Exiled to Iowa. Send Help. And Couture

by Chris O'Guinn

  Exiled to Iowa, Send Help and Couture

  by Chris O’Guinn

  Lightbane Publications

  Legal Disclaimer

  All rights reserved. With the exception of excerpts taken under Fair Use to be utilized in articles, reviews or interviews, it is illegal to reproduce this work in part or as a whole by any means without permission.

  All characters herein are fictional. Any resemblance to real persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  All real life companies and products are property of their respective copyright owners and their appearance in the story is not meant to indicate any affiliation with or endorsement of the author or this work.

  ISBN: 978-1-4507-1304-7

  Exiled to Iowa. Send Help. And Couture.

  Copyright© 2010 by Chris W. O’Guinn

  Originally released May 2010

  Cover Art by April Martinez

  In Dedication

  This book is dedication to my partner, Jerry, without whom it never would have seen the light of day—or even been finished. He is the star I guide my ship by and not a day goes by that I am not enriched by his presence in my life.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  Also By Chris O’Guinn

  Coming Soon!

  Chapter 1

  I GLARED UP AT THE quaint little two-story house with all the disdain my fifteen-year-old heart could muster. It looked like something I had seen on one of the design shows I spend too much time watching. The eaves were just too adorably festooned with frilly woodwork and the chipper, eye-popping shade of yellow the house had been painted in was not just garish, it was insulting; it was as if the house was flaunting the fact that it represented the end of all life as I knew it.

  I adjusted my backpack over my shoulder and once again went through my reasons why running away from home was a bad idea.

  “Come on, Collin,” my mom said, adamantly refusing to validate my sulking by acknowledging it. “Let's go get you settled.”

  Oh, like that was ever going to happen.

  I sighed and trudged disconsolately up the stairs while my dad and big brother unloaded the bags from the car. The foyer and living room were all hardwood floors, stained a dark walnut color. There was a faintly musty smell to the place, like all the air inside had realized that it was in Nowhere, Iowa and lost the will to live.

  “Not quite as bad as you thought, right, Col?” my dad asked me as he came in with my Mom's suitcases in his hands.

  “Oh, it's great, Dad,” I said with sarcasm.

  My dad exchanged a look with my mom that I knew meant something along the lines of “Hasn't he gotten over it yet?” which I thought was unfair.

  It was 2008 and times were hard, sure. Any idiot could tell you that the country's economy had taken a nosedive and jobs were disappearing like ships in the Bermuda Triangle. I had been genuinely sympathetic when my Dad got laid off from the bank where he had given sixteen years of his life to. I had graciously allowed Mom to drag me into boring activities to keep his spirits up—dinners out, mini-golf and even a sailing trip, which had been quite a sacrifice, given how seasick I get.

  I had even understood that keeping our little house in Santa Monica had become unlikely. I had vocally supported my parents' ideas of moving, saying that Long Beach or Hermosa Beach would have been fine by me. Then the crazy talk had started about moving out of California. Well, after my initial shock (and a medium-sized tantrum about being separated from my favorite outlet malls, theaters and museums) I had allowed for the idea of moving to the Big Apple … maybe even Seattle, if we had really had to. Was it so wrong to want to be near some culture?

  Instead, my dad had taken a job in Buford, Iowa— also known as the eighth circle of hell. That sort of betrayal had been too much to bear and I was still not willing to forgive him for taking me away from my stores, my entertainment ... my life. It was as if he had specifically chosen a place where I would suffer the most.

  “Come on, Col, I've got something to show you,” Dad told me. He wiped the sweat from his brow with a bandana.

  My dad had been an athlete in college, but time and my mother's cooking had reshaped him into a slightly pudgy man with shockingly bad hair plugs. His mustache made me despair for his sense of good taste and I won't even get into how he dressed. But he was my dad and I loved him—just not so much at that moment.

  My brother Shawn came in on my dad's heels, his expression annoyingly perky. He should have been even more upset than me about the move. He’d been on the varsity basketball team and while he had been promised a place on the team here, this would jeopardize his chances for the scholarship he needed. Yet, for all that, his blue eyes never reflected an ounce of unhappiness. He set my bags down for a second, took off his cap and scratched his blond curls. Then he picked the bags up again.

  We formed a train heading up the stairs; my father, huffing like an old locomotive, my brother the boxcar carrying my bags and me, the very bitchy caboose. I followed along with my disdain hanging around me like a storm cloud.

  Iowa…. Why did it have to be Iowa?

  The second floor of the house was much like the first; hardwood floors and stale-smelling air. The walls were a rather bland taupe color that someone probably had thought was soothing. I thought my eyes would bleed from boredom.

  Ahead of me, my dad pulled a cord that brought down a set of folding steps leading to an attic. I morosely trooped along behind my brother, unnerved and deeply suspicious about the fact that he was taking my bags up there. Was I going to be exiled to the drafty, dust-choked attic in retribution for my sullen behavior? Were my parents so spiteful that they would add locking me in the tower to the misery they had already inflicted upon me? I couldn’t imagine the world being so unjust, so unfair, so utterly—

  I had mounted the steps up into the attic and stopped cold, my mouth hanging open in dumbfounded shock. The walls were painted in the exact same shade of green my room back home had been (“Emerald Forest”). The arched ceiling was paneled in lightly-stained wood, giving the room an open feel. There was a single, albeit small, window on the far side of the room. A pile of boxes with my handwriting on them were all stacked neatly in one corner, and that somehow emphasized just how huge the room was.

  “Huh? But….” I blinked rapidly, cautiously stepping into the attic.

  This had to be the biggest room in the house. The ceiling was a little low in places, which would have made it hard for my brother to deal with and might have agitated my father's bad back, but for me with my short stature it was no problem. I gaped at the impossibility I was standing in and then slowly looked over at my father.

  “But … this should be Shawn's room,” I said finally.

  “I'm off to college in a year, so it would become yours eventually anyway,” my brother told me. “Figured, why should we bother with going to all the trouble of moving twice?”

  I nodded numbly, too stunned by the gesture to form a more coherent and effusive expression of gratitude. My father looked relieved, clearly pleased that he had done something to make me happy. I would have felt bad for making him so miserable, except that ... fair was fair after all.

  Still, this was an incredible gesture. He and Shawn had been here a while already, getting the house ready and so o
n while Mom and I sold the old place in L.A. and got rid of the rest of the things we had not felt like moving. Apparently, my dad had taken the opportunity to make this room as much like my old one as possible.

  He told us he wanted to see what Mom planned to do about dinner and departed.

  I walked over to one of the boxes and opened it. Then I thought about the amount of work involved in unpacking, and closed it again. I gauged there'd be time for that tomorrow … or the day after, maybe. There was definitely no need to rush. School didn't start for a week. Dad might even regain his sanity by then and take us back to civilization.

  “Well, Col, is this going to push you out of your snit?” Shawn asked me.

  I glowered over at him. Shawn never called me things like “runt” or “sport” or “squirt,” for which I was grateful. In fact, in the big brother department, I had done pretty well. He could be a jerk, sure, but so could everybody in the right circumstances. Mostly, he was just pretty decent.

  “What's that supposed to mean?” I demanded. I knew, of course, but I wasn't feeling gracious enough to admit it.

  “You've been busting Dad's chops since he told us about this move. He's been real good about it, waiting for you to get over yourself, but it's wearing him down. He feels bad enough already, you know. Getting laid off hit him hard.”

  I sighed and sat on the corner of my bed. “But why did we have to move here?”

  “Because it was the best job he could land. Managing the loan department at a branch of the biggest bank in Iowa means advancement opportunities and a chance to get his career back on track.”

  I grunted noncommittally. “I still don't get why you're not more pissed about this. It's not like recruiters from U.C.L.A. ever make it out here.”

  For a moment, he looked irritated; either with me or Dad or both. Then he shook it off, like a pro player accepting the loss of a point. “You'd be surprised. And my coach said he was going to let some people know where I went off to. I'll get my scholarship.” He shrugged, eying me askance. “And being in a family means you have to sometimes think of other people.”

  I winced at the rebuke. The unfairness of it all was brutal and undeniable. I had been ripped out of the comfy ground by my stem and stuffed into soil that was too cold and wet for my delicate roots. Maybe Shawn was right though and I should stop blaming the injustice on my father. I never even thought of what it must have cost Dad to leave L.A.—all his friends, his contacts … all the places he liked going, even though I didn't know what they were.

  “I've been kind of a jerk, I guess,” I admitted finally.

  Shawn smiled and mussed my hair. “Yeah, but we all understood.”

  I took a moment to reorganize my thoughts, adjust my attitude and put my grudge away in a box in the back of my mind—where it could be located and opened later on, if the situation warranted it. I sighed as I let the negative feelings escape me. I even felt a little better after doing so.

  I sniffed disdainfully. “What is it with the air in this place? It smells like grandmother.” I waved my hand in front of my nose, which had no useful effect at all.

  “It was locked up for a few months before we bought it,” Shawn explained. “Don't be a drama queen.”

  “But I have the tiara and everything….”

  Shawn's eyes rolled heavenward. He loved me and accepted me, but I knew he also wished sometimes that I could be more butch.

  “There's something else I wanted to talk to you about,” he said, sitting next to me.

  I looked over at him. Shawn had his “big brother” face on, so I knew it was serious. I could always recognize the look by the way his eyes squinted slightly, like he was really focusing on me. Or that he was really concentrating. I love my brother, but he's not the sharpest knife in the drawer.

  “Yeah?” I asked.

  “You know how I told you to always be yourself, Col?”

  I nodded. It was one of the first things he had taught me and one of the things I appreciated the most about him.

  “Well, I think you may have to tone it down, here. L.A. was bad enough, and it's supposed to be a liberal city. You know what I'm saying?”

  “That around here, they think fags make the best kindling?”

  Shawn was the sole member of the family to know my secret. Until a very ugly situation a few months ago at school, he had been the only one in the world. He had figured it out a year or so back, or at least that's when he had sat me down to ask me. After the panic-induced fit of hyperventilation, we had had a really good talk and he had become my sole confidante.

  “No one gets to call my little brother a fag, not even him,” Shawn told me and punched me in the arm.

  “All right, all right, no need to get violent. And, by the way, ow.” I rubbed my shoulder.

  “I don't want you to have to go through what you went through at our old school, bro.”

  Just thinking of the humiliation, misery and drama that had taken place during the Great Outing of 2008 just a few months ago made me shake. I scrunched in upon myself, fighting back the ghosts of the memories as they crowded in around me. No, I really didn't need to go through something like that again.

  Shawn gripped my shoulder and looked into my eyes. “I'm sorry. I know you hate thinking about it.”

  With a huge mental effort, I locked the stuff back up in its own box, which occupied a very dark corner of my mind. Then I put on a dapper smile for my brother and nodded. I certainly didn't want him to insist we talk about it.

  “You're right, that was months and miles ago. You were explaining to me how to avoid getting kicked around like a hacky sack?”

  Shawn's eyes narrowed even more. “You're a good actor, Col. And I know you try really hard to keep a positive attitude and that's great. But it's okay to talk about the bad stuff too, you know?”

  I waved a hand dismissively. “Water under the bridge I crossed and burned behind me.”

  He didn't push it further. “I don't want you to have to pretend that you are something you're not—I'm not saying you should get a girlfriend or anything. Just … dial it back, know what I'm saying?”

  I nodded unhappily. There was no denying he was right. If I hadn't been so busy sulking, I would have arrived at the realization on my own. It made me a little sad, as it always did, thinking that the world hated me without even knowing me, but that was just the way the world was. Life was sort of like school; everyone needed someone to bully. For the moment, gays were the lowest on the social totem pole, so we were the ones getting kicked in the teeth.

  “Thanks … for looking out for me,” I told Shawn with a wan little smile.

  He grinned dopily in reply. “It's all self-interest, Col. If someone hurts you then I have to kill them and go to jail, which would suck for me. So, you'll be doing me a favor.”

  I smirked and punched him in the arm, which I knew he wouldn't even feel. He gave me an “oh no you didn't” look and shoved me hard enough that I fell off the bed.

  “What was that?” he demanded. “That little girly punch? I taught you better than that,” he exhorted me.

  “That was not girly,” I objected, swinging ineffectually at him.

  “Girly man,” he taunted, lightly smacking me on the side of the head.

  “Stop it!” I demanded, laughing.

  “Make me!”

  I decided to do just that. I bunched my legs underneath me and launched myself at my big brother, tackling him right off the bed. It was fairly ridiculous, considering he was taller and heavier than me. My maneuver only worked because he was on the edge of the bed. After that, I was vanquished fairly easily.

  “Say it,” he demanded, pinning my bony shoulder to the hardwood floor.

  “Bite me.”

  “Say it....”

  “Your breath stinks.”

  “Say it or I'll give you a wedgie so bad you'll need the Jaws of Life to get your shorts back out.”

  I made one last valiant and futile effort to wriggle free a
nd then surrendered, huffing indignantly. “Fine. I am the Walrus, koo koo ka-choo.”

  We made our way downstairs, once we got control of ourselves, and proceeded into the kitchen where my parents were. It seemed to be the part of the house where the remodeling project had come to die. New lighting had been put in and the floors were as shiny and polished as the rest of the house, but the rest of the kitchen looked like someone had shopped for appliances at the city dump.

  These antiquated relics all matched, but they did so in a shocking shade of olive that I was sure I had seen on an old 70's show rerun. The cabinets had been painted, but even that could not disguise the fact that they were a little askew, suggesting that age was slowly killing them. One peek inside showed me the shelves had been papered in something that was likely supposed to have been cute, but was just ghastly. It looked like white butcher paper that kindergartners had drawn on. I shuddered and turned my back on the sight.

  “We were just discussing dinner options,” my mother told us.

  My mom's sardonic expression told me she was also unimpressed with the kitchen. I suspected that the conversation that allegedly had been about dinner plans had been more about the horror surrounding us. She caught my eye and we shared one of our secret smiles that we had been exchanging since I was a boy, when she had taught me to laugh at the world instead of getting frustrated by it.

  “There are a couple of restaurants in town that the locals say are quite good,” my dad offered cautiously, eying my no-longer-belligerent face with optimism.

  I forced myself to look around at the Kitchen That Time Forgot. “Does this stuff work?”

  My mother laughed, which sounded more like a snort. “More or less,” she told me, tucking a stray blonde lock back behind her ear.

  Her hair was too short for the ponytail she favored, but she kept trying to bind it anyway. It defied her constantly, slipping loose strand by strand. Every few years, she cut it to donate it to some place that makes wigs for cancer patients. And every time she did, she swore it was the last time.