by Tal Bauer
“Villegas.”
Mike’s frown turned into a scowl.
“You and Villegas not on the same page?”
“We’re not even in the same zip code.” Mike gave him a long glare. “Villegas and I are as different as two marshals can be. He wants to do his time and get out of the courts. He just wants to bang down doors and arrest the bad guys. He’s a cowboy.”
Villegas was definitely not as thorough as Mike was. Tom already knew that. Mike was perfect, professional, polished. Villegas treated most court cases like they were exercises in boredom he had to endure, and when a defendant got a little rowdy, it was like a switch got flipped and Villegas was suddenly the defendant’s worst nightmare, a prison warden and a drill sergeant combined. “Are you guys randomly assigned to cases?”
“Winters assigns them, usually. Unless we request something specific. I should have gotten that case, though. You’re my judge.”
There was no reason for him to feel like a flower opening to the sun, but Mike’s words had him blooming. A little ball of spring, right in his chest.
“Winters does like to move things around, though. In case we do have to switch long-term, or rotate out. We need to know all the judges’ personalities and styles.” He grinned, lopsided, at Tom. “Still. I’d rather handle your cases.”
I’d rather you handled me, too. He coughed. “Well, uh… You’re very good at your job. I like working with you.” He nearly faceplanted after he spoke. God, he could sound so incredibly dumb sometimes.
“Tell me about this case next week.” Mike, at least, seemed to take pity on him. Did he see right through Tom? Did he know exactly how ridiculous Tom truly was?
“It’s the trial for the getaway driver during a bank robbery. His friend went in to rob the bank with a fake gun, an unloaded airsoft. The guard didn’t think it looked fake and he killed the friend. The driver was charged with his murder since any death during the course of a felony can be pinned on all participants.”
“I remember this. It was in the papers about a year, year and half ago.”
“Yes, that’s the one. Finally going to trial.” Tom sighed. “His attorney thinks he can win juror sympathy. The defendant’s a young guy. Got a bad shake in life. But the evidence is rock solid, and I don’t think jury nullification or jury sympathy will play a factor. I’m still trying to convince the defense attorney to accept a plea. Otherwise, he could be looking at the death penalty.”
“I hope you get him to change his mind.”
Nodding, Tom opened his mouth, ready to reply, but froze.
A rainbow stretched across the plastic pyramid. A burst of rainbow, running across the length of the advertisement, a brilliant banner. White puffy letters marched across the top, capital letters screaming at him: Pride Celebration Month, Washington DC.
It was June. Mid-June, to be precise, the middle of Pride Month. He blinked, staring down at the rainbow in his hands.
There was a march in two weeks, at the end of the month. Festivities and fun, the advertisement promised, and in solidarity with pride marches around the nation.
And, this weekend—Jesus, tomorrow—there was a pride celebration on the National Mall. “Come out and party! Celebrate your fabulous life!”
Celebrate your life. A gay life, celebrate a gay life. The thought was almost brain-breaking. Nothing, not a single thing, in his entire life had been worth a celebration. Not watching as his own people got sick, chained themselves in lines and to doors, begging for someone, anyone, to help, for them not to be sentenced to death by indifference. Not growing up in fear, terrified that he was destined to join them, one of a long line of coffins buried in the night, forgotten and ignored by history, his existence a passing thought to a footnote of hatred. Not listening to snide remarks and under-the-breath comments, or shouted slurs and thrown beer bottles. Six blocks away, as an undergrad, he’d run from the police one night after they raided the bar he was at. Across town, he and Peter had been chased by a group of men with baseball bats. They were shouting that they were “dirty faggots” and they were going to get what they deserved—
“Here you go.” The perky blonde waitress was back, sliding their drinks across the table. Mike’s had an extra napkin, folded and slipped alongside the whiskey glass. Her number, for sure.
“Thanks.” Mike flashed his million-watt grin at her. She batted her eyelashes, looked him up and down, and then slowly smiled. If Tom had been into women, he’d have thought she was sultry. Seductive.
But he wasn’t into women, and that was the problem.
“You all right?” Mike’s hand landed on his arm, and even through his suit, through the layers of fabric that he wore like armor against the world, he felt Mike’s warmth, the essence of him. His toes curled.
“I’m good!” Breathless, again, Tom set the plastic pyramid back on the high top, carefully straightening it so the rainbow and the advertisement about DC Pride and the weekend schedule was turned away from him. He grabbed his margarita—worryingly, it was white, not lime-green—and downed a healthy swallow. Oh, right. He’d gotten the coconut one this time. “Enough about work.” He turned to Mike, plastering a smile to his face, and raised his glass.
Mike met him, clinking his whiskey against his overlarge Martini glass with a small smile.
His insides were spaghetti and his knees were Jell-O. He took another deep swallow, staring at Mike the whole time. God, Mike was so suave, so cool. Even after a day at the office, he still looked like a model. No wonder the waitress slipped him her number. Mike hadn’t once looked at it, but come on. That had to be a weekly thing for him. He probably beat women and men off him, used a firehose to keep them at bay.
“Tell me about you, Mike. What do you do, outside of the office?”
Mike’s eyebrows shot straight up as he sipped his whiskey. He set the glass down and batted it back and forth, slow, deliberate slides across the high top. “I’m kind of a workaholic,” he said, ducking his head.
Tom raised his margarita, a silent cheers.
“It was a problem with my ex. But I like my job. I like being a JSI.” Mike grinned at him, and then took another sip of his whiskey. “I’m on a local sand volleyball team. My friend, Kris, and I play doubles, and we’re part of a bigger team that plays a bunch of other local teams.”
“Sand volleyball? Where do you play?”
“The courts by the Lincoln Memorial, by the Rock Creek Park trails. Right on the river, near the Tidal Basin.”
“Oh, cool. Never been out to those.” Visions danced in his head, Mike diving for a volleyball, leaping, lunging, landing in the sand. Suntanned skin, shirtless, sweat beading on his shoulders. Sunglasses and a ball cap, and his face, concentrating on the serve—
“It’s awesome. Great court, and my friends and I have a lot of fun playing.” Mike shrugged. “I work out—”
Tom’s mouth got away from him. “I could tell.” Mike flushed crimson, and he chuckled into his whiskey glass as Tom tried to restart his stuttering heart, tried to hide the horrified terror blazing through him. “Where, uh, do you work out?”
“Little gym by where I live in Logan Circle.” Mike jerked his chin to Tom. “What about you? You must do something. You’re the fittest judge on the eastern seaboard.”
It was Tom’s turn to flush and stare into the swirls of his margarita. “I swim at the judicial plaza gym. Three times a week in the morning.”
“Swimmer, huh?” Mike sat back, appraising him. “I can see that.”
He wasn’t going to live through this margarita. Asking Mike out was a bad idea. He couldn’t control himself. Forty-six-years-old, and he was helpless, hopeless in the face of Mike’s smile and his teasing humor. He preened, pushing out his chest a bit, straightening his shoulders. “I do what I can.” He smoothed his tie.
Mike smiled slowly and opened his mouth.
A blaring cell phone ring stopped short whatever he was going to say. Wincing, Mike reached into his suit jacket and pul
led out his phone. He cursed as soon as he saw the screen. “Shit.”
“Your ex?”
“No. I’m late. I totally forgot I had this… thing.” Mike swiped his screen and answered the call.
Oh. Well, tonight might be the night his dreams were crushed. Of course Mike had a new boyfriend. Of course he had someone he was supposed to see. Friday night, and Mike was hanging out with Tom? No, he had a far better place to be. Of course.
Tom sat, suspended between dread and hope, trying not to eavesdrop on the call, trying not to watch Mike out of the corner of his eye as he scraped the bottom of his margarita with his tiny black straw.
“Yeah, I know, I know. I’m sorry.” Mike patted his pockets as if he was looking for something. He slid off the barstool. “I’m out with a coworker. I lost track of time.” Silence. “Yeah, I’m on my way now. Yeah. You too.”
Tom could fill in the missing gaps on his own. He poked at the melted ice, slush in the bottom of his glass.
“I’m sorry, Judge B. I totally forgot about this other thing I’m supposed to be at right now.”
“It’s all right.” He smiled. It felt forced. Hell, it was forced, but he hoped he looked better than he felt.
Mike dug into his pockets and pulled out his wallet.
“No, no, this is on me. You paid last time.” Tom shook his head. “Go. I’ll take care of the check. You don’t want to keep them waiting any longer.”
Smiling, Mike nodded. “I appreciate that. I’m sorry to cut this short. We’ll have to do this again, Judge B.”
“Yeah.” He tried to muster his enthusiasm. Tried to sound excited.
But all he wanted to do was go home. Complain to Etta Mae. Wallow in self-pity for a while.
Mike shot him a final grin and strode out of the bar. He didn’t look back.
The waitress appeared as if she’d been watching Mike and had tried to get there before he scooted out. “Your friend leave?” She frowned and grabbed their glasses, and then spotted the folded napkin she’d left for Mike. It was untouched, right where she’d slid it.
“He has a date tonight.”
She pursed her lips and sighed, blowing air out of her pert nose. With a twirl, she walked away, ponytail swinging. She didn’t ask Tom if he wanted another drink. Just as well.
He tossed a fifty on the high top and grabbed his briefcase. Time to go lick his wounds in private. This wasn’t anything other than what he knew was going to happen. He’d known it would be like this. He’d only ever nurtured his fantasies in a vacuum, a pretend make-believe of his desires amid his delirium.
Mike would always be the man who kick-started his midlife crisis, though. If it ended well, he’d be thankful.
If he crashed and burned…
Well, he only had himself to blame.
Chapter 9
“Yes, yes, I know you do not like it here.” Vadim Kryukov sucked down his cigarette and rolled his eyes. The voice on the other end of the phone kept bitching, whining about the heat, the humidity, the bugs. It was never this hot in Moscow, never.
“Look, it is only for a little while longer, yes? Until we finish. Then you can go home.” Vadim spotted his date striding up the sidewalk. He needed to end this conversation. “Look, I will give you something to make you feel better, yes? I will give you something special.”
The voice grumbled, snapping his displeasure about America and Americans, and everything he was forced to endure.
“Is not much longer. I promise.” Vadim waved to his date. His date smiled and waited, coy and eyeing him up and down. The promise of a long, breathless, glorious night lay in that gaze. He was done with this conversation. “I will be in touch. You know what to do until then.”
A Russian curse and a snap, and then the line cut out.
Vadim slipped the phone in his back pocket and headed for his date. “Hello, gorgeous. Are you ready for a great time? I have everything we need to play all night long.” A little cocaine, some poppers, booze, and smokes. They’d watch the sun rise as his date fucked him again.
“I can’t wait,” his date purred, voice low and husky.
Vadim smiled slowly. “What are we waiting for?”
Chapter 10
June 13th
Tom straightened his polo, trying to smooth the pale blue fabric. He turned left and then right, inspecting his khaki shorts, the lay of his shirt. How did his ass look? He’d tried to keep it tight over the years. Were the shorts too baggy? Did he look good? Or old? Or did he just look pathetic?
He didn’t have anything hip to wear, and he’d feel stupid if he tried anyway. He couldn’t even imagine trying to put on a pair of skinny jeans or squeeze his way into a metallic shirt. He had his normal—boring—straight leg jeans, his button-downs, his polos, and his khaki shorts.
He was a regular fashion model for the forgettable mid-forties guy, blending into obscurity.
Tipping his head back, Tom sighed, closing his eyes. Why was he doing this? Why was he even trying? Twenty-five years of solitude, and he’d been… well, not fine. Not great. But not terrible. He’d done twenty-five years of this life already. What was another twenty-five?
He didn’t have to tiptoe out of his closet. He didn’t have to change anything.
His empty house seemed to swell around him, silent, eerily so. It felt, suddenly, like a tomb. His coffin, an empty crypt to his empty life. He was going to die in this house one day, and no one would know. Someone, eventually, would complain about the smell, and the last anyone would hear about him was some local headline buried on page seven about a former federal judge dying and decaying alone until he putrefied on his floors.
His bones would be buried and no one would ever know him, truly know him.
He was going to die in this house, and that day would come sooner rather than later if he had to endure this aching loneliness for another twenty-five years. He should never have fantasized. Never let loose the shackles on his dreams. Never tasted hope, or imagined what could have been.
But he had and now he had to make a choice: keep going, keep tiptoeing out, or turn around and slam that closet door shut again.
He took a breath, and then another.
“Etta Mae! Are you ready to go for a walk?”
From fast asleep, lying on her back with her four paws spread wide and limp, Etta Mae leaped to her feet, spinning until she found him. She stared him down, as if challenging whether he was serious or not, while her tail wagged and wagged.
“C’mon. Let’s go get your harness.”
Howling, she took off, bounding down the stairs, her fluffy butt wiggling and tail held high. He heard her paws scratching at the wall below where he kept her leash and harness on a hook. If she could have, she’d have readied herself.
“I’m coming, missy.” He wrangled her into her harness—always a challenge when she was wiggling and excited—and then clipped her leash on. She bolted for the door, unspooling the retractable leash as he slipped into his low-tops. Etta Mae stuck her long nose into the seam of the door and sniffed, exhaling out in long snorts, as if she was counting the seconds he was delaying her by not opening the door immediately.
Finally, they were out, setting off. Etta Mae trotted ahead, wagging her tail, nose high, sniffing the scents of the city. He followed behind, steering her gently toward the National Mall.
Celebrate your fabulous life, the advertisement had said. Come out and party!
He needed to do this. He needed to take this step, at the very least. Be among his people. Be in solidarity with himself. Walk in the sunlight as a gay man—if only to himself—for once in his adult life.
Maybe after, he’d message Doug again. See if he wanted to grab a glass of wine at one of the patio bars. Or take a walk through the monuments, circle the World War II Memorial, or walk up the hill to the Washington Monument. See if they could keep their banter going in person. See if he could be a gay man with another gay man.
But first things first. He had to get there.<
br />
What did a celebration of gay life look like? He didn’t even know. He’d carefully excised everything gay from his world, purposely shuttered his eyes and his heart. His last encounter with any of his own people was back in 1991. The memories were still washed in hate, and, to this day, he could taste the tears and cigarette smoke, the future that felt like ash and decay.
He was walking into the unknown, but damn it, he was going to do this.
He could hear the celebration before he got close. Drums, street drums, plastic buckets turned upside down. Music, club pop and pop hits. Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, all waxing and waning, voices twining together and pulsing to a thrumming bass, far away. He turned east on Constitution Ave and passed the Ellipse, and then ducked onto the hill, jogging with Etta Mae up the grass to the rise around the Washington Monument.
And then, he saw it.
Spread before him, below him, stretched the National Mall. The green space of Washington DC, home to monuments, museums, and the city’s picnics, festivals, and parties.
And now, home to DC Pride, the celebration of their lives.
A rainbow arch of balloons rose over the entrance to the National Mall at the base of the hill. They fluttered and floated in the breeze, stretching for the sky, fifteen feet tall. Bright, brilliant colors, a bold statement, a declaration. His breath hitched.
Rainbow flags were staked into the ground along the edges of the Mall, flapping proudly, another vivid declaration. As far as he could see, all the way to the U.S. Capitol, rainbows waved and shimmered, the colors of his people, proudly flown for all to see.
The Mall was busy. Flamboyant dancers spun and twirled in one corner of the lawn, near the National Museum of American History. Farther down the grass, by the Smithsonian Castle, a drum circle beat out a fast and furious rhythm. At the far end of the Mall, by the National Gallery of Art and silhouetted in front of the Capitol, a stage had been set up. Rainbow balloons billowed overhead and banners flapped as music poured from the speakers. Even from where he stood, he could still hear the music, the songs, floating on the breeze.