by Kim Fielding
Tag thought this was ridiculous. He wasn’t the type to do something like this. He wasn’t a hero. He was a fuckup, a loser, a nothing. Except… except Jack was really special, and Jack believed in him. Loved him. So that had to mean there was something good about Tag. A seed of worthiness. Jack had urged him to trust himself. It was time to give that advice a try.
“But h-how can you…?” Tag stuttered. “Jack….”
“I can pull a few strings, son.”
Strings. That sounded easy enough. “All right,” said Tag.
Broderick beamed like the sun. “That’s what I wanted to hear. Good man!” He backed away from Tag for several yards, taking off his hat and coat as he went and throwing them aside. He took off his brown uniform shirt and white undershirt, bent to pull off his boots and socks, unbuckled his belt, and tugged down his trousers and boxers. He stood with his legs slightly spread and his arms raised high. He was beautiful.
As Tag watched, openmouthed and frozen in place, Broderick began to glow. He was just as Buddy had described—so bright Tag had to squint. And then he was even brighter than that, a beacon of light that rivaled the sun. He was like the tower in the middle of the solar farm, collecting every photon of energy around him and concentrating it into one tremendous beam.
Tag had to look away.
When Tag dared to glance back, Broderick was gone. But a mirage had replaced him—a mirage of a slightly dumpy two-story motel. It was U-shaped, with a pool in the middle. The old sign was still at the edge of the property, but now the paint looked bright and shiny and the neon glowed.
With his heart beating so hard and so fast he worried about keeling over, Tag slowly walked across the parking lot onto the concrete deck of the pool. The water was opaque, but he stood at the edge, looking down. And when a hand surfaced—just a single hand—Tag bent, grasped it, and pulled.
Jack Dayton came out of the water naked and shivering. The hair he usually styled so carefully was plastered to his head. His eyes were so wide, Tag could see the whites all the way around the blue irises. But when Tag dragged him completely out of the pool and enveloped him in a close embrace, Jack held him just as tightly. The water soaked through Tag’s jacket. Even through layers of denim and cotton, he felt Jack’s heart beating as wildly as his own.
“You smell good,” Jack whispered.
Twenty-Four
2015
TAG LAUGHED as he watched Jack stuff a second meat-filled pastry into his mouth. “You realize you’re going to need at least two hours in the gym to work that off, don’t you, Jacky?”
“I don’t care.” Jack slurped cola through his straw. “I haven’t had a Runza in sixty years. I might even eat another.”
“You go right ahead and do that, babe.”
Jack lifted an eyebrow. “Will you still love me if I’m fat?”
“Fat, bald, toothless… doesn’t matter. I’d still love you.”
“Bald?” Jack patted his head in alarm. He’d been delighted with the modern array of hair products. Tag was willing to bet that half their luggage consisted of bottles and jars of gel and other goop. On the other hand, Jack refused to allow Tag to do anything to his own hair except comb it. Almost every morning, Tag woke up to discover Jack gently running his fingers through Tag’s curls. It was a very nice way to wake up, and what often came next was even better.
Seemingly assured that his hair was intact, Jack took another bite. He wore blue jeans, a white tee, and a leather motorcycle jacket—very much the same outfit he used to wear before he died. He still looked movie-star handsome, even when his mouth was full.
Tag leaned back in the booth and settled his hands on the manila envelope. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
“Rick’s brother did us a big favor digging up this information.”
Rick’s brother had been a lot of help, actually. He’d also managed to get Jack a driver’s license and Social Security card so he could create a twenty-first-century existence for himself. “I know. But that doesn’t mean we have to use it.”
Jack wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, then crumpled the napkin and set it atop the empty sandwich wrapper. “This isn’t a big deal, Tag. We’ve faced scarier things than this. Like that group of haunts we ran into a couple months ago.”
Those had been very angry ghosts—a half-dozen spirits of young men who’d died in a gang war. They’d whirled and swooped around Jack and Tag in an old factory, overturning shelving units and causing a large light fixture to crash to the floor. Tag had become furious in return. Now that Jack was alive and well, the last thing Tag wanted was to lose him again. But Tag had managed to keep hold of his temper, and Jack had kept calm and unreasonably reasonable. They’d talked the ghosts down and even helped a couple of them move on.
Tag wasn’t scared about their upcoming task—he was worried. Jack might be pretending nonchalance, but he wasn’t a good enough actor to mask his anxiety. He’d even been having nightmares about it, waking up in the middle of the night to clutch Tag close.
“Are you ready, then?” Tag asked.
“Yeah.”
Jack looked out the Camry’s windows as Tag drove. “I don’t recognize Omaha anymore. Hardly anything looks the same.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s okay. I think it’s easier this way.” He turned his head to grin at Tag. “I’m not the same either.”
Tag turned off the main drag onto a smaller street. Instead of fast-food joints and strip malls, this street was lined with big old foursquare houses, well maintained and with tidy front yards. He drove slowly, letting Jack get a good look at their surroundings. When the GPS device told him to turn again, he did.
“I wonder…,” Jack began.
“Yeah?”
“If I’d never gone to Hollywood, what would have happened to me?”
“What do you think?” Tag idled at a stop sign while Jack thought. There was nobody behind them, and even if there had been, the other driver would have paused politely. Gotta love the Midwest.
“I suppose I’d have stayed at the plant. I would have gotten my own place eventually, so maybe sometimes I could bring a fellow home instead of just fucking him behind a bar. But I’d never have found someone like you, that’s for sure. I’d have been one of those bachelor uncles. Probably bitter. Definitely lonely.”
“You don’t know that. You might have found someone. People did, even back then.”
“Occasionally. But jeez, Tag, it was so much harder. You can’t imagine.”
“Because I’m just a young whippersnapper?” It was one of their in-jokes, one that brought occasional puzzled looks from eavesdroppers since Tag appeared to be the elder by several years.
“Yep. These kids today….” Jack squeezed Tag’s thigh, way up high where the squeeze was interesting instead of just friendly. “It’s good like this, Tag. You’re worth sixty years of death.”
Tag put his foot back on the accelerator. As they proceeded, the houses grew smaller and newer—modest ranch houses with attached one-car garages. They were probably built around the time Jack headed west. The front lawns were uniformly green and well mowed, and some houses had tiny front porches with potted flowers or plastic chairs. One two-tone green house had giant butterflies affixed to the exterior walls. Tag tried to picture Jack in a house like these, spending his weekends grumbling at his old Ford and watching football on TV, growing old, and finally retiring to complain about the government and reminisce about the good old days. But that picture wasn’t right. Jack was too exotic for a fate like that.
Tag stopped at a one-story house with a brick-and-clapboard exterior and an enormous tree dominating the front yard. There were no flowers, but the bushes lining the house were neatly trimmed, and a small colorful flag fluttered from a garden stake. Tag cut the engine and pocketed the key, and they both just sat there.
“You can still back out, Jacky. I won’t think you’re chicken.”
“No. I’m going to do thi
s.” He reached for the door handle but paused and turned back to Tag. “You’ll come with, won’t you?”
“Every step of the way.”
Tag was true to his word. He walked at Jack’s side to the front door, and when Jack took his hand before ringing the bell, Tag didn’t pull away, even though Jack was squeezing him painfully tight.
“God,” Jack muttered. “What if she won’t believe me? What if she has a stroke or a heart attack and croaks? What—”
The door swung inward.
The woman looked younger than Tag had expected: tall and slender, her white hair pulled back in a neat ponytail, her eyes a familiar bright blue. She wore blue slippers, black yoga pants, and a red sweater; glasses hung on a chain around her neck. She glanced at their joined hands and smiled. “Can I help you?”
Jack didn’t seem capable of speech, so Tag gave it a try. “Betty Ellebruck?”
She was still smiling in that vague polite way that meant she had no idea what they wanted, whether a charitable donation or an attempt at religious conversion. “Yes?”
“Uh, hi. My name’s Tag Manning, and this—” He waved his free hand in Jack’s direction.
She focused on Jack’s face for the first time. Her eyes went wide, she gasped, and she covered her mouth with her hand. Her other hand reached up to grasp the doorframe. After the longest moment in the history of mankind, she took a deep breath and let her hands drop. “Are you…. You must be my brother’s grandson. You look so much like….” She let her voice trail away.
Because Jack had turned to stone, Tag stepped up to the plate again. “Mrs. Ellebruck, this is Jack Dayton. Your brother.”
“And your husband,” Jack said hoarsely to Tag. Tag couldn’t help but grin back—that short phrase was still so sweet.
It was way more information than anyone should be expected to take in at once, especially a septuagenarian from Nebraska. Betty had gone very pale. But she surprised Tag by taking a small step back and motioning at them. “Please. Come in.”
The fireplace mantel was crowded with photos of Betty and a tall, kind-looking man who must have been Hank. Rick’s brother had told them Hank had died a few years earlier. There were other people as well—the Ellebruck children and grandchildren, Tag assumed. It was hard to tell from pictures, but they looked like a happy bunch. Quite a few of them bore a resemblance to Jack.
Betty gestured them onto a beige couch, where Jack sat very close to Tag, still not relinquishing his hand. She hovered for a moment. “Can I… get you something to drink?”
Jack finally spoke. “Scotch?”
“I’m sorry,” she replied. “I don’t have anything stronger than tea.”
Jack shook his head. Like Tag, he rarely drank alcohol. “It’s okay,” he murmured.
Betty sat in an armchair across from them. A stack of library books tottered on the table beside it, one of them with a bookmark sticking out.
An awkward silence settled over all three of them until Tag cleared his throat. “I, uh, know this is a little strange….”
“A little,” she replied with Jack’s wry smile. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
Jack ran his free hand through his hair. “Betts? I… I missed you. God, it’s such a long story.”
“My brother disappeared almost sixty years ago. He used to send me postcards once in a while—I still have them—but then he stopped. We never knew….” Her hand was shaking slightly, so she clutched it in her lap.
“I’m sorry,” Jack said.
“I thought something horrible must have happened, or else he would have written me once in a while. He sent such funny little notes.”
“Betty, I—”
Her gaze became very sharp. “What did you call me when we were children?”
A slow smile spread over Jack’s face. “Betty Spaghetti. And you called me Monkey Feet.”
A small sound escaped her throat. She rose slowly to her feet and crossed the space between them. Jack let go of Tag’s hand—not without a brief look of gratitude—and stood to meet her. They faced each other. And then she flung her arms around him so suddenly and so hard he was rocked back on his feet. “Jacky! Oh, my Jacky!”
Betty cried. Jack cried. Tag had irritating specks of dust in his eyes.
Even when Betty pulled back, she didn’t let go of Jack’s shoulders. “How can this be?” she asked, sounding very much the younger sister looking to her older brother for an explanation.
Jack sniffed. “It’s sort of complicated. I was a ghost for a while. But Tag saved me.” When Betty turned her head to look at Tag, Jack added, “I love him, Betty. I’m queer and I always have been and I wouldn’t change even if I could. So if you have a problem with that, I’m gonna—”
“Jacky! Does he make you happy? Is he good to you?”
“Yes,” Jack answered, his voice cracking.
“That’s all that matters.” She tilted her head slightly, just like Jack did when he was thinking. Then she grinned. “I have a brother-in-law! Hank only had a sister, and she never married. I always wanted a brother-in-law.”
Jack started crying and hugging her again, pausing only to reach over, grab Tag’s hand, and make him join in. Betty included Tag right away. She even kissed his cheeks. Then she made a teasing comment about wanting to steal Jack’s adorable husband, and Jack dared her to try, and it all felt like… family.
Eventually everybody settled back into their seats. Betty managed to unearth a bottle of wine after all. It wasn’t very good, but that didn’t matter. They drank it all while Jack and Tag told their story. Betty laughed at some points and wept at others, and she kept exclaiming over the wonder of it. But she didn’t hesitate to accept the truth laid before her. In her own way, Tag concluded, Betty was as amazing as her brother.
“I saw you in a movie,” she said when the tale was told. “I never told Mother and Father, but I was so thrilled. You played a delinquent….”
“Central High,” said Jack.
“Yes! And I thought you were wonderful. I told Hank you were going to be a big star.”
“I wasn’t. I never would have been. But that’s okay. I’m something better.” He slung an arm around Tag’s shoulders and planted a noisy kiss on his cheek.
Betty beamed at them. “And what are you two doing now? When you’re not shocking old ladies.”
“It’s just like the policeman said to Tag. We sort of travel around. We run into people who need, oh, a helping hand. A couple shoulders to cry on. Some good advice. Low-key exorcisms. We do what we can for them.”
“How do you find these people?”
Jack pointed at Tag, who shrugged. “Instinct. Fate. Maybe they’re just really easy to find if you know what to look for.”
“You’re a pair of guardian angels,” she said.
That made Jack laugh. “Believe me, Betts. Neither of us is an angel.”
She flapped a hand. “You don’t have to tell me about that part, Monkey Feet. But how do you get by? Financially, I mean.”
“Things are pretty tight. But we don’t need much, and we pick up jobs here and there. When people meet Tag, they catch on that he’s real smart. He can do almost anything if he puts his mind to it.”
Tag squirmed a little. He wasn’t used to praise, not even after a year and a half with Jack. “And Jacky just has to flash his baby blues to get what he wants.”
“He always did,” Betty said with a mock frown. “Do you want to settle down someday?”
“Maybe,” Jack answered, unconcerned. He’d told Tag over and over that he didn’t care where he was—heaven, hell, Nebraska—so long as Tag was there too.
But Tag did feel strongly about this subject. “Betty, there’s so much to see in the world. I’ve always moved around a lot, but I never saw. You know, last month we were near Bakersfield, California. I always thought that place was ugly. But this time of year a fog rises up out of the ground and gets so heavy you can barely see in front of you. All the sounds are muted and
when you walk through it’s like you’re an explorer on another planet. It’s incredible.”
For no reason that Tag could discern, Jack flashed his brightest smile and kissed the side of Tag’s head. Then he turned to his sister. “It’s getting late. Can we take you to dinner?”
“No. You can stay right here while I rustle something up.” Her voice became slightly hesitant. “Do you… plan to stay in Omaha for a while?”
Jack and Tag exchanged glances, and then Jack nodded. “We’d like to. Can you recommend a cheap motel? I’m a stranger here now.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! You are not staying in a motel! I’ll make up the bed in the spare bedroom and you two will be cozy as a bug in a rug. You can stay as long as you like. I hope you stay for a while.”
Jack walked over to her chair and embraced her. “Thank you, Betts. That’d be great.”
She was smiling wickedly when he stepped away. “And my next-door neighbor, Shirley Potts? That old busybody’s going to be beside herself wondering what I’m doing with two handsome young men in my house. It’ll be a wonderful scandal.”
“You’re the best, Betty Spaghetti.”
She stood. “Why don’t you go bring your things inside while I find something for us to eat? I think I have some nice pork chops in the freezer.”
Tag and Jack started for the door, an extra bounce in Jack’s footsteps. But before they walked outside, Betty stopped them with a question. “Jacky? Is it all right with you if I call my children and grandchildren and invite them over tomorrow? I know they’ll want to meet their Uncle Jack and Uncle Tag.”
Wow. Tag felt his cheeks aching and realized he had a wide smile to match Jack’s.
“I’d like that,” Jack said. “You don’t think they’re going to be…?”
“Oh, they’ll be thrown for a loop, all right. I won’t tell them anything on the phone or they’ll show up ready to drag me off to a home. But they’re good kids. They’re going to love you both so much.”
Tag and Jack walked down the sidewalk, hand in hand. But Jack pulled Tag to a halt before they reached the car. “It’s all right. She’s still… she’s still Betty.”