petting his hair as he made me crazy.