Spring Tide Love
By Emery C. Walters
Published by Queerteen Press
Visit queerteen-press.com for more information.
Copyright 2015 Emery C. Walters
ISBN 9781611527780
Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Published in the United States of America. Queerteen Press is an imprint of JMS Books LLC.
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Spring Tide Love
By Emery C. Walters
Chapter 1: Hal and Reggie: Really Back in the Day (Uphill Both Ways, Etc.)
Chapter 2: Chris and Trey: Back in the Day
Chapter 3: Chris: Notes on the Water
Chapter 4: Trey: The Great Porcupine Fish
Chapter 5: Hal and Reggie: Back to Today
Chapter 1: Hal and Reggie: Really Back in the Day (Uphill Both Ways, Etc.)
Before there were wives and children and grandchildren, before being out was in, or even safe or even acknowledged, two men, Hal and Reggie, met in the Navy. They were posted onboard the same ship. They recognized something in each other the first time they met; they kissed within the month; they were in love for a year before they had an opportunity to do anything more than that. Furtive hugs and brief, snatched kisses at odd moments were so risky that they were worse than barely satisfying. This was, if you’re interested, after World War II and before 1965. Getting those pesky gays and lesbians, who only wanted to serve their country, out of the military, was like a witch hunt after Eisenhower’s presidency.
Anyhow, it was a big ship, and their paths crossed often. Trying to hide the love you have for someone else is hard at the best of times, and almost impossible at the worst. There was a terrible fuss when they were found one day, at the same bar onshore on some warm, happy island, using their leave in the way sailors did in those days, only not with the sanctioned women or barflies of those days, but with each other. The MP’s beat them up, and they both received dishonorable discharges. The services hadn’t even come up to ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ yet; not even close.
Hal, who was barely nineteen, was able to tell his parents that he had been given a medical discharge for ‘flat feet,’ and they believed him, after he convinced his Uncle Bart (who knew better) to convince his father that a shell had fallen on his feet, thus flattening them. Uncle Bart and his live-in companion, Jeremy, had Hal come stay with them in San Francisco for a while, but Hal felt too much shame, and went back to his family to marry the girl they had had in mind for him. It was what you did; it was ‘the done thing.’ He didn’t have the courage, wisdom, or lack of shame that Uncle Bart and Jeremy had managed to achieve. What he had was a rocky marriage, a ton of misery to hide, his shame, and his mother’s gratitude.
He and Marcia had three children. One of these children, a boy, committed suicide rather than face his perhaps-genetic preference, and one of the others eventually had a son, and invited Hal to come live with them in Hawaii. Here for heaven’s sake, whom should he meet at the senior citizens center on a hike up the mountain, but his old fellow trouble maker, Reggie.
Reggie hadn’t been able to carry off a lie because his father was a graduate of the Naval Academy hup hup hoo hah, and was friends with Reggie’s commanding officer, Captain Walters. Reggie was married off summarily to Captain Walters’ daughter Helga, and his ‘little mistake’ was swept under the rug. Eventually, after four children, Helga divorced Reggie for a local defrocked priest, and Reggie moved to Hawaii, where he was hiking up a mountain when he ran into, or rather fell onto, Hal.
So what? Well, Hal is Chris’ grandfather and you’ll like Chris, and Reggie sort of saves Trey’s life, and I think you’ll like Trey too. Chris and Trey sure like each other, and that’s what this story is all about. That, and about how times change, hopefully for the better. For their sakes, and for yours too.
Raising a gay child shouldn’t have to feel like being given an albino tiger instead of a kitten for Christmas.
Chapter 2: Chris and Trey: Back in the Day
Back in the day meant something totally different to a teenager than it did to someone who had lived long enough to actually have a back in the day story to tell. Back in the day to Chris meant the first time he’d seen Trey in the locker room at school. Naked. Pale. Medium brown hair that would probably bleach to gold in the sun. Eyes that were almost turquoise. He was clutching a gym towel to his belly in great agitation. Chris had a horrible feeling he knew why, because the same thing had happened to him several times at equally inappropriate moments like this too. Steve Durant, class hero and BMOC (big monkey on campus, you know the type) and his pals were laughing and pointing. “Ha ha, the new kid’s a fag! Like what you see, gay boy?” Steve poked one of his henchmen and whipping that boy’s towel off him, spun him around so he could moon the new kid.
Chris got angrier than he had ever been before in his life. A feeling of rage combined with tenderness for this vulnerable, adorable, innocent newcomer. He breathed power into himself and could feel flames inside his body wanting to be exhaled. A part of him sat aside, watching himself with pride, awe, and terror.
It was the first, but not the last time he ever stood up to anyone. He stood up to Steve for this new boy, this sweet new boy who’d just made him learn something about himself that he hadn’t really wanted to know, and he’d felt powerful and angry and stupid at the same time. He’d blustered right up to Steve and grabbed him by the throat, gripping him just long enough to realize he was probably going to die, because, if he didn’t outright kill Steve, Steve and his buddies would mop the floor with him.
He’d gotten a concussion and a black eye out of it and been suspended for a week for ‘starting a fight.’ Yeah, right. He hadn’t exactly thrown the first punch, had he?
Nothing had come of it between him and Trey then, but when another boy who had watched it all, Ryan, a skinny little black-haired boy he’d never noticed before, had smiled at him the day he came back, he almost forgot all about Trey. Not about the part he’d learned about himself though, that was here to stay. G.A.Y. Can we say ohmygosh, look at Ryan’s cute little butt? Ryan looked like a young Sal Mineo, batting his eyelashes, dimples in his cheeks, looking up at him like he was something good to eat.
Later he’d analyzed why he hadn’t followed through with Trey, gotten to know him, tried to find out more about him. Trey never left his mind and consciously or not, he always noticed him, knew where he was, and whether or not he was all right. It was just that Trey was way too much reality for Chris to deal with yet. There was knowing, and then there was knowing.
Trey had not been distracted by Ryan’s butt. He’d noticed the boy named Andrew watching though. He’d developed a crush on him and Andrew’s dark, searing eyes, his beautiful, pouty red lips.
This had been freshman year, when they’d just moved here. Trey was fourteen. His father and Steve’s father were partners in the law firm Steve’s gran
dfather had started. He was expected to socialize with this jerk.
“I’m disappointed in you, son,” his father said often at dinner. “You’re letting the family down. I expected better.”
Every night that this happened, Trey’s stomach closed up and he couldn’t eat without feeling sick later. That first day in gym, when that boy—Chris—had stood up to Steve for him, he’d felt only shame that someone else had had to do what he’d been too afraid to do. Not just because he was afraid of Steve and his henchmen, but afraid of what his father would say later. Over the weekend, there’d been a big argument between him and his father, and he decided to run away into a cane field and kill himself. Nobody would miss him. He made his plans over the lecture he got at dinner, his mind already far, far away, off in the fields and darkness.
That night, as he lay fully dressed in his dark bedroom, he had his first pity party for himself. He was so misunderstood; he had such shameful secrets, and nobody liked him. He’d never have a boyfriend, he’d shame his family, and to this almost comforting litany, he’d nearly dozed off.
Finally, after what seemed like eternity, the house was quiet, and Trey got up, slid open his window, looked at the steep drop outside, and decided to slip out the front door instead. Yes, it would serve them right to find him dead of a broken neck on the decorative rocks below his window, he thought, but it was too easy. They might miss the message and think he’d only fallen. Fuck that.
Bad Ass Rebel all the way, he thought, curling his lip with derision, covering up his heartache. He slipped out the front door and luckily, forgot to lock it behind him. The cane fields didn’t look very far away. In fact, quite often when they burned them, the smoke and bits of black plastic, ‘Maui Snow,’ came right into the house, pissing his mother off completely.
An hour later, his dark and happy mood dissolving rapidly into fatigue and regret, he found a dirt road leading off into the tall cane, and lifting his lip back up in a sneer, started down it without a backward glance.
It was a dark and stormy night. Well, not really, but it was certainly moonless and dark. It seemed misty, or maybe it was only the vog from the volcano on the next island. There weren’t any mosquitos, and the ubiquitous mynahs, doves, peacocks, and roosters, were silent and asleep.
You know what, Trey thought, as the dirt track turned a corner into darker and taller fields. This is dumb, but it’s too late now. I didn’t bring anything to kill myself with. God! I’m so stupid! I should have grabbed a gun. Oh wait, we don’t have any guns; a knife then, yeah, we have plenty of those in the kitchen. Well nope, too late now. I’ll just lie down in the dirt…right here. Wait…it’s so quiet. I can’t hear anything. Um, uh oh, what is that? It’s just the cane rustling, right? Gosh it’s cold out here. How can it be cold? It’s Maui!
Oh it’s clouding over. It looks like it’s going to rain. It can’t rain, can it? It’s Maui. Wait a minute, I do hear something. What, why it’s music. It sounds like flutes and drums and bagpipes. No. I’m just being a sissy. It’s like the monsters I used to think lived in the closet. But maybe it’s zombies! Ha ha. There’s no such thing as zombies or dead people who can walk.
It does sound like footsteps though. Marching. And it smells funny out here, but I’m sure that’s probably just some dead, at least I hope it’s dead, animal. Like a wild boar or something.
He shivered. This wasn’t fun anymore, not that it was supposed to be fun in the first place. There came a rumble of thunder and several flashes of lightning, and surely that was just the wind blowing through the cane; right? Even though it sounded more like a conch shell being blown than anything else. The wind was getting worse, and it started to rain, heavily, right off the bat. And then they appeared. Marching.
Oh crap! There are zombies! They look like warriors and they’re all marching right toward me!
Luckily for Trey, he was so frightened that he forgot to watch where he was going, tripped over a puddle, and fell flat on his face. He’d only had time for a quick glimpse of what was coming toward him down the dirt road. It was indeed a crowd of marchers, all painted and dressed like the warriors they had once been. It was one of those nights when they marched and sang their songs, and crossed paths and trails and right through the bedroom walls of new houses where they had used to battle their enemies, long, long ago. And if you looked at them you’d catch sick and die, if they’d didn’t kill you where you stood. Of course, Trey didn’t know all this about the Nightmarchers at the time it was happening, but found out much later, doing research on local myths and legends for his Hawaiian Studies class the following year.
They passed him by as he lay there in the dirt, stepping over him and laughing at the small, frightened haole boy who had wet himself with fear in the rain and storm of their passage.
After they had gone, after all the noise had died away and the rain let up, he rose, turned, and ran back the way he had come. He made several wrong turns but finally made it out to the highway, soaked and white as a ghost. He was terrified and crying. He could have been running and hiding for hours after the fright he had had. He knew enough to know he was lost, but at least he was alone now. There was nobody around at all, except one car coming along from far off down the road. Trey was still so scared, and now shaking with cold, that he didn’t know whether to wave it down, stick out his thumb, run away from it in case ‘they’ had learned how to drive, or jump in front of it. As it was, he didn’t have to do anything, for the car slowed down and an older man looked out the window at him and just said, “Get in. I’ll take you home.”
Trey stammered out his address and the man just nodded. “It’ll be all right,” was all he said. “Tomorrow’s another day. You’ll see. It gets better.” And that was that, except for Trey trying to thank him when they reached his house. When he turned to thank the man, he heard, “No need for thanks. You did it all yourself. You overcame your fear, and you survived.”
As he slipped silently into the house, locking the door behind him and stripping off his wet clothes right there on the front mat, Trey was just glad to be alive. The irony of it all escaped him. He made it up to his room without getting caught, stuffed his wet clothes into the back of his closet, and got into his pajamas like he did every other night. He climbed into bed and pulled the covers up over his head, just like he had when he was small, and the monsters had been only in his closet. The only good thing about the entire night was the feeling of strength and comfort the man’s kind words had given him.
Chapter 3: Chris: Notes on the Water
“What the hey? This isn’t my iPod! This isn’t my music! What the—oh no. Oh dear lord no. Tell me I didn’t pick up the wrong one. Tell me I didn’t come all the way down here to the beach with my grandpa’s iPod!” Chris fumed. He pouted. He made faces. He placed the back of his hand on his forehead and sighed deeply. “I’m so stupid!” he exclaimed. Then, realizing nobody was watching, he turned the little object over and sure enough, stuck to the back was a little strip of identification tape with one word on it, ‘Hal.’ His grandfather’s name.
Chris was shocked. He was devastated. He wanted to cry. Yeah, he was a little dramatic but what gay teenager isn’t? Well sure, the ones who are still hiding it or denying it or whatever, but Chris? Out was his middle name, though to be honest, he wasn’t, out. He was very in, except when he felt safe, or away from school or his parents. And really, so was every other gay kid he might know.
He wondered if people knew about him anyway. There was this one kid, Trey; Chris had seen the way he looked at him (or sometimes didn’t look at him) in the locker room at school, especially after he’d stood up for him when Trey had just moved here. He couldn’t help but wonder, but he wasn’t willing to risk asking. Oh right, he thought, I just walk up to him, stark naked, share his shower, and say, Hey man, nice ass! Or Hey I’m gay, are you? and wait to see if he kills me. Sure thing. Not.
“Kill me now!” he pleaded. He held the hateful, deceitful little object in his hand as
far away from himself as his arm would let him. He wouldn’t throw it, he just wouldn’t. He refused! He must take it back to whence it came! He—what the hell? He still had the earbuds in and he turned up the music. Hey, this wasn’t bad, he even liked it. “This is cool,” he sighed. “‘Smoke on the Water’—what the hell did that mean? Did songs have meanings in those old dinosaur-dodging days when his grandfather was, had been, unbelievable though it seemed, young?”
His father had loaned him the car so he could go to Steve’s party. He’d had to dress nicely over his board shorts, and had had to sneak his board into the car when his father had turned his back. His grandfather had seen him but had only smiled.
He was upset that Steve hadn’t invited him to his ‘everyone’s invited’ end of school party, but mostly because he hadn’t been able to refuse him in as bitchy a way as only he could, and here he took pride; he could be the master of bitchiness when he desired it. In fact, he thought, once he was really out, and like, off Maui and into New York City, or Paris, or somewhere he really belonged, maybe he’d give lessons. Ha! He’d get rich.
By this time he had reached the beach, and parked in the third lot because he hated the sissy way tourists always parked in the first lot, and even the second, since it was tourist season. (If it’s tourist season, why can’t we shoot them, he asked himself).
“I hate being here by myself. Why am I always the only one? It’s just not fair,” Chris muttered, getting out of his good clothes and tossing them in a heap in the trunk. Here he was behind his car in the semi-deserted third parking lot, stripping to an old-geezer song, and there was nobody to appreciate it. Life sucked. Being alone was not his thing, but sadly, it beat being with his family and schoolmates. There had to be other gay boys in his class. Statistically speaking, there should be a dozen, no half a dozen, ten percent, because some were girls, right? Hannah was gay, but too bad; Hannah was a girl.
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