by David Connor
“Mom.”
She turned around toward where we stood, six men, two women, and four children. Her mouth agape, her eyes wide, her wet hands holding a plate from a tub of water, she spoke her son’s name. “Jefferson.” The plate shattered when it hit the floor. “My darling Jefferson.”
“Mama, I have missed you all these many years.”
Lacking the verbal skills to put her thoughts into words, a tiny girl wrapped herself around Jefferson’s legs. Her smile was so wide, the tears in her eyes had no place to settle, so they fell right to the floor.
“Do you remember me, Nancy?”
Jefferson had told me all about his baby sister, Nancy, the previous autumn. I recognized her immediately, just from his description.
“Of course, she remembers you,” Myrtle Eaves told her son. “Just look at her face.”
The home seemed smaller inside than it looked from its exterior. Excessive heat from the stone fireplace where the cast iron pot hung quickly moved us back outdoors.
“Jefferson! Jefferson!”
Almost immediately, several huge men were running swiftly toward us from the fields to our west. Patrick and I exchanged glances, and then got the heck out of the way, just in time for Jefferson to be swept up in the air, like he had been at Operation Cracker Line. Earl Eaves didn’t hide his emotions. Quite a bit larger in height and breadth, he pulled his son to his chest and inhaled deeply, with his nose in Jefferson’s hair. Though I would have bet the smell was not so pleasant after our lengthy journey, Jefferson’s father held on tight.
Each brother took a turn as well, rough housing and embracing the “runt of the litter,” as I overheard one of them say. They didn’t seem to mind the fact Old Spice deodorant hadn’t been invented yet, as I wished to God I’d had some in case someone started hugging me.
It took a while for Jefferson to break free. The moment he did, he reached for Calvin. “Everybody…”
Calvin held back. He seemed shy, or perhaps just uncertain, trying his best to stay behind Patrick.
“This is Calvin. I love him.” Jefferson beamed as the rest of us fell silent.
Squeezing Patrick’s hand, a bit too hard, I steeled myself for Jefferson’s disappointment, for the fallout. I was expecting anything from disbelief to rage. What I got instead were more tears of joy. What Calvin got was a clinch that moved him backwards a good three feet.
“Are you good to my boy?” Earl asked him.
“I sure try to be, sir,” Calvin said.
“He is,” Jefferson confirmed. “When things looked their bleakest, I wanted to live for him, for him and all of you.”
“I know that feeling,” Earl said, glancing pointedly at his wife.
If Myrtle felt any sort of shock about the man her son brought home, it didn’t show on her face. She began to cry again, though I wasn’t certain she’d ever stopped. The emotion was positive, I thought, as she somehow managed to fold two adult men into the narrow span of her arms. “Be happy, my child. Be happy. That’s all I wish.”
Not just Calvin, but all of us were welcomed into the warm, friendly Eaves home with grand hospitality. Little Nancy, sometimes wobbly as a newborn fawn, followed Jefferson around the entire day. His older siblings didn’t venture far from his side, either. I had a sense it had been far too long since they had all been in one place.
The day of celebration was noisy, under a sky that had turned a deep, rich blue, and sun that warmed us as if it was August still, but with a breeze that kept us comfortable and reminded us cooler days were the norm now for a while. Insects and flora danced along with us, butterflies and bumble bees visiting the last few flowers that would soon disappear until spring. Brown and copper leaves applauded our frivolity each time the wind came hard. Somehow, half the town ended up on the Eaves’ property, partying with us. Calvin worried about the abundance of food.
“If we eat your entire early autumn harvest in one day, what will there be for later?” he asked.
Though the Eaves and others reassured him all would be fine, I wondered myself.
Realizing the farmhouse couldn’t hold us all overnight, the church reverend agreed to take in Daniel Porter and his family.
“My wife will take care of that leg for you,” he told Daniel. “You’ll be fine in her hands and God’s loving embrace.”
Another neighbor offered lodging to the others, George, Henrietta, and little Henry Smalls. The way the entire community was full of love and acceptance for all of us, regardless of our race or sexual orientation. I was once again struck by a sense of nirvana, convinced I’d stumbled into some form of it, until something happened to challenge that.
The moment I saw the three men approaching, I sought out Patrick and took him by the arm. “You remember those guys with the ice cream at Cone Heads? The ones looking for trouble?”
Patrick was staring straight ahead instead of looking at me. “I sure do.” He shuddered. “This is going to be worse.”
The hate on two of their faces was obvious. Even had it not been, the fact they approached carrying switches and rope left no doubt as to their mission.
Jefferson’s brothers, Patrick and I, we tried to form a circle around Jefferson and Calvin, a wall between these thugs and the two families we had brought up north. The language the trio of interlopers used was vile, because of skin color, because Jefferson and Calvin were in love.
“I know what you two are,” one of them said.
They looked like movie outlaws. Maybe that was how my brain created them—black hats, dark clothing, that certain strut all bad guys had in the old west, even if we were up north. My mind wanted me to recognize how evil they were.
“We don’t want trouble,” Mr. Eaves told them.
“Who are they?” I asked.
“Brothers.” Jefferson’s word came like the hiss of a snake. “Francis, Wyatt…” He nodded almost imperceptibly at each. “And Thomas.”
My head snapped up to look at Jefferson’s face.
“Yes,” he said. “Thomas Crane. That Thomas.”
“If you don’t want trouble, Mr. Eaves,” Francis took a step closer, “then you shouldn’t be inviting wickedness into your home, wickedness and their kind.”
Wyatt spoke next. “As if one thing ain’t bad enough, a white man lying with one his color is a sure invitation to the fire and brimstone of hell.” When he spat at Calvin’s feet, I lurched forward, ready to pummel him, but Jefferson held me back.
Calvin refused to be intimidated. He wasn’t going to let anyone keep him from standing up for the man he loved. “If I believed any of that was true,” he said to both brothers, “I would gladly let you do what you wish to me, in order to spare Jefferson from knowing such pain. I would surrender my soul to keep his pure, my life to save his. I will, if I have to.”
I came around to Calvin’s side when Francis raised his switch. Patrick joined us, as did every one of Jefferson’s brothers and more than a dozen other men.
“Love is pure in all forms,” Calvin stated.
“Not the kind you claim to feel. Those who live in sin shall die in sin and spend eternity in misery, while I’ll be rewarded for ridding the Earth of your depravity and one more—”
“That will never happen,” I vowed, cutting him off before he could finish both syllables of his disgusting racial slur.
“You’re one, too,” Francis said. He uttered two epithets, one ethnic, one homophobic, both ending in lover. “I could strike you down in God’s name without worry,” he claimed.
“Stop it!” Thomas suddenly hollered. “Leave them be.”
His two brothers turned on him, Francis swinging the switch in his youngest brother’s direction, missing Thomas’s face by the width of his weapon. Jefferson was right there between them.
“I don’t want Jefferson hurt,” Thomas claimed. “No more so than has already been done. He’s a good man, a kind man, a strong man, the sort I can’t imagine God not shining all glory upon.”
Thomas
’s words were surprising to me.
“If Jefferson has found someone to love, someone who loves him back, isn’t that to be celebrated, like we would any other couple in a church, with flowers, prayer, and song?” When Thomas reached out, Calvin grabbed him by the wrist. “My words are honest.” With nothing but gentility, Thomas freed himself to place Calvin’s hand in Jefferson’s. “I was an ignorant man years ago when you came to me, Jefferson. My brothers are ignorant now, perhaps unlovable by anyone, male or female, maybe even themselves, maybe the lord. I hope not, for their souls, even as they drown them in liquor and hatefulness.”
Thomas was an eloquent speaker. Though the grudge I held against him didn’t vanish in an instant, I could see he had grown, which made me ready to at least think about forgiveness.
“Now, leave them be,” Thomas said to his brothers one more time. “And we’ll go back where we came from.”
The brothers must have figured there were enough of us around to make sure that happened. Though the words they mumbled were still quite repulsive, they followed the order and left.
“Thank you, Thomas.” Jefferson pulled him into an embrace. As Calvin kept an attentive eye on them, the rest of us watched the older men walk away. The dust from the dirt already dried by the sun and stiff winds of the day and a mostly parched October kicked up by their moving feet stirred a while after they were gone.
“No doubt, there is so much of that going on in this country,” Jefferson said. “And I don’t mean the part about who a man takes to bed, but rather concerning the color of his skin.”
“I wish I could do more,” Thomas claimed.
“If that’s true,” Calvin told him, “there are ways.” Calvin explained his wish to bring people up north. “People like me,” he said. “Men, women, and families who had it nowhere near as good as I, and still don’t. We’ll need jobs for them, shelter, and friendly faces. Much of the south is mired in resentment and unmitigated aversion right now. I want to get as many as we can out of it.”
“I’m willing to help in any way I can,” Thomas said. “We may not always have extra, but we always have enough, and that means we can share. I promise you,” he went on, “there is more good on Earth than bad.”
Thomas was invited to join us in merriment. We imbibed in hard cider and venison, with anticipation building, at least in my tummy, for the loaves of homemade bread Myrtle had lined up in the kitchen to rise.
Buttery, flaky, warm, and pillowy tender, they did not disappoint. With our bellies and our hearts full, four of us, Jefferson and Calvin, Patrick and I, took a late afternoon stroll into the woods.
“I wonder if we should leave them alone,” I said to Patrick. “This might be the time they finally consummate their love, if they haven’t had a chance to already.” I was tempted to ask that, too, still uncertain about how time had passed.
“We want you here,” Jefferson assured me.
“My whispering wasn’t as quiet as I’d hoped, apparently.”
He smiled in my direction. “It means so much to share our love with others who feel the same way.”
“Love?” I asked. The dry fallen leaves we tread on were almost noisy enough to swallow my word, but not quite. Even so, Patrick was understanding, or else pretended to be.
“Goose hasn’t known me very long,” he said.
I knew I was backtracking from my earlier declaration back in another time and waffling from those first moments Patrick and I had met up again in my vision, when we’d disclosed our mutual feelings. Though the potential for physical intimacy had me reeling, it was one of those times when I should have probably kept my racing thoughts to myself.
“How long does it take to fall in love?” Calvin pondered.
“There are as many theories on that as there are lovers,” Patrick said, while scraping a heart shape into damp tree bark with his fingernail. “Is it an instant or a lifetime? Do we only know when we look back?”
The crickets had plenty to say, even if I didn’t, as we continued on. There was something about my hand in Patrick’s that felt right, though, like that was exactly where it belonged, even if I wondered about it being too soon for certain words and certain acts in this or any other realm. As confusing as time was in my mind, the moment was one to treasure, for sure, one I’d been waiting for all my life. I tried to relax. Jefferson’s Thomas had changed for the better. Even if my Tom never did, him or my father, they were both out of my life for good.
The sounds of nature at dusk were the only ones for the rest of our journey, until the shimmer and ripples of life in the water became visible and audible just ahead. Despite my intellectual ambivalence, the anticipation of being naked again with Patrick sent a tingle throughout my body, particularly strong between my legs. Biology at work. Jefferson started to undress. He removed his newsboy cap first, then his shoes and one sock.
“No one else is as excited as I?” he asked, pausing before pulling the second one off all the way.
“I might be too excited,” I admitted, as I wondered if the way I was walking looked as odd as it felt.
“Why should you hide your arousal, Goose?” Jefferson brushed his hand against the button on my trousers before fumbling with his. “I, for one, find it to be a glorious function of a wonderful organ I appreciate having. I refuse to be ashamed of any part of me, inside or out.” He showed as much by dropping his trousers and underwear to the ground. I found Jefferson’s words and attitude quite enlightened, considering the century we were in. I found his body beautiful. It was compact and muscular, mostly smooth, except for the wild bushiness under each arm and just below the lower part of his flat, pale gut. I’d captured it accurately in many of my drawings, except for a birthmark in the shape of an acorn on his hip. Acorns were special to Calvin and him. Perhaps that was why. “I suggest there is no cause for any of you to be embarrassed, either,” Jefferson said, completely nude in front of us.
Patrick concurred. He was the next one to begin taking his clothes off. One shoe flew left, the other right. He whipped his pants down with grand flourish, and sent them flying, too.
Of all the things I had to be curious about in the historic dimension, I’d been wondering about underwear. Patrick’s were appropriate to the time, long johns, more or less, not all that different than the ones he’d worn as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, except without the boxers over them. Mine felt the same beneath my wool trousers.
Wasting no time in his head, Patrick whisked those 1860s drawers right off and threw them backwards up over his head. “Ah, freedom!” Running slightly ahead, then turning to face us, he showed no inhibition when it came to his erection. Still wearing a long-sleeved Henley-type of shirt, he pulled it to his chin, and then tucked it under, leaving his hands free to play a short beat on his hairy belly. “Pick up the pace, Goose. Last one naked is rotten egg.”
I didn’t want to be a rotten egg, so what choice did I have? A little neater than Patrick had been, I stood in one place and left my clothing in a pile, all but my underwear. I kept those on a moment more. “Calvin?” There seemed to be some reticence. “Would you like to be alone with Jefferson?”
His arms were folded over his chest, over his shirt. He smiled, and then stroked my cheek, his fingertips rough, his manner gentle. “It’s not that. I’m in full agreement with Jefferson. My uncertainty isn’t about you, nor Patrick, nor Jefferson. It’s only about me.”
“Oh.” Though our reasons were likely quite different, I understood Calvin’s insecurities. “Love is pure in all forms, you said. Remember? It also conquers fear and takes away judgement, if we let it. I have a habit of letting my brain take charge. I think we can both agree, though, that the body and heart know what to do on their own.”
“You’re probably right.”
“What’s wrong?” Jefferson approached, wet from a quick splash in the water, shiny from the sun where we stood. He took his wet finger and drew a tiny shape on Calvin’s cheek. A heart, like Patrick had in the tree? No. I
was pretty sure it was an acorn.
“I’ve never been with a man in that way,” Calvin told him. “With all the anticipation we’ve built up, our love and wanting, I worry I might somehow disappoint.”
The moment was theirs, so I stepped out of the way.
“Calvin Goodacre, I love you so much.” Jefferson took both of his hands. “Pressing my body to yours with fabric between us is enchanting. This…” He began to help Calvin out of his clothes. “This will be everything I’ve dreamed of.”
Jefferson touched his bare skin to Calvin’s each time more of it was revealed. I found the action sweet, and also hot as fuck. A cheek to Calvin’s bare arm, a palm over his heart, their whole bare bodies pressed together once Calvin’s pants and underwear were at his ankles, Jefferson savored each moment, and I felt like a nosy bystander watching.
“Shall we walk ahead?” I asked, a fair distance away from the others already, as Jefferson took to one knee to untie Calvin’s boot.
Patrick offered his hand in lieu of words, and we headed off together. I left my underwear partway back. When I stopped to kick them off, he moved his touch to the small of my back, then let it slide a bit farther down.
Get out of your head. Get out of your head. I tried some positive self-talk. Touch can be comforting. You know that by now. The hands touching your body showed you.
I was still, in mind and upper body, the rest of the way.
The water was chilly. “You have goosebumps,” Patrick said. “I have Patrick bumps. Brr.”
I shook my head.
“You made me say it.” He moved me with his hip. “Didn’t you, Mr. I’m In Charge?”
“No way am I taking credit for that pun. I’ll deny it until I get to Heaven for real.”
“Maybe, Goose, I can make them go away.”
Reluctance fought my true desire when Patrick offered to wrap me in his arms for warmth to calm my chattering teeth.
“I’m okay.” I tried but faltered to corral my inhibitions this time, which seemed to rule me, even in my subconscious.
