Prophet's Pass

by Chapman Brown

  The fire truck honked angrily at the traffic. A police car added the din of sirens to the brawling junkies. Chris rested his chin in the hot hollow of Aiden’s shoulder. “Greatest city in the world,” he’d whisper.

  Now, Aiden’s small bed was empty, pregnant with the memory of someone else’s body, someone else’s dreams, someone else’s life. He sighed and turned the pillow over to the cool side. What the hell was he doing here?

  THE MORNING came in bright and blue, wisps of white cloud over the red bluffs of the canyon. Aiden pulled back the shades and opened the window, taking a deep breath of the sharp, fresh air. Before he’d gone to bed, he’d agreed to get started with the governor after breakfast, and he slipped his Dictaphone into his pocket as he left his bedroom. His notebook was thick with questions, but they all seemed redundant when Orson Jensen, favored son of Utah, had a secret gay son. Assuming it was a secret. After all, they’d shipped him off to the Air Force, which seemed as good a way as any to hide someone from prying eyes. Either the Jensens didn’t know and the story was karmic justice and domestic revelation, or they did and the story was a richer tapestry of hypocrisy and selective principle. Aiden could sketch it out already. First he needed to be sure.

  The smell of pancakes on the griddle wafted from the kitchen, intermingling with women’s voices. Aiden entered uncertainly in case Hunter was there but found only Sariah Jensen and her daughters. He hadn’t really spoken to the elder daughter, Stephanie, much the previous night. She’d been glued to her husband, who seemed shy and overawed by his in-laws. Stephanie was in that alarmingly rounded stage of pregnancy where her belly protruded under her sweater like a small, taut beachball. They exchanged polite good mornings.

  “Good morning, Aiden.” Sariah smiled.

  “Good morning.”

  She poured him orange juice from a jug that was already sitting out as if she’d been waiting to do so for hours. “Beautiful day, huh?”

  “It is,” Aiden agreed. Beyond the kitchen windows, the pine trees were vibrant green, like the whole palette of rock, earth, and sky had been picked for perfect contrast.

  “You missed the boys. They’ve just gone for a run.” She bisected a grapefruit with a wet thwuck of her kitchen knife. “Grapefruit?”

  Aiden didn’t care for grapefruit; he didn’t see the breakfast value in something that tasted like pink battery acid, but she’d put it down in front of him before he could give an opinion one way or the other. He tried to look approving and discreetly reached for the sugar.

  “How did you sleep?” Stephanie asked.

  Aiden smiled. “Great, thanks.” Once I stopped thinking about your brother lying there jerking it to John Elway. “How about you?” he asked.

  “Oh, okay.” She laid her hands on her bump in that beatific way pregnant women did. “The little one has me up half the night.”

  “Well, at least he’s quiet in there,” Sariah said from the stove. “That’ll soon pass, believe me.” She looked at Aiden. “How’s the grapefruit?”

  “Great!” Aiden said around a mouthful of acrid mush. “It’s a boy?”

  Kayleigh corrected him. “Mom just wants a boy. Another bouncing Jensen boy to drool all over.”

  “Hush, Kayleigh,” Sariah said, with just enough edge of admonishment for Aiden to think she’d struck a nerve. He caught Sariah’s eye for a second as she came over to join them at the table, and realized he was the reason. She didn’t want Kayleigh throwing up awkward Mormon gender questions in front of the reporter.

  “Well, I don’t mind one way or the other.” Stephanie smiled, evidently the family diplomat. “But I think Tim would like a girl. His family’s five boys. His mom says the Heavenly Father blessed her with a basketball team!”

  Ha ha ha, Aiden thought, your brother likes dick.

  Sariah put down the pancakes before she sat. She offered Aiden her hand, and he realized they were praying again.

  “Heavenly Father, thank you for this beautiful morning and the wonderful rest we’ve all had,” Sariah said, adopting the same sort of singsong prayer intonation Orson had. “Thank you for restoring our spirit, and for this food. May it nourish and strengthen our bodies and prepare us for the day ahead. In the name of Jesus Christ….”

  “Amen,” Aiden said. Kayleigh passed him the syrup. Thank you for the moisture.

  They ate for a few moments, but Aiden wasn’t one to let an opportunity slide. “So, Kayleigh, are there a lot of women premeds at BYU?”

  “About thirty out of three hundred,” she said, with a knowing smile.

  “So, you’re unusual.”

  “Or weird, Mom would say.”

  Sariah frowned. “Of course I don’t say that.”

  “A lot of girls think a Mormon guy won’t marry them if they want to be a doctor. Or he won’t wait around, you know?”

  “It’s a gift from God,” Stephanie said. “Being called to do something is a gift, and you have to have faith that he’ll make everything work out in the end.”

  Aiden noticed Sariah had gone quiet. “What do you think, Mrs. Jensen?”

  She blew out her cheeks. “Well, I do support Kayleigh,” she said. “Of course I do. I’m not the dinosaur they make me out to be.”

  Stephanie rolled her eyes. “Mom.”

  “I’m a mother. I worry. But things are different, in the Church and in the world. When your father and I got married,” she told Kayleigh, “some people thought it was strange I was an artist. And I said to him: I’ll give it up. But your father said”—she looked at Aiden—“Orson said, ‘This is your gift from God. This is your talent. It would be wrong for me to stop you doing what God gave you to do.’ That’s what I believe as a parent as well.”

  Kayleigh took her mother’s hand and squeezed. “Thanks, Mom.”

  “Anyway, Kayleigh, while he’s here you should ask Aiden to look at your statements.”

  Kayleigh blushed. “I don’t want to bother you.”

  “What are you writing about?”

  “My mission.” Aiden knew she was talking about the period of service and missionary work Mormons completed after high school, but he hadn’t heard of many women on mission.

  Sariah read his expression. “We’ve had women missionaries for over a hundred years,” she said with a note of feminist point scoring.

  “Where did you do it?”

  “Florida,” Kayleigh said, with a note of regret.

  Stephanie explained: “Dallin went to Norway.”

  “Florida was a great place to be called,” Sariah insisted. “All those elderly people. You had a big impact on them. She even scrubbed this lady’s bathtub,” Sariah told him proudly.

  “And you… convert people?” Aiden asked uncomfortably. It seemed creepy and intrusive, not to mention cruel to the kids the Church was sending out to have doors slammed in their faces.

  “No,” Kayleigh said, with an opaque smile. “We just talk to them about the Church. Who we are. Why we’re there. And we have meetings every week where people come along if they want to learn more.” Aiden thought he saw some of her father’s political skills in that neat dodge.

  At that moment, Governor Jensen himself wandered in. “These kids of mine, Aiden. Always out there helping folks. They’re a blessing,” he said, as he rested his hands on his daughters’ shoulders. “Morning, Angel. Morning, Honeybunch.”

  If the sugar he’d poured on the grapefruit hadn’t given him diabetes already, Aiden certainly had it now. He wondered where Hunter Jensen had gone on his mission and what exactly he’d got up to.

  Orson gestured back to his office. “Want to get started?”

  “Sure,” Aiden said, putting Hunter to the back of his mind again. Whatever else he discovered, he still had the piece on the governor to finish and only five days here to do it. He thanked Sariah for breakfast and followed Orson.

  Orson’s office was on the back side of the house, facing the forest. It was a handsome, patrician room, exactly the kind Aiden would have
imagined. Neat shelves of books, little mementos from his career, framed photographs with several different presidents of the United States. A Utah flag stood furled in the corner. Aiden glanced down at his Dictaphone, making sure it was recording.

  “So,” he said.

  Orson sat behind his desk and fanned his hands gamely. “So.”

  “It seems clear that you’re running for the Senate. You’re almost certain to win. Why has Orson Jensen chosen this moment to return to politics?”

  “Well, there’s no vacancy at the moment,” Orson reminded him.

  “I suspect there will be by the time this goes to print.”

  Jensen smiled. “Ted Dolson is a great friend of mine. He’s had a long and illustrious career in the Senate, and he’s been a great servant of this state. I would be honored and humbled to succeed him. As to why… well, I feel like I have more to give, and I’m here to serve should Utahns give me the honor.”

  “You left office last year as a popular two-term governor. What about the Senate calls to you now? It’s not exactly popular itself.”

  “And that’s the problem,” Jensen said. “Our politics are broken. When I was governor, I saw up close that we face urgent problems that only the federal government can fix. Economic problems, health problems, social problems. But Washington is paralyzed by grandstanding and partisanship. We need new leaders in Congress: people who are going to build America up instead of pulling us further apart.”

  So far, so much boilerplate. He was well-prepared, Aiden could concede. He made a few notes on his pad, underlining build America up. He thought of Rachel Cassidy, the lesbian divorcée Orson Jensen berated for “immoral and illegal conduct.” He hadn’t done much to build her up.

  “You were governor of Utah, the eighth-whitest state in the nation. A state of only three million people, 60 percent of whom are Mormon. What do you think makes you qualified to bridge the divides in America?”

  “Well, I am running for Senate from Utah. What I’m proposing is a team effort. I’m not running to be president.”

  Aiden tapped his pen against his page. “Aren’t you?”

  Orson chuckled. “No. You’re being mischievous. But to get back to your original question, I think Utah’s taught me a lot about how to get on. This is a state where people get on, where folks look out for each other. I believe I can help restore bipartisan, moderate, commonsense solutions in Washington. Look at my record. When I was governor, I took the lead in expanding Medicare. Many of my Republican colleagues, to be frank, didn’t want me to do that for partisan reasons. But I did it anyway. I worked with Democrats, and we got it done, and I think if you now look at the metrics….”

  Aiden stopped listening. His gaze was drawn to a picture on one of the bookshelves: Hunter Jensen in his Air Force uniform, a few years younger. Staring at it, Aiden was sure it had been him in that corridor that night. He remembered the hotness of Hunter’s breath against his ear as he’d told him his name, a name Aiden hadn’t managed to hear, perhaps because he hadn’t been meant to. He remembered the friction of their cheeks touching. He wondered what had happened to Hunter that night. Maybe he’d gone home to wherever he stayed alone and lonely and frustrated as well. Maybe he’d beaten off thinking of being with Aiden just like Aiden had beaten off thinking of him. Maybe he’d done it next to a sleeping girlfriend. Or maybe there’d been another man there after all. Maybe he’d never thought of Aiden again, and his attention was all on another, a blue shape in the darkness, sucking and fucking and cuming. How had he felt the next day? Disgusted? Elated? Ashamed? Distantly Aiden asked himself why he cared so much. He’d only met Hunter for a few moments. Maybe it was the novelty of a genuine gay Utah Mormon. Gay men were like dogs: unendingly excited to discover another one of their kind, bounding up, sticking their faces in one another’s asses. But this was more than that. It was a story, and he wanted the rest of it.

  “… and I think that’s what we should be considering when we approach both tax reform and trade policy,” Jensen finished.

  “Uh-huh,” Aiden said, pretending like he was making a note and glad he had his recordings. He moved on to his next bullet point. “You’ve often spoken about your father as an influence on your politics, but he was never a politician.”

  “My dad was a big business guy. He was asked to run—a few times in fact. This was back in ’63, right after George Romney got elected in Michigan, and kinda proved that an LDS candidate could do it. Now my dad knew George very well and had a lot of respect for him, just as I know and respect Mitt, but Dad—”

  Someone knocked on the door. Sariah leaned in, cradling a cordless phone. “I’m sorry for interrupting.”

  “No problem, hon.”

  Aiden hit Pause on the recording.

  “Orson, it’s Spencer Welch. He was wondering if he could pray with you. His father just passed.”

  “Oh, dear,” Orson said as she handed him the phone. “Aiden, would you mind if we paused? Spencer’s a member of the ward. He worked with me when I was bishop.”

  “No problem,” Aiden said, thinking he needed a break anyway. He stood and stepped out with Sariah, pulling out his phone to check emails and get some sense of what was happening in the world outside Utah. He realized he hadn’t asked anyone for the Wi-Fi password. He was about to turn back to Orson, but he’d shut the door.

  Sariah saw he had his phone out. “Do you need to make a call?”

  “I just need the Wi-Fi password….”

  “Oh, shoot. I don’t know that. But there is a place you can get reception. You do have to climb the hill, though.”

  “Fresh air.”

  She started fiddling around in the closet. “Let me find my shoes, and I’ll show you.”

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  “It’s no problem, I’ll just—”

  “I’ll do it, Mom.” Hunter Jensen walked out of the kitchen in a sweat-stained tank top. He was still in his running clothes. “I’ve got shoes on.”

  Sariah smiled. “Oh, great.”

  Hunter fixed Aiden with a stony gaze.

  Oh great, Aiden thought.

  Chapter Seven

  HUNTER AND Aiden climbed the slope above the ranch. By accident or Aiden’s imagination, Hunter maintained the distance between them so precisely they could’ve been joined by an iron bar. He hadn’t said anything since they’d left, and his steps were so fast Aiden struggled to keep up. The woody undergrowth snatched at his legs, and more than once the slushy red clay slipped under his feet, sending him stumbling. Hunter never turned back to see if he was still there. The only communication between them was the angry angularity of his back, every muscle tensed under Aiden’s gaze. Glancing off the trail, Aiden saw an alarming expanse of brilliant blue sky. The sides of the path were becoming increasingly steep, and he suddenly doubted this was where the Jensens came to snatch a few bars of reception. Maybe Hunter was taking him up here to push him off. Keep his secret. It seemed ridiculous, but closeted men had done worse things to hide their sexualities before, and Hunter was a trained military killer. Aiden was already covered in dust and scratches. When they found his broken body at the bottom of the gorge, Hunter could say he slipped and fell down the canyon. Hunter Jensen, the good Mormon, the Air Force officer, the patriot. Aiden was just the fairy from New York City who couldn’t hike a mountain. Such a shame, they’d say, but he didn’t know anything about snow chains or bears or praying for moisture. What did he expect?

  “Hey,” Aiden exclaimed, pulling himself up by the nearest branch before stopping. “Hey! Much as I appreciate the mystery tour—”

  Hunter rounded on him, blue eyes ablaze. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

  Aiden was taken aback, first that he’d answered, and second that he’d cursed. He stared blankly for a second. With the desert sky behind him and the sun catching his golden hair, Hunter had all the beauty and fury of a latter-day Apollo.

  “It’s you,” Aiden said, his instincts and mem
ory confirmed at last. “I wasn’t sure.”

  “I asked what you’re doing here.”

  “Nothing. What I’m supposed to be. Writing a story about your dad.”

  Hunter clenched his jaw dangerously. “That’s all?”

  “I swear, I had no idea who you were. We met for five minutes. This is a coincidence.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I know it’s crazy, but I’m telling the truth.”

  “You’re writing about me.”

  “No,” Aiden said, before he’d even thought about it. Truth was, the thought had crossed his mind. But seeing him standing there, in all his naked, raw fear, an actual human being, dissolved the notion. “I wouldn’t do that,” Aiden said, surprising himself.

  “You’re a journalist,” he said, in the same way someone would say worm or cockroach.

  “I’m not writing about you. Even if I wanted to, my paper wouldn’t publish.”

  “Someone would.”

  “Listen, I’ve got no proof. We met for five minutes, months ago.”

  “You had a friend,” Hunter remembered. Of course he did. A paranoid remembered everything. Suddenly, standing on his rock, he didn’t seem so godlike. He seemed like a boy in the wilderness.

  Aiden laughed at the absurdity of it. “Patrick? He was wasted. He doesn’t remember that weekend, let alone remember you.”

  “You need to go.”

  “What?”

  “I said you need to go!” He took a step toward him.

  “Or what? You’ll push me off the mountain?”

  Hunter froze. If Aiden was going to get pushed off the mountain, this would be the time, and he’d only have himself to blame. He’d asked for it. But Hunter Jensen wasn’t the kind of man who pushed people off mountains. Instead he turned away from Aiden and ran his hands despairingly through his hair. Aiden realized he’d been holding his breath and exhaled slowly, watching as Hunter paced away. Every hour he’d been in that house wondering about Hunter, he realized, Hunter had been wondering about him. For Aiden it’d been a fun, scurrilous diversion. For Hunter it had been something close to torture. The Jensens didn’t know, Aiden saw. No one knew. Hunter Jensen was alone.