My Cowboy Freedom

by Z. A. Maxfield

  If their parents are still alive.

  At any rate, I had no clue where the owlet had come from and when I approached it, it tried to wake up the dead.

  The dog didn’t seem to want to eat the thing but I didn’t want to leave it for other predators either. I sat on the picnic bench, trying to decide my best course of action.

  A cat or coyote could come along and nature would take its course. There was always the threat of death. I could take it in, feed it or whatever. I could try to help. But an owl like that, it’s always going to do better when nurtured by its own kind. I could do everything right and it might survive. But it wouldn’t thrive.

  That’s how things were supposed to work.

  But while an owl ought to be left to its parents, sometimes you couldn’t count on people to be willing or able to care for their young. You couldn’t count on adult humans to want what was best for their offspring any more than you could count on an owl staying in its nest.

  I didn’t take the owl’s picture for Rock because I didn’t want to startle the thing, but I wished he could have been there to see it.

  I felt like a tool, but I said a few words of prayer for it before I carefully picked it up and put it back on a branch in a nearby tree.

  I could leave the owl there and hope it would be fine.

  Rock was with his parents and I didn’t feel nearly as optimistic about that.

  Rock never did answer any of my texts.

  My calls went straight to voice mail.

  The following morning, I knew I had to do whatever it took to find out why Rock wasn’t answering my calls, with or without Foz’s and Elena’s help.

  Chapter 34

  Rock

  Moonlight streamed through the window, giving everything in my childhood bedroom a faint blue glow.

  “What is it this time, Dad?” I read my old alarm clock. “It’s after midnight.”

  He stepped into the doorway, filling it. Blocking the light from the hall. I’d definitely gotten my size from his side of the family.

  “I just wanted to talk with you for a while.” He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him. The bed groaned under our combined weight when he sat on the edge beside me.

  “It’s been good, having you home again.”

  I didn’t have anything to say to that.

  He glanced at my nightstand, where I’d left a jumble of old microwave-meal trays and dirty forks. “Your mother will have your hide for leaving dirty plates up here.”

  Have your hide. Tan your hide. Why did people say that when the act it referred to was so gruesome?

  “I’ll take them down in the morning.”

  I glanced up and found my father’s eyes were closed. And no wonder. After each long day spent shepherding his flock, he made time at night to talk at me. He shared scripture.

  He ranted until his voice left him.

  Until we were both half-crazy from sleep deprivation.

  He talked and I listened until he lost patience and told me to get on my knees. After that, as we prayed to a god I no longer believed in, his voice rolled over me in waves that crested and fell until he blew himself out.

  Sometimes, I didn’t even understand how I’d gotten there.

  Sometimes, I fell asleep kneeling at the side of my bed and I’d wake up there in the morning, unclear when my father left or if he’d even been there at all.

  “Son?” he asked. “Did you hear me? Tonight we’re going to look at the Pauline Epistles again. Get your scriptures.”

  “No.” I’d had enough. I was drained, tapped out, empty.

  “Your arguments haven’t worked so far and they won’t tonight. I’ll read it for you, then. The Word of God is divine food, son. Much better for you than these TV dinners.”

  “No,” I repeated.

  “Yes.” He began reading. I knew the passage. I knew the arguments.

  My father rarely faltered, even though I knew him to be exhausted at the end of every day. Every night he’d pray over me as if he was filibustering God, as if—if he could only come up with a good enough argument or have enough faith—I could be cured of the dreaded homosexuality forever.

  And I loved him for it. I really did.

  But it made me sad too, because whatever he wanted was based on faith, not fact.

  “Dad, I’m gay.”

  I wanted to put a stop to the charade. I was hungry and tired and lonely and I just didn’t give a crap anymore.

  He shook his head. “This is a false belief. Like all of Satan’s lies, this belief you have that you were born homosexual? This is a lie. It’s one of the lies the Father of All Lies perpetuates. We must reboot—yes, that’s the very word—we must reboot your faith. And only through prayer and study—”

  “Nothing will change. I won’t change.”

  “You—”

  “I don’t even want to change. I like who I am. I love my life at the Rocking C. Just send me back and I will never bother you again.”

  “I can’t let you throw yourself away like that, son. This is spiritual suicide. Don’t you understand? I cannot let you destroy yourself. I am your father and I can’t.”

  “I’m gay, Dad.”

  He spoke over me. “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me—’” He gripped my hand. “I’m begging you. Accept Jesus as your savior again, son.”

  “No.”

  “Get on our knees, Rockne.”

  “No.”

  “Get. On. Your. Knees.”

  “No.”

  Crack.

  Hand to my burning cheek, I glared at him. “No.”

  That wasn’t the first time he’d hit me. Far from it. But that night there was something inside me telling me I didn’t have a choice anymore.

  This wasn’t right.

  Father wasn’t right.

  “No, Dad. Hit me all you want. But, no.”

  Crack.

  His rough hand gripped the back of my T-shirt as he flung me to my knees by the side of the bed. He held me down by my shoulders, hard enough to make me groan in pain.

  “Jesus,” he began, “I beg you, strip the pride from this sinner.”

  “No.” I shouted the word.

  Thud. This time, the blow was to the back of my head—a sharp rap on my skull with four of my father’s meaty fingers that sounded very loud inside my brain. I knew my dad didn’t think of it as hitting. He wouldn’t see it as abuse. Just a little wake up call. Tomorrow he was going to feel awful.

  “We come to you as sinners . . .”

  “No!”

  Thud. Meaty fingers.

  Ow. But now I’m a little dizzy, and it almost feels good to fight. To feel . . . something.

  “Jesus, our Savior, even as your eye is on the sparrow . . .”

  That word. Sparrow.

  Gorrión.

  “I sing—” As the first notes poured from my mouth. My father froze midcrest “—because I’m happy.”

  Father didn’t know that Sky was my sparrow.

  He was still talking about Satan and faith and how God is the Elf on the Shelf or . . .

  No. That’s not right.

  My hymn was the most important thing in the world.

  I wasn’t singing it, I was broadcasting the words. I was living and breathing the words. I understood them in a way I’d never understood them before.

  Maisy went crazy, barking. She had no idea what to do. Her training never covered letting her charge get hit by his father.

  Suddenly, I understood what freedom really was, and I let it flow into myself and through me to my father, and through him.

  I caught his hand before it descended, and continued singing. “I sing because I’m free. His eye is on the spar
row. And I know He’s watching me.”

  My father stared at me, hand in the air, poised to cuff me again, but I knew what he was looking at, and it was the real me. He was seeing beyond the sound bites and the junk science to something pure and authentic and true, and it scared him, but he couldn’t deny it anymore.

  He pulled his hand from mine and hit me again, so fucking hard, as if he could knock the gay out of me once and for all.

  The door flew open and my mother stood there, frozen with shock. “Elliot, for God’s sake. Stop! What are you doing?”

  I stood, shaking, and faced both of them. “I am going home.”

  “You are home, darling. This is your home.” My mother’s eyes were streaming tears. It was compelling, but I’d watched her do that on cable television every Sunday morning for years. I couldn’t tell anymore when she was crying for real.

  “Son—” My father’s voice was ragged with pain.

  “I am going back to the Rocking C. One way or another. I can go in a goddamn body bag if you want. I won’t let you take over my life.”

  Mother appealed to my father. “Elliot, say something. He can’t possibly live on his own. It isn’t safe.”

  “Does it look like I’m safe here to you?”

  She clutched at my father’s arm before he could raise his hand to me again. “We can have our lawyers prepare a conservatorship for you, and—”

  “You can sure fucking try,” I said.

  “Language,” my father snapped. “Show some respect to your mother or by God, I’ll—”

  “You’ll what? Hit me again?” He tried throwing my mother off but she clung like a barnacle.

  “I should hit you, you ungrateful boy.” She practically foamed at the mouth. “When I think of all the advantages we gave you. The work that went into raising you. After everything we’ve done for you, you reject what we stand for—”

  “Mother—”

  “No. You got struck by lightning.” She was shouting now. “You survived that horror and now you’re challenging the very God who brought you back to us.”

  “Cheryl—” My father tried to catch her but she slapped me, hard. That was too much for Maisy. She went berserk, barking and spinning in circles.

  “Knock it off. You’re scaring my dog.” Maisy looked like she wanted to crawl under the bed. “Look at yourselves. Look at what you’re willing to do to me to get me to agree with you. All I want is to be left alone.”

  My father set my mother aside. “Son—”

  “This dog is my family,” I shouted. “Aunt Elena and the folks at the Rocking C are my family. You don’t have to like it, but you have to let me go.”

  “We’re your family, Rockne.” My father’s words were tinged with pain. “You’re blood. We love you.”

  “You love me? You hit me. You punish me for my sexual orientation as if it’s something I chose. You’re determined to take everything I care about away from me. My God. If that’s love, I’d rather you hated me.”

  “We love you. Of course we love you.”

  “Then love who I am, and not who you want me to be. I’m gay. I am not religious. I’ll never be what you want. Love me or just let me go.”

  My father’s eyes were bright with tears.

  My mother said, “Rocky.”

  “I did some checking, Mom.” I addressed her, but I held my dad’s gaze. “There are resources for people like me. Legal resources. Counseling. Attorneys who will work my case pro bono. Doctors who are willing to step in and help. There’s the Americans with Disabilities Act. There are programs. Grants.”

  “You are our son.” She hissed the word.

  “If you fight me, I’ll take everything public. I’ll sell my story to the tabloids. I’ll embellish the hell out of it and make you out to be—”

  “You wouldn’t dare.” My father’s voice was at its most lugubrious. He could have raised goosebumps on a stone saint.

  “Try me.” I tore my gaze from my father’s devastation. My mother was stronger, but more brittle. I didn’t want to break her, but she wasn’t going to bend.

  “Elliot”—my mother wrung her hands—“my God. Do something.”

  “Show some respect for your mother, son. This is killing her.”

  “I love my mother very much. I love you both. But if you ever lay another finger on me, I’ll go straight to the police.”

  “Rocky—” She sobbed. “Elliot, for heaven’s sake. Stop this.”

  I started throwing my clothes into a duffel bag. I didn’t have to take anything. I’d leave without a stitch on if I had to.

  Me and Maisy. Leaving together.

  “I am not living a lie.” I told my father. “Not for you. Not for anyone.”

  As I opened the closet door, my mother tried to stop me.

  “We can talk about this—”

  “Hush, now, dear.” My dad took her gently into his arms. He met and held my gaze again. This time, his was visibly shaken. “He’s made up his mind.”

  “What?” My mother appeared dazed. “He, what?”

  “Tell Jackson where you want to go. After that—”

  “No.” My mother shoved him away from her. “Don’t do this. He’s our son.”

  “Cheryl.” The word held a warning even my mother, in her advanced state of distress, heard loud and clear.

  She smoothed the front of her robe, taking the time to regain her composure. My dad had been right about one thing. I had an abiding respect for my mother’s strength, her iron will, her sense of purpose.

  “Tell Jackson where you want to go,” he said again. “We will no longer interfere with your life.”

  Did he mean it? Had I won?

  I didn’t trust it yet, but I couldn’t help the tidal wave of giddy relief that surged from my heart to my head.

  Seconds later, uncertainty stole over me.

  What would Sky say when he found out?

  Having definitely scored a win, I didn’t know how I dared to go any further.

  “You’ll need to disown me somehow. I won’t be able to get any kind of government aid unless—”

  “This family doesn’t suck on the government’s teat.” My father’s shout brooked no argument. Even my mother didn’t dare open her mouth.

  “We will have no layabouts in this family.” He turned and left the room.

  Wait. Am I still in this family?

  My mother and I stared at each other.

  I didn’t know what I thought would happen. Or hoped.

  I guess maybe I wished she’d smile. Or that we could hug and make up. But it wasn’t like I’d broken a vase or tracked mud on the floor.

  “I know why this is hard,” I said quietly. “You don’t want anyone to know you gave birth to an abomination.”

  “Don’t say that.” Stung, she took a deep, shuddering breath through her nose.

  “Why not? It’s true. I got hit by lightning and you think that changed me. It did. It made me realize I only have one life to live. I’ve seen how quickly a life can end. I want to hold the people I love closer than ever before. It makes me grateful for every minute of every day.”

  “It made you turn your back on the church.”

  “Yes,” I admitted. “I suppose I have turned my back on the faith. But I haven’t turned my back on my family. I won’t, unless you force me to.”

  In her eyes, I was destroying myself.

  For one single, awful moment, I let myself wonder if she might be right.

  But no.

  I knew who I was and even if she despised me for it, I owed it to myself to live my life authentically and without fear.

  She stared at me for a few seconds. I figured she was memorizing my face. I wasn’t sure I was going to ever see her again. I did the same.

  Then she ghosted quietly from
the room.

  Maisy whined.

  “It’s okay, sweetheart.” I picked her up and sat with her on my lap. She calmed down after a few minutes.

  It took me a whole lot longer.

  Chapter 35

  Sky

  Elena came to see me after supper. I was already in bed, but she and Foz waited outside while I pulled on clothes. I was exhausted from a long, taxing day. I probably looked as disreputable as I felt.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Foz offered when I answered their knock.

  “You were right about Rock.” Elena looked mighty unhappy. “I tried calling last night and he didn’t answer. That makes five days. When I talked to Cheryl, she told me he’s still ‘too exhausted’”—she used air quotes—“from his trip to take my call. Which is bullshit.”

  Foz snickered. “Elena said ‘bullshit.’”

  She rolled her eyes at that. “I can cuss when I’m feeling it, Foz. This is bullshit.”

  “I expected Rock to be back by now,” She said. “Usually, he wraps his mom around his little finger. Or he makes a fuss and just plain wears her down.”

  “Rock’s a man now,” Foz said gently. “Maybe he doesn’t want to use a boy’s tactics.”

  Foz was right. Rock was plenty smart enough to manipulate his parents. But he wouldn’t try that anymore. He wouldn’t pitch a fit.

  Rock saw himself as an adult, and he probably figured the time for those kind of childish games was past.

  If that was the case, things had probably gotten complicated as soon as he walked through his parents’ front door.

  “Rock wasn’t in a compromising mood,” I said. “I think he’s tired of lying.”

  “He wants to be with you,” Elena said unhappily. “That what he thinks he’s fighting for.”

  “He doesn’t need to fight for me. He needs all of us to fight for him.” And I had an idea of where we could start. “C’mere for a minute. I want to show you something.”

  They followed me to the back of the bunkhouse, into the laundry closet, where I’d stashed the cash from ’Nando on a shelf behind a couple buckets full of cleaning supplies. The light drew moths like a bug zapper.

  “What’s that?” Elena asked.