A Better Place

by Mark Roeder

  “You know I never even knew my grandpa,” said Casper. “He died about a year before I was born. I always wondered what he was like. I wonder if he was like Uncle Jack.” Casper laughed.

  “What’s funny?” I asked. “I guess I’ve have to quit calling him Uncle Jack if he’s going to be my grandfather.”

  “Yeah, guess so. It’s cool you’ll be related to Ethan, even if it is just by marriage.”

  “I wonder if there’s a name for how we’re related. His uncle will be my grandfather, and my grandmother will be his aunt. That’s not cousins exactly.”

  “I don’t think there is a name for it,” I said.

  “Doesn’t matter I guess. I was just thinking about it.”

  I stopped and turned toward Casper. I pulled him close to me and held him tight. I leaned down and kissed him. I loved him so much.

  “You know this takes care of about all of our troubles,” I said. “My parents can’t touch me now, and you’ll be safe with your grandmother. Even if something happened to her, God forbid, Jack would have custody of you, if he adopts you, and I bet he will.”

  “I guess all we have to worry about is if Grandmother finds out about us and doesn’t like it.”

  “You know you’re going to have to tell her you’re gay,” I said. “Jack knows, everyone knows. She’s going to find out soon, one way or another. Even if everyone tries to keep it a secret, someone is bound to slip up sooner or later.”

  “I guess I do owe her the truth, but I’m not looking forward to it at all.”

  “I’ll be there with you when the time comes,” I said.

  “I know.” Casper smiled and held me even closer. We kissed some more in the bright moonlight, then walked on through the quiet of the farm.

  * * * I jerked upright in bed, gasping for breath. I was drenched in sweat and shaking. I’d had another dream. It was like the others, Casper and I were in it, and we were the others boys too, Mark and Taylor. In this dream, Devon had us cornered. I don’t know how he had us cornered, but I knew we were going to die. The dream got mixed up with the night that Casper’s brother had nearly killed us, the night Jason had killed his father. The dream shifted back and forth until I didn’t know which way was up. There were other things in the dream too, but I couldn’t remember them now that I was awake. One thing I could remember is that Taylor had turned to me and said “beware.”

  I knew it was just a dream, but I was frightened. I had half a mind to go and crawl into bed beside Casper. I don’t think it would have bothered me so much if it weren’t for Mark and Taylor in the dream. Their presence made it too real. I’d dreamed of them even before I knew about them. It was just too weird. Casper had told me he’d dreamed of them once too, on the very day we came to Verona. As we were napping in the graveyard, he dreamed that they were watching over us. He didn’t know who they were then, and didn’t think a thing about it, but later he realized who had been in his dream. There was too much to it for it to be a coincidence. That scared me. I was afraid something bad was going to happen. Maybe it meant that Casper’s grandmother would take the news we had for her badly. Maybe it meant she’d take Casper away and never let me see him again.

  * * * The time to tell Casper’s grandmother about us came soon. Not knowing how she’d react made me nervous and I know it had the same effect on Casper too. It made us uneasy and clouded otherwise bright and happy days. As long as we held the truth from her, we couldn’t live our lives as we wanted. We had to hide that part of ourselves that we feared she would not understand. I felt as if I was living a lie and I didn’t like it. What Casper and I had was special and wonderful and it seemed a shame to keep it a secret.

  We sat near Casper’s grandmother as she swung on the big wooden swing on the front porch. Everyone else was out and about, so we were alone. She smiled at us in that grandmotherly way she had and that put me a bit more at ease. I was still frightened, however, and I was glad that Casper would be doing the talking.

  “Grandma, there’s something I’ve got to tell you,” said Casper. Ardelene looked suddenly serious and gave him her full attention. There was something in the tone of Casper’s voice that meant business. “I know you love me, and I love you too, but there’s something you don’t know about me. It’s something you may not like. It’s what I am though, so I hope you can accept it.”

  I could tell that Ardelene was growing apprehensive. She wasn’t the only one. I had butterflies the size of vultures flying around in my stomach. I was amazed that Casper had the courage to keep speaking. He wasn’t exactly the outgoing type. He hung right in there, although I know he was afraid. I took his hand in mine and held it. I could feel him trembling faintly.

  “Go on, Clint,” said Ardelene. I knew she was taking the conversation seriously. She almost never called Casper by his given name.

  “I like boys, Grandma. Well, one boy.” Casper squeezed my hand. “I’m gay.”

  Casper looked into his grandmother’s eyes, searching for her feelings, hoping for acceptance and love. Ardelene’s eyes narrowed a bit and the corners of her mouth turned down.

  “Gay,” she said as if it left a bad taste in her mouth. The level of fear I felt began to rise. “I think you are too young to be making that kind of statement, Clint.”

  “I’m not too young, Grandma. I’m not confused. I’m not uncertain. I know.”

  “How could you possibly know? At your age?”

  “I know it, Grandma. I feel it. It’s what I am.”

  Ardelene’s gaze fell upon me. I was more uncomfortable at the moment that I ever had been in my life. Her eyes fell down to my hand holding Casper’s. Her gaze was withering. I felt as if I were silently being accused of being a cradle robber, or worse, a child molester.

  “Is this your doing?” she asked me.

  “I uh, no…”

  “It’s not his doing, Grandma. It doesn’t work like that. No one made me gay. This is what I am.”

  “I don’t like this,” said Ardelene. “I don’t approve.” She looked at me harshly.

  Casper got upset. His eyes filled with tears. He grew angry.

  “Well I approve!” he shouted and ran off the porch, toward the fields.

  I didn’t immediately follow. I lingered for just a moment.

  “I know you don’t understand,” I said to Casper’s grandmother. “I know you don’t like it, or approve, but Casper is what he is and nothing can change that. If you don’t accept him, all you can do is hurt him. Please don’t hurt him. I know you don’t think very highly of me right now, but I love him, I love him more than anyone ever has, and I don’t want to see him hurt.”

  I stepped off the porch and hurried after Casper. He’d already disappeared between the fields of corn. I caught up with him after a few hundred feet. He’s eyes were watery and he was softly crying. I took him in my arms and held him.

  “I thought she’d be nicer,” he cried.

  “It’s just hard for her to understand, Casper. It’s just hard for her to accept. Give her time.”

  “I didn’t like her looking at you like that, like you’d done something wrong.”

  “Casper, she’s confused. She loves you and doesn’t want to see you hurt. She’s protective. Right now she probably thinks I’m some kind of bad influence on you because I’m older, and obviously the ‘boy’ you mentioned. She’ll come around.”

  “You really think so?” asked Casper.

  I wanted to comfort him, but I didn’t want to lie to him. I wasn’t quite sure if I believed my own words or not. I wanted everything to be okay, but I wasn’t sure that his grandma would ever come around. My heart told me she would, but my mind worried. I decided to believe my heart.

  “Yes, I really think so.” I pulled Casper close and kissed him. “We’ll be okay, Casper. Don’t you worry.”

  * * * I awakened with a start, as I had so many times in the past few days. I’d been dreaming again. The dreams were coming more often now and I felt a greater sense of u
rgency within them. As in all the dreams, I was myself and Mark, while Casper was himself and Taylor. We merged in a crazy dream world, but I was always filled with worry. I felt like the dreams were some kind of warning, but I could never figure out what the warning was about. I knew that this most recent dream had been the most frightening, and disturbing, but I couldn’t remember it. All I could recall was Casper or Taylor looking at me and saying “He’s coming.”

  Nathan

  Ethan and I walked between the cornfields, making our way toward the little lake in the woods. It was mid-July. Where had the time gone? So much had changed in the last year that it didn’t even seem possible. I’d come to work on the farm, and ended up living there. I’d met Ethan, and he’d become my boyfriend. Then Brendan and Casper had come along. And now, just a week before, Jack, who no one ever thought would remarry, got married to Casper’s grandmother. In less than a years time I’d left my old family, and found a new one. I was much happier with my new family. Dave and I were safe here. We were cared for, and loved. My whole world had changed, and for the better.

  I looked at Ethan walking by my side, looking like Huck Finn wearing overalls and carrying a cane pole over one shoulder. I guess I looked much the same. I was wearing overalls too, with no shirt underneath, just like Ethan. I suspect we would have looked like a couple of hayseeds to city boys, but I didn’t care one bit. Nothing mattered, but how we felt about each other.

  We walked under the eaves of the forest and soon passed the old log cabin. I remembered the night Ethan had taken me there. He’d filled it with candles and flowers and that night we made love. Everything was so special with Ethan. I sometimes couldn’t believe he really loved me, but I knew he did.

  We walked on to the little lake. We usually rode the horses when we came back so far, but we wanted to fish and the horses would have disturbed the waters. We sat on the grassy shore, baited up our hooks, and swung our poles out over the water. I sat and watched my red and white cork floating lazily upon the surface of the lake. For a long time it moved only with a gentle breeze, but then it gave a little bounce, followed by another, and another. Quite suddenly, it was pulled under and I felt a tug on the pole. I pulled it up to find a blue gill attached to the hook. It wasn’t of much size. I was surprised it had

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  the strength to pull the cork under like that. I took the hook out of its mouth and let it go. Ethan and I fished for a couple of hours. We both caught several little blue gills. A couple of them were pretty big, but we didn’t keep any of them. We weren’t out to catch supper. We just wanted to fish.

  We grew a little lazy in the afternoon sun. I liked the feeling. It was Sunday and one of the rare afternoons when we weren’t busy with farm work. The workload had lessened. All the crops were in and busy growing, or at least trying to grow. A drought was forming and the corn and soy beans weren’t doing so well. We’d managed to get several acres of the new ground planted, but with the general lack of water the fields were beginning to look wilted. Hopefully, there would be rain soon.

  We were still working on getting more of the new land cleared, but that work was coming along nicely with the help of Brendan and Casper. The work would pick up when harvest time came, but for a while, the farm wasn’t quite so demanding.

  We pulled our lines in and set our fishing poles on the grass. Ethan and I figured we’d caught enough fish for one day.

  “I don’t know about you, but I’m hot,” said Ethan.

  He’d barely said it before he was slipping out of his overalls. He was wearing only boxers underneath and those were soon gone too. There was a time when seeing Ethan naked would have embarrassed me, but that time was long gone. I watched as he dove and his muscular, white butt disappeared beneath the surface of the lake. I slipped out of my clothes and joined him.

  We swam in the cool waters. It was refreshing after the hot sun. I loved swimming naked. It was invigorating. Most of the time we just tread water, or floated on our backs. Part of the time we wrestled, and sometimes we stood in the water and made out. Feeling Ethan’s naked body pressed against mine was the most wonderful feeling in all the world. I loved standing there, kissing him, feeling him against me. I felt loved.

  The sky began to darken, although it was not yet time for the evening shadows. We lingered in the lake, even when the wind got up and it grew darker still. We could hear the rumble of thunder and see the sky lit now and then by distant lightning. Reluctantly, we stepped out of the water and dressed. Nothing could last forever.

  The wind grew heavy as we walked under the trees. I felt we were in some danger of having a limb fall upon our heads. We picked up our pace and were

  Mark A. Roeder 297 soon in the open fields. The corn swayed in the wind, which had grown heavy enough that we walked with some difficulty. I looked overhead. The sky didn’t look right. It was a bluish-green and unnatural looking. I’m not afraid of storms, but I felt fear, as if I were aware of something bad that was about to happen. I began to run and Ethan with me.

  As we neared the farmhouse, the wind was so strong that we had to fight to keep moving forward. The sky had become darker still and the clouds churned as I’d never seen them do before. I saw Jack holding open the door to the storm cellar, herding Ardelene, Brendan, and Casper inside. Dave came running from the barn, his hen Henrietta cradled in his arms. If I hadn’t been so frightened, I’d have laughed at the sight of him trying to run without the use of his arms.

  Jack helped Dave down the steps, and then motioned to us with his arm, beckoning to us to hurry. The wind grew so fierce that I feared we wouldn’t make it. I actually felt myself being lifted off my feet by the wind and only Ethan holding tightly onto me kept me from losing my balance. We fought and fought against the wind, but made little headway. Suddenly, the wind stopped dead and utter silence fell. It was as if all the wind and noise had come from a fan of colossal size that someone had turned off. The silence was more frightening than the noise. Ethan practically jerked my arm off pulling me to the storm cellar. I could tell by the look on his face he was scared.

  We dove inside. Jack fastened the doors of the cellar shut and it hit—a wind so hard I thought it was going to rip the doors right off the hinges. We descended to the bottom of the concrete steps and saw the faces of the others lit by a kerosene lamp.

  “Tornado,” said Jack. Uncle Jack alone did not look frightened, but then nothing ever frightened him. His calmness put me a little more at ease.

  “No need to worry,” said Jack, looking around. “We’re safe down here. I built this cellar myself. The walls and ceiling are concrete, eight inches thick. Not even a tornado can come through that.”

  I grew even less frightened. I suspected Jack was quite capable of lying to put us at ease, but I was pretty sure he wasn’t. The walls did look sturdy. I had my doubts about the wooden doors at the top of the stairs, but the cellar was designed like an L, so even if the doors were ripped away, we’d still be safe.

  I jumped as something slammed hard into the doors. Whatever it was, it sounded big. I wondered if maybe the wind hadn’t picked up the tractor or a large section of the barn and hurled it at us. The doors held. I just hoped we weren’t trapped inside.

  I checked on Dave, but he didn’t seem particularly frightened. He just sat along the wall petting Henrietta. It figured that he’d go and get her. He loved that little hen. I’m glad he brought her down into the cellar. I could just imagine him hysterically screaming that he had to go and save her if she was out in the wind.

  A sound like a freight train practically deafened me. I’d heard that tornadoes made a sound like a train, but I never guessed that one would sound that much like one. It really sounded like a big train was speeding past.

  The noise outside grew less until it was little more than a light wind. In a few minutes more, there was nothing to hear. Jack went to check on things and came back moments later, telling us that all was safe.

  I didn’t know quite what to expect
as I stepped outside. I more than half expected the house, the barn, and all the outbuildings to be gone. My eyes fell on the house first. It looked the same as always. My eyes went next to the barn. It too seemed sound, except for a couple sections of tin on the roof that had come loose. I caught sight of something big about a hundred yards into the cornfield to the west of the house, something that didn’t belong there. It looked like the twisted wreckage of an airplane. Only when I looked closer did I realize it was the silo that until a few minutes before had stood a hundred yards away on the other side of the barn. The tornado must have ripped it right up off the ground, carried it over the barn, and dropped it in the cornfield.

  Other than the silo, there was little damage. Even the corn itself seemed to have faired well. Everything was in amazingly good shape, considering what had happened. The crops had even got a little rain, too bad it wasn’t more.

  “Take a look at this,” said Jack, pointing to a telephone pole. I didn’t know what he was talking about until I got up close, but then I saw it. There were pieces of straw driven right into the pole. I’d heard that could happen in a tornado, but I’d never really believed it until I saw it myself.

  I looked at Ethan. I was glad he was safe. The tornado was a reminder that the unexpected could happen at any moment and that life was uncertain. If we’d lingered a bit longer at the lake, we might have both been killed. Or worse, maybe Ethan would have been killed and I would have lived. I didn’t like thinking of living without him. I forced the morbid thoughts from my head. Ethan was safe, we all were, and for that I was thankful.

  Brendan

  Uncle Jack took Ardelene and Dave into town, leaving the rest of us boys to see to the farm. Casper went off with Nathan to do some work in the barn, while Ethan and I took a look at the twisted hunk of metal in the cornfield that had once been the silo. It was a real mess. If I hadn’t known what it was before it was destroyed, I could never have guessed. I thought that we might have to cut it up with a blowtorch, but Ethan thought we might be able to pull it out with the tractor, without cutting it up.