by Gregory Ashe
PRETTY PRETTY BOYS
GREGORY ASHE
COPYRIGHT 2017
EMERY HAZARD WOKE UP in his motel room at dawn. Mostly, this was due to the light clawing in through the curtains. The curtains had probably been hung around the time of Hoover and had dissolved into a thin gray scrim. The Bridal Veil Motor Court—a dilapidated art deco motel, complete with glass block windows and a streamlined look that might have been modern a hundred years ago—didn’t offer coffee, but Hazard didn’t need any. Awareness socked him on the jaw as soon as his eyes came open, the way it had every day for the last week. Every day since he’d been booted from his job and his home and sent, like a whipped dog, to the middle of nowhere: more specifically, to Wahredua, Missouri.
And, as he had every morning for the last week, Hazard lay wide-eyed and fought his way to clear thinking. This was not a nightmare. This was not a mistake. This was today, and it was going to be the rest of his life. He got to his feet because he’d realized things were better when he was up and moving. It kept him from thinking too much. The carpet, flat and greasy underfoot, helped too. Even in his nightmares, he’d never imagined carpet this awful.
No, Hazard told himself as he padded to the window and twitched back the papery curtain, he didn’t need coffee. The day-to-day stuff, the reality of being back in Wahredua, that had more jolt behind it than a box of NoDoz. The air conditioner by his knees chugged and whirled out a half-hearted chill that smelled like the inside of a gym bag. Sunlight fell on his chest in hot, angry fingers; it was October, but it was still blazing—and sticky—in this part of the world. Between the slashes of sunlight, the glass mirrored the old scar carved just below his breastbone: three short, shiny lines that might have been a C, or the beginnings of an E or 6 or a G. Outside the window, with his view from the second story of the Bridal Veil Motor Court, Hazard saw Wahredua. It hadn’t changed. That was the first new disappointment in a week. He’d arrived last night, tired and beaten, and he’d crawled into bed with the promise that maybe, somehow, this cramped Ozark town had turned into something else overnight. But it hadn’t.
Wahredua itself was a low sprawl of brick and concrete and the occasional glimmer of steel, built on a stretch of water known—a bit grandiosely—as the Grand Rivere, and sprawled out like a three-day drunk. The MP rail lines curved on the other side of town, an iron girdle for the sagging cityscape. Missouri Pacific hadn’t run the lines in a century, but they were still called the MP lines no matter how many times they changed hands. The sparkle of glass and a swath of green boulevard marked Warhedua’s downtown, which consisted of approximately three miles of the state highway where the speed limit dropped to thirty. And there, pinned to the horizon against the backdrop of red leaves, the smokestacks of the Tegula plant still shot three white columns into the air—rigid, blocky clouds. They felt like the exclamation points at the end of a bad joke. At the end of this bad joke, Hazard thought—this bad joke of him back in Wahredua. Well, he thought. Fuck me.
He dressed for his new job: suit pants, shoulder holster, jacket. Being a detective for Wahredua PD meant—well, he wasn’t sure. What kind of work was it? Finding stolen cows? Picking up run-away kids? Running off tramps? Helping Mrs. Gorse fend off her neighbor’s chickens? St. Louis wasn’t much of a city, but it had a certain grit, a kind of rugged insistence on itself, and more importantly, it had crime. The kind of crime that had drawn Hazard to law enforcement. Assault, rape, murder. His chance to make a broken world better—even if he could only do it after something worse had already happened. Jesus Christ, Hazard thought. In Wahredua, he’d spend forty years on the force and be lucky if he did as much as give a speeding ticket.
But, Hazard thought as he pulled his black tie tight and checked himself in the mirror, he was going to do this job. He was going to do the hell out of it. He had come back here for a reason; maybe to everyone else—to Billy, to their friends, to the cops that Hazard had left behind—it looked like Hazard was crawling back home because he didn’t have any other options. But the truth was that Hazard could have gone somewhere else—a hundred other places if he’d put his mind to it. He hadn’t, though. He’d come back to Wahredua because some sort of internal clock had ticked all the way around, and both of the hands were lined up at midnight, and Hazard knew it was time. It was time to go back home, time to find answers to hard questions, time to know the truth about what had happened to Jeff Langham. And once Hazard had those answers—once the clock started ticking again, in a year or five—and once the shit settled down in St. Louis, he’d go back. Or if it didn’t settle down, there were a lot of places he could go. Chicago. New York. LA. Hell, they needed cops in San Francisco, right? And Billy loved San Francisco. But first, Emery Hazard was going to find the truth about that night when Jeff Langham had put a pistol in his mouth.
As though on cue, Hazard’s cell phone rang, interrupting his thoughts, and Billy’s name flashed on the screen.
“You’re up early,” Hazard said.
“I can’t sleep without you. The bed’s cold.”
“Bullshit. You’ve been up all night. You never went to bed after the show.”
Billy laughed. “Maybe. But the bed is cold.”
“How’d it go?”
“It was a smash.”
“Of course it was.”
“Hey, Tom’s getting everyone together for breakfast, so I’ve got to run in a minute. I wanted to wish you good luck.”
“Thanks.”
“Have they tried burning you at the stake already?”
“No angry villagers yet.”
“Geez,” Billy said, “what’s a faggot got to do to get himself killed?”
“Probably just show up for work.”
“I was kidding. They’re going to love you. You’ll turn that cow-town upside down. A big-city detective with a string of awesome cases—you’ll have them eating out of your hand.”
“That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve heard today.”
“Well, it’s still early. Em, they really are going to love you. Times are different. You’re different.”
“Yeah. You’d better go.”
“Tom can wait. You sound upset, and you—”
“Tom will be drunk off his ass on mimosas if you don’t hurry.”
Billy sighed, and the sound was so familiar, so irritating and, at the same time, oddly comforting—a small piece of the life Hazard had left behind, albeit one that made him want to grind his teeth.
“I’ll be down in a couple weeks, as soon as the show closes. You’ll be settled. You can show me all your favorite childhood places. Introduce your colleagues to your gay-wad boyfriend. It’s going to be great.” Billy’s voice muffled as he spoke to someone nearby, and then it came back. “Tom says hi.”
Hazard grunted; he didn’t have any favorite childhood places. His favorite place in Wahredua had always been the state highway out of town. He had a feeling that wasn’t going to change anytime soon.
“Tell Tom I don’t appreciate him taking my boyfriend out to breakfast.”
Billy just laughed. “Text me and let me know how it goes. Even if it’s a complete trainwreck. Especially if it’s a complete trainwreck.”
“I wasn’t joking about Tom. Tell him to back off.”
With another of his dramatic sighs, Billy said, “Bye, Em.” The call disconnected, and Hazard was left staring at the phone’s blank screen. Tom-fucking-Gerard. He’d already started, and Hazard hadn’t been gone for a week. Ladies and gentlemen, some respect for the dead, please.
Hazard gave his tie one last jerk to straighten it and left the motor court. He got coffee at the local Casey’s. Wahredua, as far as Hazard remembered, didn’t have a Starbucks. It had a bakery, and it had been a goo
d one, but the bakery had belonged to Bab Grames, mother of Michael Grames, the biggest bully in Wahredua from third to twelfth grade—and, for all Hazard knew, into the present. He didn’t look forward to crossing paths with Grames or with anyone else from that part of his life; the Casey’s convenience store seemed like a safer bet.
Except, of course, that it wasn’t, because Michael Grames was working the cash register. Hazard’s instincts kept him moving; he’d survived this long by being able to shrug off surprise, by being able to walk and talk and act like everything was normal even when someone had just dumped a bucket of shit onto the table. That’s what this felt like, a steaming bucketful slopped right in front of Hazard—but he kept moving, past the register with its racks of Juicy Fruit and Orbit and Sour Patch Kids, past the plastic-sealed stands of Marlboro and Virginia Slims and Lucky Strikes, past the Slushee machines—Coke, Cherry, and something called Hawaii Explosion—until he reached the coffee. God, he really needed coffee.
He snagged two donuts from the case and then he couldn’t put it off any longer: he had to look at Mikey Grames. It had been fifteen years since Hazard had seen Grames, and it looked like Grames had spent those fifteen years sliding down the gravelly slope of hard alcohol, hard drugs, and probably hard women. It had chewed his ass to pulp. Grames’s eyes were bloodshot and baggy, his face had that sallow puffiness Hazard associated with alcoholics, and his hands trembled as he rang up the coffee and donuts.
It was still Mikey, though. Christ, his name tag even said Mikey. But it was his face that had shocked Hazard like he’d grabbed a live wire that ran back fifteen years. Even under the unhealthy flush and the pocked, scarred skin, it was still the face of a man who got off on being nasty—and the nastier the better. It took everything in Hazard not to reach up and brush the scar on his chest. Three short, shiny lines that were the start of a G—G for Grames. Mikey Grames’s cronies—back then, it had been Hugo Perry and John-Henry Somerset—had held Hazard’s arms while Grames carved those lines with a Swiss Army knife. Then Hugo Perry had gone all cottage cheese, his face white and lumpy, and he’d broke and run, and that had spoiled the game for Grames and Somerset, and they’d left Hazard bleeding and shirtless at the edge of the clay pits. And that hadn’t been all of it. That had only been the start. That summer, when they’d really got going, when they’d gone after Jeff—
“Three-seventy-nine,” Grames said with a cursory glance at Hazard.
Hazard threw a five on the counter, grabbed his coffee and the donuts, and started for the door.
“Hey, mister—”
Jeff Langham. Hazard felt like he was vibrating, buzzing from trying to trap something inside. He didn’t look back. He was aware that he was gripping the coffee too tightly, aware that the lid was about to pop off and spray scalding coffee everywhere, aware that he’d already pinched one of the donuts in half. But all of that was happening second-hand. What was happening first-hand was that dull, cheap Swiss Army knife digging into his skin. What was happening first-hand was the unmistakable desire to go back into the Casey’s and crack Mikey Grimes’s head open. Just crack it open. Bang, bang, bang on the edge of that laminate countertop until the skull split. It’d be like dropping a ripe cantaloupe. Easy—
The lid slipped, and hot coffee sloshed over his hand. Swearing, Hazard set the cup and the donuts on top of his car, shaking out his hand and spraying drops of coffee across the crisp, blue check shirt Billy had bought him before he left. Screw this, Hazard wanted to say. Screw it. He could be a security guard. Hell, he could go back to school. Be a lawyer, a doctor, be whatever the hell he wanted. He could be anything anywhere—and he wouldn’t have to be trapped in the middle of nowhere.
Stubbornness, though, made him cap the coffee and climb into the car. He ate the fragmented donut first. He was a detective. He was a goddamn good detective. And he wasn’t going to throw it all away because things had gone sideways. He was going to stick it out. He was going to do his time. And when the shit had settled, he was going to get out there, get a real job. San Francisco. Billy loved the hell out of San Francisco, and he could get into real theater, not the two-bit stuff in St. Louis.
And, Hazard thought, savagely chewing the last of the second donut, while he was in Wahredua, he was going to make the most of his time. Hazard’s hand drifted to the blue check shirt, tracing those short, sharp lines on his chest. While he was here, he was going to catch up with some old friends. It wasn’t really any surprise that Grames had drifted into a dead-end life of drugs and alcohol. What had happened to Hugo Perry and John-Henry Somerset? Probably the same. Worse, Hazard hoped. Grames had carved up Hazard’s chest. John-Henry Somerset had named him faggot in front of the whole school. Yeah, Hazard hoped a hell of a lot worse had happened to John-Henry.
The Wahredua PD occupied a building that had originally been a Catholic school. The structure had the grim severity associated with those kinds of schools in the public mind: sharp lines of red brick with cramped windows and dark glass. When the city had taken over the building, it had removed as much of the religious iconography as it could: carved angels and saints and gargoyles had been torn down. Hazard remembered; he’d been maybe twelve when it happened, and he’d watched the workmen hammering and chiseling and smashing with no regard for the artisanry they were destroying.
All of that had ended, though, when Mary Wilke—the only woman on the entire crew—had fallen from the scaffolding and broken her ankle. The city had decided that enough was enough, and the spurt of iconoclasm stopped early. The decorative stonework above the door still held a bedraggled angel, who had lost half of his face to a chisel, and a devil. The angel was trying to spear the devil, but in the demolition, the spear had been broken, and now it just looked like the angel was pointing at the devil with a yardstick. The devil was having a hell of a laugh about the situation, and the whole thing seemed pretty damn fitting for Wahredua PD. Even God knew they were a joke.
Hazard parked at the back of the lot, away from the row of shiny Chevy Impalas that looked freshly painted with the Wahredua PD design, and chugged the last of his coffee. It was going to be rough. No, it was going to be a bitch. But he had to go in there. The first day was going to be the worst, and then it would get better. It had to get better.
When he entered the station, a blast of cool air met him. The building smelled like fresh linoleum, a rubbery kind of smell, and coffee and an institutional, office-like smell that made Hazard think of freshly sharpened pencils. Graphite, that’s what it was. He stood in a small waiting area where a duty officer sat behind a desk.
“Can I help you?” The man had to have been almost eighty, and he had nose hairs growing down to his chin. He must have been on the force when Hazard was a boy, but Hazard didn’t remember him. His badge looked like someone had dug it out of the Ark of the Covenant—probably from somewhere near the bottom—and it read J. Murray.
“Emery Hazard. I’m new, starting today.”
The old man’s head bobbled, sending his nose hairs trembling, and then he jerked a thumb. “Straight back, chief’s office. She’s waiting for you.”
Hazard nodded and made his way along the hallway. He passed the bullpen, where classrooms had been knocked down to create a large, open workspace. At least a dozen desks filled the space, and copiers and fax machines and filing cabinets had been jammed into any remaining available space. A handful of men and women in uniform worked quietly; the rest, Hazard guessed, were either off duty or out on patrol.
The chief’s office was clearly marked at the back of the bullpen, with Martha Cravens, Chief of Police printed in block letters across the glass. The office, though, had once served another purpose; on the frame above the door, relatively lighter wood showed where painted letters had once stood, and Hazard could read what they had once said: Mother Superior. That probably wasn’t far from the truth.
After his knock, a voice called for him to enter. Hazard stepped into the spacious office. His eyes took in the large, glass-t
opped desk, the modern computer equipment, the city map on the wall with red and blue push-pins, and the woman behind the desk. Martha Cravens had been a familiar figure in Hazard’s boyhood, the only woman on Wahredua’s police force. But it wasn’t Martha Cravens who occupied Hazard’s attention. For the second time that day, he grabbed onto that live wire from the past, but this time he was galvanized, unable to move or blink or breathe.
Sitting in front of Cravens’s desk, he was blond and well-built and very, very good-looking. The kind of good-looking that stops traffic for about a mile in every direction. His blue eyes crinkled with amusement, and he grinned as he rose, stretching out a hand. Hazard couldn’t move, couldn’t blink, couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t have grabbed that man’s hand if the earth dropped out from under him. He could barely hear Cravens talking.
“. . . happy to have you, Mr. Hazard. And this is your new partner. You went to school together, I think. Do you remember—”
“John-Henry,” Hazard managed to say. John-Henry Somerset who had pushed him down the only flight of stairs in Wahredua High and said that’s what faggots get.
John-Henry’s smile wavered, as though he had glimpsed something uncertain in Hazard’s expression, but then it firmed up again. He lunged forward, seizing Hazard’s hand and shaking it vigorously, like they were buddies in a 1950s sitcom, buddies catching up after a long time apart.
“Hey, Emery. Great to see you again, man.”
JOHN-HENRY SOMERSET, who had gone by Somers since his first day at Mizzou, gave Emery Hazard’s hand one last shake. Somers waited for something—a smile, a nod, a blink. Hazard looked like he’d swallowed a frog, or maybe a stick of dynamite. He was breathing funny, and his face had gone pale and shiny. Somers was starting to think that Hazard was having a stroke.
“You all right?” Somers said.
With a curious shake of his head that might have meant either no or yes, Hazard pulled back from Somers’s grip and turned his attention to Cravens. Somers settled back into his chair to watch; you could learn a lot just by watching, and so he paid attention to Hazard as Cravens went through introductions.