Love Can't Conquer

by Kim Fielding

  Rhoda cackled so loudly the people at the next table turned to stare. Then she sobered and looked contrite. “Sorry, honey,” she said to Jeremy. “I know this is serious.”

  He waved away her apology. “Nevin’s dick makes everybody laugh.”

  That made Nevin narrow his eyes and flip him off, and Rhoda laughed again. Nevin could shoot someone the bird with great panache. Jeremy felt a little better, just being around friends.

  And then for no good reason at all he remembered the recent phone call from his mother and the way she’d rambled on about the guy with the mechanic lover—as if the story were important for some reason. What if a push could also be a pull? It was all he had to go on.

  He looked up at Rhoda and Nevin. “I’m heading to Kansas.”

  APPARENTLY THE airlines were convinced that nobody in their right mind would want to travel from Portland, Oregon, to Bailey Springs, Kansas. Maybe they were right; Jeremy certainly wasn’t in his right mind. But he needed to get there anyway. He ended up booking an early Monday flight to Wichita with a layover in Dallas. He hoped for decent weather since he’d have a long drive ahead of him after landing.

  Arranging for time off from work was relatively simple; he had a lot of vacation time saved up. And other than that, leaving town on short notice was distressingly easy. He didn’t even have a goldfish or potted plant to worry about while he was gone.

  He’d intended to take a taxi, but Rhoda showed up at his apartment well before dawn—coffee in hand—and gave him a ride to the airport. “You travel light,” she said as they zoomed down the Banfield. There was almost no traffic this early in the morning.

  “I’m going to have to pick up a few things when I get there. I don’t own winter-in-Kansas clothing.”

  “Are you staying with your parents?”

  He shuddered. “No. I booked a motel. But I’ll visit them. I mean, I guess I can’t really fly all the way there and not see them.” He was dreading it the way he’d dread a root canal without anesthesia, but he was a big boy.

  Rhoda couldn’t look at him because she was driving, but she reached over to pat his leg. Not that she had to reach far. Jeremy didn’t fit very well in her tiny car. “I think that’s a good thing, sweetie. I think if you didn’t see them at least once more, well, someday you’ll regret it.”

  He wasn’t so sure about that. “They’re strangers. I barely knew them even when I lived with them, and that was a long time ago.”

  “Mmm,” she grunted, clearly not convinced.

  When she reached the departures area, she leaned over to kiss his cheek. “Travel safely.”

  “Thanks, Rhoda. You’re the best.”

  He retrieved his small bag from the back of the car and waved at her as she pulled away.

  Jeremy flew very rarely, and as soon as he boarded the plane, he remembered why. Airplane seats were built for anorexic pixies, not guys who stood six-four and liked to lift weights. Because of his late booking, he ended up with a middle seat, which meant the people on either side glared at him for daring to be big. The flight attendant served breakfast—which Jeremy had to pay for—and then he spent most of the rest of the flight with the tray table digging into him and the remains of his plastic food slowly congealing. Compared to an airline, Davis had been an amateur at torture.

  His flight to Wichita was delayed by a couple of hours due to bad weather somewhere. Jeremy stalked the airport corridor, ignoring the stares at his mangled hand and imposing size.

  By the time he made it to Wichita and got a rental car, Jeremy was sore and exhausted. He was also nearly vibrating with nerves, having spent the day fretting over Qay. And fuck, but he’d forgotten what cold was. His recent stint with hypothermia should have been a reminder, but wet and mostly nude in the factory was like a trip to the Bahamas compared to December in Kansas. This was the kind of cold that froze your nose hairs, that made your one working hand stiff and unmanageable, that blew in through your clothing and flayed you to the bone.

  Before he left Wichita, he found a Dillard’s and bought a parka, a knitted hat and scarf, and heavy gloves, all discounted in preholiday sales. He’d only be able to use one glove, so in a fit of genius, he also purchased a pair of thick, stretchy socks. The saleswoman looked at him funny when he painstakingly pulled one of the socks over his left hand, but hey, it worked.

  As he drove west in the last bit of light, Jeremy marveled at how monochrome Kansas was in winter. That was another thing he’d forgotten. Even though winter brought lead gray skies to Portland, many of the trees remained green and only some of the landscaping plants died back. And there were always ferns and moss and other small growing things. Here, though, the landscape consisted of brown grass and gray weeds sticking up through a light dusting of snow. Even the sky was pale blue until it darkened into night.

  It didn’t feel like home.

  He arrived in Bailey Springs hungry and worn out. He decided to wait until morning to call his parents and search for Qay. Instead, he drove to the tired little motel near the highway. It wasn’t the Marriott, but it was the only game in town, and at this point he’d love anything with heat and a bed.

  The man behind the counter had been watching TV, but he slid off his stool as Jeremy approached. “Evening,” the man said.

  “Hi. I have a reservation. Jeremy Cox.”

  The clerk’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped. “Jeremy Cox?”

  Jeremy sighed. “Yeah. I called Saturday.” The motel’s website looked as if it had been last updated in 1995, so he’d decided reserving by phone was safer.

  “Holy crap. We went to high school together, remember?”

  Jeremy examined him. He was middle-aged and a good hundred pounds overweight, and the last few hairs on his scalp looked ready to jump ship any moment. His nose and cheeks were red with broken capillaries, and the rest of his face was pallid. “Sorry,” Jeremy said, shaking his head. “It was a long time ago.”

  “It sure enough was. Man, I miss those days.” The clerk stuck out his hand. “Troy Baker.”

  Now it was Jeremy’s turn to gape. Troy Baker had led the little gang that made Jeremy’s adolescence hell. “You used to call me Pansyass Germy Cox.”

  Troy managed to look both frightened and embarrassed. He moved his outstretched hand to the back of his neck and rubbed. “Yeah. That was just…. Kids are like that. My boys had a mouth on them too until the Army straightened them out.”

  Jeremy wanted to tell him how much those words had hurt, how miserable he’d been. But what was the point? Thirty years gone. And it looked as if fate had exacted its own revenge on Troy. Still, Jeremy couldn’t quite let it be. “You called me faggot. And you were right—I’m queer as a three-dollar bill. Do you want to call me that now?”

  After a few more moments of gawping and mumbling, Troy shook his head. “My little brother, Gary? He’s one too. And he’s… he’s all right, you know?”

  Jeremy could have informed him that he was perfectly aware of Gary Baker’s sexual orientation, seeing as how Gary used to blow him regularly during their senior year—and twice, when they’d had the locker room to themselves, Jeremy had fucked him until their mingled cries echoed among the lockers. But instead he simply asked, “Can I have my room key, please?”

  Fumbling a little, Troy got him checked in and handed him the key—the metal kind, hanging from a yellow plastic fob. Troy even managed a wan smile.

  “Where can I get something to eat?” Jeremy asked.

  “This late? You’d have to drive to Laupner. They have a Subway that’s probably still open. We got a vending machine right near your room, though.”

  Fantastic.

  Jeremy started to walk away but then stopped and turned back to Troy. “Do you have someone named Qay Hill staying here? That’s Qay with a Q.”

  Blinking, Troy shook his head. “I ain’t supposed to….”

  Jeremy pressed up against the counter and loomed. In his best cop voice, he said, “I really need this
information now.”

  “Yeah, uh, okay. I guess so. Since I know you.” Troy poked two-fingered at his computer keyboard. “Nope. Not here.”

  Shit. “How about Keith Moore?”

  This time Troy scrunched up his broad face in thought. “Keith Moore? Isn’t he the guy who killed himself?”

  In a manner of speaking. “Just check, please.”

  More pecking, then a slow shake. “No. Nobody with that name.”

  Although Jeremy hadn’t expected it to be that easy, he was still disappointed. He gave Troy a small smile, hefted his bag, and headed for his room.

  His dinner that night consisted of Cheetos, Teddy Grahams, those neon orange crackers with peanut butter between them, and a Three Musketeers, all washed down with Gatorade. In other words, not even the hint of a real food group, but he figured he consumed enough chemicals to embalm him alive. He showered with a fitful trickle of water and a sliver of soap, and dried himself with an undersized towel the consistency of cardboard. Then he lay down on the scratchy sheets in the overheated yet drafty room and almost immediately fell asleep.

  DOWNTOWN BAILEY Springs hadn’t been much when he was a kid, and it had dried up even more in the intervening years. At least Walmart hadn’t yet arrived to eradicate the remaining businesses. Hoffman’s Pharmacy was still there, as was Arnold Brothers’ Hardware. Fay’s Boutique had a festive holiday display in the front windows, and Jeremy wondered if the paintings were done by the guy his mother had told him about. To Jeremy’s considerable relief, Louella’s Café still graced Main Street, and while the pancakes, sausage, and hash browns were forgettable, the apple pie was still blue-ribbon quality. But the coffee sucked.

  Although a few people stared curiously as he ate breakfast, nobody seemed to recognize him. All the faces looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t come up with any names. He paid cash for his meal, bundled up, and braved the cold.

  The Moore house was about a quarter mile from downtown in what passed for Bailey Springs’s high-rent neighborhood. Big Victorians loomed over snow-dusted lawns. Christmas lights hung from most of the eaves, although they weren’t lit at this time of day, and the sidewalks were neatly shoveled and carefully sanded. A nice little neighborhood. He could probably buy most of a block for what his Portland condo was worth.

  He’d never been inside the Moore house, although he’d once followed Keith home—skulking a block behind him and feeling like a CIA operative—so Jeremy knew which house it was. A white-painted two story with fancy scrollwork and a wraparound porch, it had looked opulent and welcoming to Jeremy’s young eyes. He used to wonder what the interior was like and which room was Keith’s.

  Now he turned the corner and spied the Moore house, and he immediately recognized that it was abandoned. The damage became more obvious as he drew closer. Most of the paint had peeled and the rest had grayed. Plywood covered the windows. The rooflines sagged, two pillars were broken, and the front stairs had collapsed completely. Nobody had lived there for a very long time.

  He thought about the things that had been inflicted on Keith within those walls and he wanted to cry.

  JEREMY’S PARENTS lived a couple of miles away in the “new” section of town. The modest houses had been built in the early 1950s for postwar couples who were starting their families. Originally, many of the residents worked in a candy factory nearby, but the factory had shut down around the time Jeremy was born. It burned to the ground when he was in grade school; he remembered watching the black smoke climb into the sky.

  Now, he fetched his rental car from its spot near the diner and drove to his parents’ house. It was smaller than he remembered, a brick three bedroom with a basement his father always planned to finish but never did. An old Ford Escort—still covered by the recent snowfall—took up the narrow driveway.

  Jeremy took a deep breath, got out of the rental car, and marched up the stairs. He pressed the dimly lit doorbell. It was strange to ring the bell when he’d spent eighteen years passing in and out of that door, but he couldn’t very well barge in unannounced.

  An old lady in a green sweat suit answered the door, her sweatshirt decorated with sequined reindeer and snowflakes. With her curly gray hair, she looked remarkably like his grandmother, if only his grandmother hadn’t died a decade earlier. This must be his mother.

  “J-Jeremy!” She held a hand against her chest.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call first, Mom.” He did feel bad about it, but he’d been too worked up over Qay to deal with his parents.

  “My… my goodness!” She shook her head as if to clear it and stepped aside. “Come in, come in!”

  The front door opened directly into the cramped living room, which hadn’t been redecorated since he was in high school. Everything still reeked of old cigarette smoke. The television was new, though, and his father sat in his old armchair facing the screen. He looked as if he’d been dozing, but there was an open book on his lap. His glasses sat on the little table beside him, along with a glass of water and a box of tissues.

  While Jeremy’s mother looked old, his father was ancient. He’d been a tall man—just an inch or so short of Jeremy’s final towering height—and brawny, although his bulk had been going to fat by the time Jeremy graduated high school. But now he was gaunt and gray, with age spots dotting his high brow. He fumbled for his glasses and put them on. “Is that Jeremy?” His voice had thinned too.

  “Hi, Dad.”

  The next part was awkward. Nobody exchanged hugs, but Shirley Cox took Jeremy’s outerwear, sat him on the couch, and brought him a cup of instant coffee and a little plate of store-bought cookies. Frank Cox asked him how he’d gotten to Bailey Springs: which airport he’d traveled through, what kind of car he’d rented, and which route he drove.

  His mother sat in her usual armchair, next to Frank but with the little table between them. When Jeremy was a kid, she always kept an ashtray there. It was gone now, so maybe she’d finally quit. “Do you want me to make up the spare room for you, Jeremy?”

  “No, thanks. I’m staying at the motel. I didn’t want to put you guys out.” Not the entire truth, but polite.

  “Well, it’s not that much of a bother,” Shirley said. But she didn’t push the subject. For the first time, she seemed to notice the state of Jeremy’s left hand. “Is that where you were shot?” she asked, looking slightly alarmed.

  “No. They shot my shoulder. My fingers are broken.”

  So then he had to tell the story, although he gave them an abridged and expurgated version. They didn’t need to hear the details of what Davis had done to him, and they didn’t need to know about Donny, other than that he was an old friend. Even still, Shirley gasped a lot and Frank scowled.

  “You seem to be doing very well after such an ordeal,” Shirley finally said.

  Jeremy almost laughed. He was not doing well at all, but Davis wasn’t to blame for that. “It wasn’t as bad as it sounds, Mom.”

  She brought him more awful coffee and more cookies—they were the Danish butter kind that came in a tin. A holiday gift from someone, he guessed. She also brought Frank a fresh glass of water and some pills, which he swallowed without explanation, then coughed.

  “Will you be looking up some old friends while you’re in town?” she asked when she returned to her chair.

  Jeremy almost choked. “Mom, I—”

  “Remember Lisa Wade? Of course she’s Lisa Lamb now. She married and moved away years ago. Omaha, I think. Is that right, Frank?”

  Frank grunted.

  Shirley continued her story. “She visits her family, though. Maybe she’ll be back in town for the holidays and you can meet up with her.”

  “I didn’t come here to see Lisa,” Jeremy said.

  This time, Frank’s grunt was louder. “I bet you didn’t come here to see us either.”

  The wary politeness drained from Jeremy as suddenly as if someone had pulled a plug. He didn’t care that the old man was sick. He didn’t care that these pe
ople were his parents. He was raw and troubled and so goddamn done. “Maybe I’d want to visit if you acted like you love me.”

  Frank’s scowl deepened and Shirley put her hand to her throat. “We do love you,” she said.

  “Throwing a few empty words at me isn’t enough. You don’t love who I am, the real me, and you never did.” His eyes prickled, but he kept his voice steady.

  Shirley made a choked little sound, and Frank pointed angrily at Jeremy. “You’re upsetting your mother!”

  “I’m upsetting— Do you know what it was like for me to grow up here? I got picked on every day of my life, and that was pure misery. But the worst part was when I came home crying—bruised sometimes, do you remember that?—and all you did was tell me to toughen up and learn to fight back.”

  “All this bullying crap they’re going on about nowadays,” Frank growled. “Like boys are delicate little flowers who wilt if someone calls them a name. You toughen up and take it like a man!”

  “I wasn’t a man, Dad; I was a little kid. And words do hurt. Sometimes worse than bullets.” He set the coffee cup on the table in front of him. “I know I could have had it worse. You never beat me. But dammit! Complete strangers accept me for who I am and respect me for what I do, but you can’t manage even that much.”

  Frank looked as if he wanted to get up from his chair, but he stayed seated. He leaned forward, however. “We taught you to fight your own battles.”

  Jeremy laughed bitterly. “That’s great, Dad. Did it ever occur to you that I could have used somebody on my side? Not a… a superhero to save me. Just an ally. That’s all I needed.” Shit. He needed to get out of here and find Qay.

  He stood and marched to the kitchen, where Shirley had hung his coat, hat, and scarf on a hook near the back door. After slipping into his parka, he scooped up the rest of his gear and walked back into the living room. These old people were strangers to him. Faintly familiar, like the rest of Bailey Springs, but that was all. They looked over at him—Frank furious, Shirley slightly teary-eyed—but neither moved to stop him. He was a stranger to them too.