Country

by Jeff Mann

  Larry nodded. “I can understand that. Your assailants are still in prison?”

  “Yes. All four of them. Ironically, in the same penitentiary where Lucas spent time. We’re damn lucky we had the sympathetic judges and juries that we did. Justice for once.”

  “Moving on to more positive topics, there have been lots of good things going on with you too, right? I’ve heard a few tidbits through the grapevine.”

  “You mean the occasional sidebar in the Star? Yeah, lots of good things. Lucas started the Forest Management program here at WVU in the fall of 1999. It’s going to take him longer than four years, ‘cause he’s working a full-time job in a local greenhouse to earn his living expenses, but his uncle’s paying his tuition, thank God. He should graduate in a couple of years.”

  “So you two have been living apart since 1999?”

  “Yeah. We’ve adjusted. We’re both good at being alone, and the time apart makes our time together even more precious. We take turns on the weekends: he drives down to Randolph County, or I drive up here. He’s been staying at a little place his uncle owns on Cheat Lake.”

  “The Star had a big, oh-so-shocking article about your commitment ceremony. Tell me about that.”

  Brice grinned. “Oh-so-shocking, yes. We had the ceremony last summer by the sea at Rehoboth Beach. Super informal: we were dressed in swim trunks, tank tops, and ball caps. A crowd of gays and lesbians we hardly knew stood around and cheered us. We held the reception in a gay bar, with cases of champagne and a whole bunch of fancy hors d’oeuvres our friend Amie made.”

  “So what happens when Lucas graduates?”

  Brice took a sip of coffee and smiled. “Then he moves back to Randolph County to live with me and hopefully work at the state forest nearby. He jokes a lot about moving from felony to forestry.”

  “Tell me about the retreat.”

  “Lucas’s Uncle Phil owns it. He retired to Florida a few years back, but he asked me to run it and expand it.”

  “How’s it funded?”

  “We’ve gotten some grants and a bunch of folks have donated, though most of the funding is Phil’s. Off the record, Larry, I’m not exactly well-off. My investments haven’t been all that successful, though I’m still getting residual checks.” Brice chewed his lip and looked down into his empty cup. “I teach guitar to WVU students when I’m up here on the weekends. Luckily, a lot of them think it’s cool to have a former celebrity as an instructor. Plus I work part-time at a store called Radclyffe’s Roost, down the hill from the Randolph County retreat. I could certainly do with some of that Nashville dough I used to make, but at least now I’m living an honest life.”

  “Honesty has its price, I know. So who stays at your retreat?”

  “Now that queer newspapers have publicized us, we’ve had gay and lesbian kids from all over the nation. Just about all of them have been turned out by their families. Right now, we have three boys—one from Missouri, one from Wayne County, one from Florida—and three girls—one from Cincinnati, one from Fayette County, and one from Pennsylvania.”

  “On to your music. You have a concert tonight at the Mountainlair, WVU’s student union, the first concert you’ve given since 1997. I’m looking forward to it. I really appreciate the invitation to attend. Tell me about your new songs. What inspired them?”

  Brice rubbed his hands and sat back. “Before I was outed by that interview Zac Lanier gave, I hadn’t written a song in around a year. I didn’t feel free to write about the truth, and so I’d just stopped writing at all. But as soon as Lucas and I started to get close, new tunes started pouring out of me. I have a whole bunch of ‘em now. I guess they’re kind of revolutionary: country songs with openly gay lyrics. And thanks to iTunes, online music, and my webpage, I have a new generation of fans. I’m pretty sure I’ll never get to release a hard-copy CD again, at least not one supported by a big Nashville label, but who knows? This iPod thing looks like it’s up and coming.”

  “So who are your new fans?”

  “I get a pretty regular series of supportive notes from ‘em, both hard-copy and e-mail, so from what I can tell, they’re liberal folks into country music. Or they’re gays and lesbians, many of ‘em who live in small towns, in Appalachia, in the South, or they’re city queers who grew up in the country.”

  Brice took another sip of coffee and gazed at a patch of sunlight on the floor.

  “Those letters, those fans, mean the world to me. They mean, I guess, that what talent I have hasn’t gone to waste. It’s wonderful to have an audience again. It may be a small one, but it’s sure appreciative and enthusiastic.”

  “Good to hear. Anything else you’d like to add?”

  “Naw. Just give your readers—if you can get the piece published—the address where they can send donations to the retreat. Some of those scrawny little queer kids have ferocious appetites.”

  BRICE STOOD IN THE BACK of the Mountainlair’s Gluck Theater, greeting folks as they entered. Most were strangers, except for Grace, Amie, Doris Ann, and Philip—who gave him their customary hugs—plus journalist Larry Johnson and Travis Ferrell, the kid whose advice had proven to be such a life-transforming boon. Matt Taylor and his brooding, black-bearded new boyfriend, Derek, also attended, having driven up from Charleston for the concert. Many audience members, Brice surmised, were members of the sponsoring organization, WVU’s LGBT student group. They all sat near the front, around an animated Travis.

  “Brice!”

  Brice turned to see Jason Mullins, the organizer of the event, hurrying over to him, face furrowed with concern.

  “Brice, did you get my messages?”

  “No, sorry. Lucas and I gobbled some burritos at Wings Olé and took a long hike up at Cooper’s Rock, so I haven’t been on the computer, and I’ve had my phone turned off. We just got back to town. What’s up?”

  Jason wrung his hands. “You’re not going to believe this, but about two hours ago I got hate mail about this event. A death threat, actually.”

  Brice grimaced. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

  “I wish I were.” Jason pulled a paper from his back pocket. “Someone stuck this note under my office door, right across the hall.”

  Brice unfolded it and read it out loud. “‘Brice Brown is the Beast. I will execute the Beast and throw him into the Lake of Fire.’ Ohhhh, hell.”

  “Anonymous, of course. I called the campus cops, and they said they’d get back to me, but they haven’t. They haven’t sent an officer over either.”

  Brice scanned the room. “No one looks suspicious, but who knows? Shooters don’t come with convenient labels on their foreheads, right?”

  “So what should we do? Are you still going to go on? We’re due to start in ten minutes.”

  Brice pondered. All these folks have been kind enough to come tonight to hear my music. They might be in danger, and they don’t even know it. If I’m up on the stage, I’m a sitting duck. If there’s a shooter here, I’m likely to take a bullet in the head or the chest. Up there, I sure as hell won’t be in any position to protect anyone. Shit. But if I cancel, I’m a coward. I will have been silenced again. Another queer will have turned tail and run off. Screw that. What’s the likelihood of anything happening, really?

  “Yes, I’m going on,” Brice said. “You bet your ass I am.”

  Turning, he headed down the aisle toward Lucas, who was chatting happily with Amie in the second row. “Hey, honey,” Brice asked, “can I talk to you?”

  “Sure, buddy,” Lucas said, face gleaming. “Your big night, huh?”

  “Yeah. Come on over here. Now listen—”

  “Brice Brown!”

  Brice looked up the aisle and caught his breath. Wayne Meador and a good-looking redhead, both nattily dressed, were striding down the aisle toward them.

  “I guess you showed all the assholes, didn’t you?” Wayne said, seizing Brice in a big hug. “I knew you’d have a career again.”

  “My God. You ca
me? All the way from North Carolina?”

  “Ah, we broke it up with a visit with Roy in Hinton. The ole bastard’s hanging on. Too mean to die, I figure. Brice, this here’s Gail, my wife.”

  Brice took her hand. “Nice to meet you. I gather that you finally tamed this ole dog.”

  Gail looked amused. “Tamed? Not sure about that. Who wants a tame man anyway?”

  “True enough.” Brice rubbed his whiskered jaw. “I couldn’t agree more. Gimme a man with a little warrior, a little wild in him, right? Speaking of which, this is my partner, Lucas Bryan.”

  Lucas shook their hands. “It’s great that you could come. Brice has talked about y’all a lot.”

  “Let me introduce you two to my Randolph County friends,” Brice said, leading them down the aisle. “After that, Gail, if you’ll give us a minute, I need to chair an important little guy-chat before this concert begins.”

  “SO HERE YOU GO, FOLKS,” said Jason Mullins. “The revolutionary, one-of-a-kind Brice Brown!”

  Carrying his old Yamaha, Brice strode onto the stage to the achingly welcome sound of applause. The huge room was hardly packed. Indeed, it was only about a fifth full. Lucas, Wayne, and Matt Taylor had arranged themselves throughout the room, all three scanning the space for trouble and ready to act if necessary.

  I’ve got me some pretty fierce protectors out there, Brice thought, waving and grinning at the audience as he made his way into the center of a soft spotlight. He gave Jason a hug before the anxious-looking organizer loped off the stage.

  When the applause tapered off, Brice yelled, “Hey, folks, thanks so much for coming out to see me on this fair April evening!”

  He settled onto the stool, adjusted the microphone, and took a long look at the room, the rows of faces both familiar and strange, fans who cared for him to one degree or another, fans who were waiting for him to share his music. He smiled out at them, remembering the many venues in which he’d performed: the coffeehouses and bars, the state fairs, the slew of Nashville honky-tonks, the Ryman and Opryland, London and Melbourne, and that last concert, in Daytona Beach right before he was outed.

  And now here, my alma mater. I might maybe die tonight, he thought, strumming the guitar, tuning a flat string. And I sure hope I don’t, ‘cause there’s so much to live for. But if I do, I’ll go out doing what I love. Plus I’m pretty confident that Lucas, Matt, and Wayne will tear anyone dangerous or hostile into little bitty pieces.

  “I’m so glad to be here. It’s been a long road back to the stage,” Brice said, leaning into the mike. “I really wanna thank y’all for inviting me. Especially Jason Mullins and the LGBT student group. So, let me start with the first really honest song I’ve ever written. It’s called ‘Redneck Angel,’ and it’s dedicated to my honey, a lil’ West Virginia country sexpot named Lucas Bryan.”

  In the back of the room, Lucas raised his hand in salute. Then Brice began to sing.

  A NEW MOON HUNG OVER CHEAT LAKE, ITS midnight light interrupted by the occasional passing cloud. Weary after the long evening, Brice and Lucas sat bare-chested and barefoot in deck chairs, gazing out over the waters, sharing a glass of single-malt Scotch and enjoying the unseasonably warm breeze.

  “No blood and violence, just happy people and great music,” Lucas said, his fingers loosely intertwined with Brice’s. “First anticlimax I’ve ever appreciated.”

  “Me too,” Brice agreed. “For the first minute, I was stiff-backed and braced to take a bullet, but then I just forgot about it and sang.”

  “I can’t believe campus security didn’t send any cops over. Assholes. We had your back, though. That boyfriend of Matt’s had an eye out too. We would’ve been on top of a shooter in a heartbeat.”

  “I know. I just wish we didn’t have to live this way. Always on the lookout for trouble.”

  “Checking the perimeter. Protecting your people. It’s the warrior’s way, Brice. It’s what men do. We got broad shoulders. We can handle it.”

  “I know we can. I just get tired sometimes. But, man, in the midst of the anxiety tonight, I thought about how much I’ve been given to love. I’m so lucky…to have you, to be in a position to help those Phagg Heights kids, to be composing again. The friends we have…few but so, so cool. Just a few years ago, I had no hope, and I was thinking about suicide. Now, wow. I love our life.”

  “Me too.” Lucas squeezed Brice’s hand. “The music tonight was wonderful. You’re in top form. With these new iTune outlets, I think you should seriously think about putting together an album we could sell online.”

  “I’m planning on doing that.” Brice stood and moved to the railing, looking up to the high steeps of Chestnut Ridge, and then out over the lake, and then up to the spring sky. “You see those clouds drifting over the moon? They remind me of the sea foam I used to see on the beach, when I had that condo at Daytona and used to walk at night and feel lonely and horny and listen to the surf. The foam’d gleam in the moonlight like bubbly strands of silver, and it’d make little boats, little pirate ships that’d drift down the sands at the mercy of the winds.”

  Brice turned, leaned back against the railing, and smiled at his lover. “I guess we’re like that, huh? At the mercy of fate. Except this time, fate turned kind and led me to you. Who knows how long it’ll last, but….”

  Lucas rose. He strode over to Brice, passed him the glass of Scotch, and took his hand.

  “Who knows how long anything’ll last?” Lucas said, standing on tiptoe to kiss Brice on the cheek. “Don’t mortality make what sweetness we find even more intense? And, man, are you sweet. I ain’t going anywhere. Count on what we found, Brice. Count on what we got.”

  “I will.” Brice drained the glass. “It’s late. I’m tired. I want to get naked and climb into bed with you and cuddle and listen to the lapping of the lake and the wind in the trees.”

  Lucas wrapped an arm around Brice’s waist and nibbled his bare shoulder. “Sounds sweet. Tomorrow morning, I’m thinking you should plow me raw. After that, I’ll make us a big breakfast, maybe some fancy omelets. Before you have to head back to Phagg Heights, we can play a few country tunes together on our guitars.”

  “Country tunes. Yep. You’re my country, Lucas.” Brice ran his hand over his partner’s naked torso. “You’re the landscape I cherish the most, the hills and forests and valleys I want to travel through, the homeland in which I plan to abide.”

  “Kinda poetic. Sounds like you got a new song coming on. Come on now, Daddy,” Lucas said, giving Brice’s butt a gentle pat, “and take your mountain muse to bed.”

  NON-FICTION

  Edge: Travels of an Appalachian Leather Bear

  Binding the God: Ursine Essays from the Mountain South

  FICTION

  A History of Barbed Wire

  Fog: A Novel of Desire and Reprisal

  Desire & Devour: Stories of Blood and Sweat

  Purgatory: A Novel of the Civil War

  Salvation: A Novel of the Civil War

  Cub

  Insatiable (forthcoming)

  Consent (forthcoming)

  POETRY

  Rebels

  A Romantic Mann