by A. M. Burns
Dillon woke up with a raging hard-on. The sun poured through his windows, even though it felt like he’d just gone to sleep. Remembering Robbie’s accusations in the dream, he shivered and headed to the bathroom that was attached to his bedroom. Once he had the pond water washed off, he dressed in clean clothes.
As he went to make his bed, the smell of the pond hit him. It brought a mental image of Scott walking out of it with the moonlight shining off his naked body. It was a happy thought, but Dillon wasn’t sure if he wanted to try and go to sleep with the wet green smell engulfing him. He quickly stripped the bed and carried the sheets and pillowcase to the laundry room.
When he made it into the kitchen to dig up some breakfast, Uncle Bryan was already at the table with a crumb-and-syrup-stained plate in front of him. The smell of fresh waffles had almost faded from the area.
“You okay?” Uncle Bryan asked.
Dillon went to the fridge and pulled out the orange juice. “Yeah, just slept late. Actually, I went for a walk last night with Scott.”
Uncle Bryan smiled as he carried his plate to the sink. “Thanks for being honest with me. I really appreciate that. It would’ve been nice to have been told before you left, but I remember being a teenager. Where’d you guys go?”
“Down to the pond a couple houses down.” Dillon poured himself a glass of juice. “Scott said his folks were watching the place for the owners. There were fireflies and screech owls. We even had a great horned owl come in while we were there.”
Uncle Bryan returned to his chair. “I’m really glad that you’re having fun while you’re out here. Tell you what, from now on, if you’re going to go slipping out your window in the middle of the night, leave me a note so I won’t be worried.”
Dillon was thankful he wasn’t looking at Uncle Bryan as his face went slack. How did he know I went out the window? “Okay.” He plugged the waffle iron back in and stirred the batter that was sitting in a mixing bowl.
“So, Dillon, is there anything else you want to tell me about?”
Maybe Uncle Bryan can help me understand these feelings I’m having. He’s been through it before. He might know if it’s real or just some strange teenage thing. He’s been honest with me so far. “Tell you? Not really. But I wanted to talk to you about some stuff.”
“Okay. I’m open this morning. I’ve got to meet a client this afternoon, but that’s an online chat, so there’s no worries there.”
Dillon carried his juice over to the chair that had quickly become his seat at the table. He sat and pursed his lips. “I don’t know how to start this.” He let out a slow breath. “When this whole thing with me staying out here started, you told me you were gay and explained that girls just hadn’t felt right.”
Uncle Bryan nodded but didn’t say anything.
“I’ve been thinking on that. Actually….” He paused and tried to figure out the right words to say. “I’m trying to sort out some feelings that have been coming up lately.”
“With Scott?”
Dillon sighed. “Yeah, with Scott.”
“Before you go too far, let me ask you a few questions and maybe these questions can help you sort out what you’re feeling.”
“Okay.” From his chair, Dillon spotted that the light of the waffle iron had gone out, so he walked over to it and poured in some batter.
“First, have you ever been with a girl? Kissed a girl? Hugged a girl? Been attracted to a girl?”
“No. No. Yes, one of Robbie’s friends is really huggy. I don’t know if I’ve ever been attracted to a girl or not. They’re just people for the most part.” Dillon leaned against the marble countertop and waited for his waffle to bake.
“When you hugged Robbie’s friend, did you feel anything then? Any stirrings, any urges?”
Did I? Dillon pondered. “Not really. I don’t know how to explain. I guess it was more like hugging one of the cousins that was at Grandpa’s funeral.”
“Was she pretty?” Uncle Bryan took a sip of his coffee.
“I guess. She’s a cheerleader. Most of the guys in school want to go out with her.”
“But you didn’t?”
“No. Like I said, she’s a friend of Robbie’s.”
“Just a friend or his girlfriend?”
Dillon removed the waffle from the waffle iron. “Friend. Robbie doesn’t have many girlfriends.”
“Is Robbie gay?”
Before he said no, Dillon remembered wondering what Robbie really wanted from him. “I don’t know. He’s never said anything about it, but I can’t really figure out why he’s my friend.”
“We can come back to that.” Uncle Bryan took another drink. “So have you been with a guy? Hugged a guy? Kissed a guy? Been attracted to a guy?”
Dillon paused in his smearing real butter into the holes of his waffle. “No. Yes. No. I don’t know.”
“So you’ve hugged a guy. How was that different for you than hugging the cheerleader?”
“Well,” Dillon said, walking back to his seat with his breakfast, “you used the term stirrings earlier. I think there were definitely some stirrings.”
“Here’s one of the important questions. Did it feel good?”
Without pausing Dillon nodded. “Yes. It felt really good.”
“Is it something you want to do again?”
He cut a piece of waffle off, making sure to get plenty of syrup and butter in the bite. “I think so.” The waffle was one of the best that he ever tasted. The coat of syrup smeared across his tongue in a sweet, runny envelopment.
“I’m going to presume that this hug came from Scott and that’s where the questions are coming from.”
Dillon nodded again as he chewed. “I hope this isn’t awkward for you.”
“It’s not a conversation that I ever thought I’d be having. I doubt most gay men ever think they’ll have a talk about how to tell if you’re gay or not with their nephews.” Uncle Bryan started to take another drink, then put his coffee cup back on the table. “I guess I almost expected something like this when you came out here.”
“What do you mean?” Dillon went for his next piece of waffle.
“I can’t really tell you for sure. There was just a feeling I got when I received your mother’s call a couple of weeks ago.”
“Are you saying you suspected I was gay? I didn’t think it was possible to tell if someone’s gay by just looking at them.”
“In most cases it’s not. Sometime folks will wear clothes that have meaning, or get tattoos that mark them as gay, but just in normal clothes, no, it’s not possible to tell for sure if someone is or isn’t. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying, or psychic and I don’t know how I feel about psychics.”
“I guess my biggest question, Uncle Bryan, is what I should do about Scott.” Dillon ran a piece of waffle through some of the syrup on the plate.
“My advice, take it or leave it, is just do what feels good. As long as things feel good, let them happen. If something doesn’t feel good, or right, then tell him about it. Also, be honest with Scott. He’s a good kid, one of the best that I’ve ever known. He doesn’t deserve being jerked around by anyone.”
“He is a great guy. If nothing else, he’s the best friend I’ve ever had. Not that I’ve had lots of friends.”
Uncle Bryan finished off his coffee and went for more. “You know your mother would have cats if she knew we were talking about this. Gang threat or no, she’d have you back home in a heartbeat.”
“I know.” Dillon chewed slowly. “I guess we need to keep this from her, huh?”
“At least for now. It’s not as hard as it sounds.” Uncle Bryan returned to his chair. “Until you get this all figured out in your head, it’s probably better to keep this between us, and maybe Scott.”
“Okay, so I’ve got another silly question.”
“Shoot.” Uncle Bryan took a drink of his fresh cup of coffee.
“Are all the people in this area gay? Or just the ones I’ve met so
far?”
Uncle Bryan snorted coffee out his nose. “Damn, that hurts.” He ran to the cupboard and grabbed a dishrag to dab at his face. When he straightened, he had slight red marks on the edge of and below his nose. He smiled at Dillon. “Don’t ever make me laugh while I’m drinking coffee again. That really does hurt.”
Dillon grinned back. “I’m sorry about that.”
“I guess since all you met is Alex, Paul, and Scott, it kinda seems that way, doesn’t it? No, everyone out here isn’t gay. But, they’re all understanding. The ones who aren’t don’t stay long. Alex and Paul have been out here longer than anyone else, so they’re pillars of the community. The fact they’re nice guys really helps our cause.” Uncle Bryan returned to his chair. “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard the question if it was something in the water. Thanks for reminding me about that. I’ll have to tell Alex and make sure he doesn’t spew when I do.” He took a sip of coffee and frowned. “Well, I guess coffee’s done for a little while. That still hurts.”
“Do you want me to get you some OJ?” Dillon stood and carried his empty plate to the sink.
“Nah. Unless you have more on your mind, I think I’m going to go check e-mail and social media for a few minutes then get ready for my client call.”
Dillon turned and leaned on the counter. “You know, you’ve never said what you do before. The past two weeks, you’ve been around here and available whenever I need anything.”
“I do graphic design. It’s something I can do way out here and still get a lot of freelance work. If I do say so myself, I’m good enough it pays well. One drawback to living out in the boonies is finding work unless you have a trade where you can work from home and that’s not always as easy as it sounds.”
“Okay. I was just wondering. Hope you don’t think I’m being nosy. Mom never really said anything about what you do, other than you’ve helped her out from time to time when emergencies happen.”
“I’ve offered to help a bit more too, but she didn’t want the help on a regular basis. With what I inherited and my graphic art, I’m doing just fine.” Uncle Bryan’s phone rang. He pulled it out and stared at it for a moment before tapping it to answer. “Bryan Smith.” He paused. “Yes, that’s me.” His face paled. “Are you sure?” He got shakily to his feet. “Memorial? We’ll be there as fast as we can.”
Uncle Bryan looked at Dillon. “Get your stuff. As soon as I e-mail my client that we have to reschedule, we’re on the road. Your mother’s in the hospital.”
Dillon’s heart sank. “What happened?”
“Something about a drive-by shooting.”
13
DILLON FIDGETED in his seat the whole way to the hospital. It was impossible for him to sit still while his uncle shattered speed limits between the house and the hospital. If there had been more traffic, the ride would’ve been scary, but being late morning on a weekday, the traffic was relatively light until they hit the center of town.
Uncle Bryan gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white as they were forced to slow down. “I’ve urged her to move out of that neighborhood for years. She always claimed it was too expensive to live in other, safer parts of town.”
“I just want to know who did it.” Dillon stared blankly out the window. “I wonder where it happened. Did you see anything on the news this morning about a drive-by?”
“No, but I think they’ve stopped telling about gang activity unless it’s really bad. There’re worse things they can report on.” Uncle Bryan drove off the highway at their exit and was able to regain some of the speed he’d lost in traffic. “Plus, I think they try and keep a lid on how bad things really are in certain parts of town.”
“You’re probably right there. The convenience store holdup would’ve probably not been covered if the two Shanks hadn’t been killed.” For a second Dillon tried to remember their names. Robbie had mentioned them in chat a couple of weeks earlier. But when Uncle Bryan turned the last corner, the hospital came into view, and any thoughts outside of his mother were pushed away.
After they parked and got out of the truck, it was all he could do to hold his pace down to a walk as he hurried at his uncle’s side. Just inside the hospital, they stopped at the information desk and the woman there directed them to critical care.
“Critical care?” Dillon asked as they waited for an elevator. “That’s bad, isn’t it?”
“We won’t know until we get up there.” Uncle Bryan was tight-lipped and quiet. It made Dillon more worried.
After exiting the elevator, they followed the signs to CCU. There were lots of people moving up and down the hall. Some of them looked like regular folks there to visit loved ones, but most were in simple hospital garb in various muted colors. After stopping at another desk, a nurse accompanied them the last few feet to the open room not far from her workstation.
A steady beep of some medical machine filled the room as the smell of ammonia and alcohol saturated Dillon’s nose. There were lots of tubes and wires running to the frail form lying in the bed. For a moment Dillon wondered if they really had the right room, but then he stepped closer to the bed and recognized her hair and upper face, above the tube that went into her mouth.
“Mom?” His voice came out a bare whisper as he rushed the last couple of feet to grab her hand. There was no response. Her eyes remained closed, and her hand was limp in his.
“How bad is it?” Uncle Bryan asked the nurse.
With a slight sigh, she shook her head. “It’s not good. There was a lot of internal damage in her chest. She was in surgery for nearly six hours last night, but they weren’t able to get everything. At this point, she’s not really stable. We don’t even know if she’s going to wake up.”
Dillon didn’t look away from his mother. “She has to wake up. She just has to.”
Uncle Bryan put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sure the doctors and nurses are doing everything they can to make sure that she does.”
“I’m staying here until she does.” Dillon glanced around, trying to spot a chair he could drag over and sit in. There wasn’t one.
“We have fairly strict visiting hours,” the nurse said. “Right now, you can only stay for fifteen minutes. And not more than two of you in here at a time. She’ll need all the rest she can get if she’s going to recover.”
“Fifteen minutes!” Dillon’s heart dropped. “But she’s my mother! I have to be here in case she needs me.” If she dies, she can’t die alone. I don’t know what I’ll do if she dies. A wave of despair, darker than anything he’d felt before, swept over him.
“We can stay in the waiting room,” Uncle Bryan suggested. “We’ll be close in case something happens.”
The nurse nodded her agreement. “If we know you’re out there, we’ll come get you if anything happens.” A loud beeping started outside the room. The nurse looked out. “Stay a few minutes. If you need anything, I’ll be around.” And she hurried out of the room.
Tears streamed down Dillon’s cheeks. “She’s not going to be okay, is she?”
“We can’t know that.” Uncle Bryan walked around to the other side of the bed. “They’re doing everything they can for her.”
“Why would someone gun her down like this?”
“It was a drive-by. She was probably just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t know a whole lot about how the gangs operate, but what you see on TV says that they do things like this to send messages to people. We might learn more after we talk to the police.”
Dillon looked across the bed at him. His face was a closed mask of pain. “When are we going to talk to the police?”
“I’m going to call them when we go out to the waiting room. If I can’t get any answers, I’ll see about talking to that Detective Graham that we talked to yesterday. Maybe he can help out. Particularly since it’s gang-related.”
“We don’t know that for sure.” Dillon tried to remember if he’d ever heard of a drive-by shooting that wasn’t
gang-related.
“It’s a good bet, but maybe you’re right, maybe we shouldn’t speculate too much until we know more facts.” Uncle Bryan paced quietly on the other side of the bed. “All we know is Milly was shot and spent six hours in surgery. I’d like to know why it took them all night and most of the morning to find us. I know the police are busy, but you’d think this would’ve gotten some priority.” He slowly shook his head and shoved his hands in his pockets while he paced.
“Something else to ask the police.” Dillon stopped watching his uncle move about. It wasn’t helping him stay calm in any way. But seeing the tubes going into his mother’s mouth didn’t help either. She had so many wires and tubes going into her. Even the hand he held had a tube in it; he had to be careful not to bump it. He didn’t want to cause her any pain. Even if she is still asleep, she might feel it and know I was the one that did it. He sniffled and wiped at his tears with the back of his free hand. I need to stay strong for her. I have to believe everything is going to be fine. I won’t break down now. We’ve always been there for each other. I’ll be here for her now.
“Okay, we need to let her rest.” The nurse had returned. “You can come back in about an hour.” A sad look crossed her face. “If there are more members of the family close by, you might want to alert them to her situation… you know… just in case.”
There was something in her tone that pushed at the tears Dillon was fighting to hold back. He swallowed hard and glanced at Uncle Bryan. The rest of the family was several hours away by plane, but they would need to be told.
Uncle Bryan gestured for Dillon to leave the room with him. Dillon squeezed his mother’s hand, then leaned over and carefully maneuvered so he didn’t bump any of her medical support devices as he kissed her forehead. “I’m just outside in the waiting room.” He swallowed again and followed Uncle Bryan. Somehow he held everything together until they got into the waiting room, but then he threw his arms around his uncle and the two of them shared a heartbreaking cry.
