by Andrea Speed
“Your Grandpa Sam is all-knowing. I bet he even knows what I plan to say to you.”
Joe stared at Ed. “What?”
Ed set down his glass. He leaned toward the watchful Joe. “Joe Brown Jr., here is my decision. No matter where you want to go, I will follow you. If you go to med school, I want to be there for you. If you decide to visit the North Pole, I’ll muck along with you. Seriously, no matter what, I want to be with you. I know I acted all weird about leaving my family, but I made my decision. I’m already making money from my illustration. Anything I make at Hilly’s is savings for when I need to follow you. So if you’ll have me, I’m yours.” Ed held up his glass.
Joe choked back what seemed like an overly emotional sob. He raised his glass to tap Ed’s. They smiled before they kissed.
“The thing is I don’t know where I want to go yet.”
“And I don’t care. I just want to learn about life with you.”
Joe swallowed. He set down his tea and held out his arms. Ed’s tea glass joined Joe’s before they hugged to seal their new commitment.
Joe glanced at the barn. “How do you feel about hay?”
“What?”
“There’s a wad of fresh Timothy hay in the loft for Grandpa’s goats. It’s soft and smells great.” Joe reached over to tug at Ed’s Daffy Duck T-shirt. “Shall we take the next step?”
Ed pressed his fingers over his mouth. Joe stared with confusion until he realized Ed was smothering his laughter. Ed patted his backpack. “This is triple freaky weird. Guess what I have in here?”
“The cure for the world’s problems?”
“No, sillykins, lube and condoms purchased at discount. I planned to ask you if you, well, wanted to try what you’re proposing to me.”
“Then I guess this means yes.” They stood, scurried across the yard, and entered the barn. One or two goats uttered low grunts but seemed disinterested in them. They climbed up into the hayloft.
“Hey, this hay does smell great.” They both sneezed and started laughing. Taking off their clothing for something other than a dip in the lake fueled their excitement.
Once naked, they stared at each other in the dim light coming through the high barn windows. Distant lightning flashes supplied weird clarity. Joe suddenly felt shy. “You know it’s my first time.”
“You’re serious about plunging right in.”
“I don’t plan to do the plunging.” Joe made a decision. He rolled over and stretched. Hay tickled him in places he had never imagined before this night. “I don’t want you to necessarily plunge in either, but I do want you to be the explorer.”
“I am honored to enter the Virgin Joe Zone.” Ed released a nervous laugh. “Hey, I might act like the red hot Romeo, but this is my first official time. I never felt secure with my first boyfriend, not like I do with you.”
“Dude, you’re getting sappy. Let’s make this the first time for everything and start planning the second time.”
Five minutes later they laughed with embarrassment. Joe shook his head as he twisted to glance back at Ed. “That was… fast and furious. Guess we can start planning the second time already.”
Ed kissed Joe’s sweaty neck. “What can I say—you did me in. Are you all right? I felt you tense.”
“You asking if I was okay every two seconds didn’t help. Cute but too much, because I started thinking I wasn’t okay. It did hurt but nothing awful. Hey, now we’re past the grand opening of me to you.” Joe shrugged. “I know I want more.”
“I like it. You stick with me, kiddo. You’re getting the hang of the romance lingo.”
Joe shifted to pucker his lips. A kiss seemed like the best response.
AMAZING HOW the storm had blasted out the nasty dank air. This afternoon eighty-eight degrees felt like springtime. A steady breeze teased through the open kitchen windows, fluttering the green cotton curtains. Joe hummed as he washed the kitchen floor. Normally he resented this boring task, but the cheerful day combined with last’s night’s talk and sexual progress with Ed fueled his excellent mood.
Sexual progress? Ed had, to use a romance novel term, deflowered Joe. Yeah, after last night, he wanted Ed to follow him everywhere.
Joe worked the sponge mop across the black-and-white tiles. Despite his happiness, he still worried over Grandpa Sam. Instead of rising and joining Joe for corn bread and Earl Grey tea, this morning Grandpa Sam had waved away Joe’s greeting and remained huddled in bed. Such behavior always signaled a wandering day. Today Grandpa Sam slipped back into his past and refused to accept reality.
“Joe! Joe!”
“Grandpa Sam!” Joe dropped the sponge mop and ran into the living room.
Joe gasped with dismay. Grandpa Sam stood by the open front door, his long white hair uncharacteristically freed from his usual tidy braid. He hadn’t bothered to change out of his rumpled red-and-white Kachina-decorated pajamas. The supernatural characters stared at Joe with sullen accusation.
Grandpa Sam hopped from one bare foot to the other as he muttered under his breath. Damn, he’d lapsed into Mvskoke. It sounded like he was repeating the same phrase. Joe couldn’t figure out the words.
“What’s wrong?” Joe maneuvered to stop Grandpa Sam from leaving.
Grandpa Sam blinked hard before he shook his head. “Joe, sit with me or I will wander. Today is not a good day. I remember too much.”
“Grandpa, come on, let’s sit in the sunroom.” Joe patted Grandpa Sam’s left arm as he walked him to the light-washed room. Grandpa collapsed into the carved wooden chair he always occupied during his pinochle games. He clenched and unclenched his gnarled fingers, occasionally swiping them at the air. His muttering turned into a low singsong of English.
This level of distress scared Joe. Did he need to call the doctor? No, first he wanted to see if he could talk Grandpa Sam out of this emotional state. He sat in the adjoining chair and leaned close. “Grandpa Sam, come on, calm down. Tell me what’s wrong?”
“I never should have left him.” Tears welled up in Grandpa Sam’s eyes.
Joe swallowed with apprehension. He had never seen Grandpa Sam cry before. He whispered one word. “Grandpa?”
Grandpa Sam fixed his intense dark gaze on Joe. “Long ago I also had a warrior, but I let him go. I did not fight hard enough for him.”
This started sounding unreal. Joe swallowed. “Grandpa Sam, do you want me to make you some—”
Grandpa Sam held up his hand. “You cannot let him go. Listen to me. You have found your warrior. He is not of your tribe, but he is yours. Do not fail him. You must hold him here.” Grandpa Sam leaned to tap Joe’s chest. “Hold him here.”
Joe felt like an idiot. He spoke the same word. “Grandpa?” His tongue refused to translate the questions swirling in his mind.
“I know my warrior is long gone, but I still want to find his spirit. Perhaps if I feel his spirit again I will find peace. It’s horrible not knowing what happened to him.” Grandpa Sam gripped Joe’s right hand. “I thought my warrior loved me. He did, but he feared our love. He rejected me. He threatened me, drove me north to this barren hell. Our lands are lush and green, unlike here, yet I came here and created a garden to remember our love. I created children. I loved your grandmother, I did, but she knew I loved someone else more. I tried to seal off that part of my life, but I—I—” Grandpa Sam fell back, gasping for air. He started trembling. His eyes rolled back in his head.
A strange calm settled over Joe. He switched to grip Grandpa Sam’s hands in his hands. “Grandpa, he still loves you. Deep in his heart, no matter where he is in the… the universe, no matter, he loves you. We love you. I love you. Take a deep breath.” He held on tighter. “Hey, come on, I still don’t know everything growing in your garden. What about learning Mvskoke? I need you to teach me. No one else will. Calm down. Breathe. Come back to me. I need you here, Grandpa Sam, I really do. I need you. You understand me. Breathe!”
As he tried not to cry, Joe held on to Grandpa Sa
m’s cold hands as if he could cure him through physical contact. He willed his life and warmth into Grandpa Sam, begged for any spirit listening to help him.
A soft whoosh flew through the room. Startled, Joe looked up but saw nothing…. Wait. Did he see…? No. No.
His grandpa’s grip tightened against his fingers. He shivered until he sucked in a calming breath. Joe maintained his grip until Grandpa Sam refocused on him.
“Joe, why are we holding hands?” He paused and shook his head. “I fear I started wandering somewhere I am not ready to go.”
Joe almost collapsed with relief. “Grandpa Sam, I think you did, but you’re okay now. Do you want hot tea?”
“Thank you, yes, I’d love Earl Grey.” Grandpa Sam smiled at Joe. “Did Ed like the corn bread?”
Joe blinked back tears before he could answer. “Yes, he did.” He lunged forward and hugged Grandpa Sam. “Thank you.”
“For what, the corn bread?”
Many reasons for numerous “thanks-yous” collected in Joe’s mind. He smiled and shrugged as he rubbed Grandpa Sam’s shoulders. “For everything.”
Grandpa’s serene smile provided Joe all the joy in the world.
Two days later, during his eightieth birthday party, Grandpa Sam beamed the same special smile when Joe stood next to him and kissed Ed’s cheek. The sun stayed in the sky. Nothing burst into flame.
Joe winked at Grandpa Sam before he leaned in for kiss number two.
S.A. GARCIA started writing gay male romance thirty-five years ago. Her writing remained a secret lest her friends thought her a freak. Writing about men inserting tab A into slot B didn’t seem the norm for a suburban female teenager. Reading Gordon Merrick, John Rechy, and Larry Kramer helped her fill in the serious informational gaps. Of course she read those books in her bedroom.
As the years progressed, S.A. still wrote gay male romance, although the stories progressed from lurking in notebooks to hiding on the computer. She wrote fantasies, contemporaries, bodice rippers; she chugged along following her muse.
S.A. never thought any publisher would publish her novels. Now she’s glad she kept the writing faith since three different publishers have placed their faith in her books. When one novel made it onto a few top-ten lists, S.A. kicked aside her doubt.
All this from a graphic designer guilty of two-finger keyboard abuse. S.A.’s life has turned into a fun quandary of too many stories hindered by slow typing skills. She accepts the silly challenge and blunders onward into more trauma, drama, and humor. Above all, S.A. wants to keep up with sexy men who insist on running off with the plots. Chasing them keeps her mentally active.
When not obsessing over how to describe romantic encounters, S.A. enjoys cooking for her beloved of twenty-five years; she endures the experiments with grace. Gardening, traveling, arguing politics, and teaching the house bunnies new tricks provide more fun. Unfortunately the bunnies refuse to answer e-mails.
You can find out more about S.A. at her blog
http://oscarsbruisedpetals.blogspot.com
and website http://sa-garcia.macmate.me/S.A_Garcias_World_ of_Words/
S.A._Garcias_World_of_Words.html
DRESSED TO SWIM
RENEE HIRSCH
FILLED WITH the sweaty, inattentive bodies of thirty teenagers, the classroom is approximately as damp and uncomfortable as the Amazonian swamp our geography teacher is trying to tell us about. No one is listening. It’s an unusually hot day in late April, and the entire student body has given up the fight with the school’s ridiculous inoperable windows and are letting our brains slowly melt. Of course, a subset of students has been working on this process all year already. Popular media tells me that this is the case at every high school in existence, and I am not one to argue.
The heat seems to be getting to my teacher as well. He gazes dejectedly at our blank faces and wipes the sweat off his forehead with his right hand, outlining a wrinkle in chalk in the process.
“Okay,” he sighs, “take five minutes to discuss what you just learned with your classmates.”
We all proceed to do no such thing. While chatter at various degrees of enthusiasm (but none concerning Amazonian swamps) spreads throughout the room, I lay my head facedown on my desk, enjoying its cool surface for the brief moment it takes before it, too, is sticky and warm. I feel dizzy. I should have eaten today. Or at least have had a glass of water.
“Heeeeeeeey, Michaaaaaaaaael.”
Peter Bryce’s drawn-out voice is a squeaky fog horn that appears suddenly and loudly right beside my ear. I flinch, sit up straight, and avoid making eye contact as I reply.
“Hey.”
He leans toward me from his seat at the desk in front of mine, having turned around so that he is now sitting backward in his chair. Peter is big, far too big for a thirteen-year-old. His shoulders must be twice the size of mine. He has a wide, freckled face underneath his shaggy blond hair, and every time I see him, I think to myself that probably he didn’t even have to try to get his star spot on the football team. In ten years I expect to see him on every sports channel in existence, and I genuinely hope he will have a nicer voice by then. For the sake of his fans, if nothing else.
He smiles at me and continues in a way that can be described as anything but sincere.
“Sooooooo, are you going to the beach party this weekend, hm?”
I look down at my hands on the table. They make an icky sound as I lift them and ball them into fists. The invitation that was passed around a week ago by the most beautiful girl in class is still lying at the bottom of my backpack, unopened. “I don’t think so,” I say.
“Awww, whyyyyyy?” This long vowel shtick of his is nearing the ridiculous. I pause to think for a moment, and out of the dozen plausible excuses in my head, I go for the one that’s the most boring and the least likely to be believed.
“I don’t have any swimwear.”
Peter just laughs, not even bothering to dignify it with an answer. Whatever. I didn’t lie. I couldn’t have even if I wanted. For some reason I feel obligated to tell the truth whenever I speak, which is one of the reasons I don’t do it very often.
The guy next to Peter, his conjoined-at-the-hip-best-friend Sebastian O’Daniels, looks at me with a wide grin, “You can just go skinny-dipping. I bet the girls would love that, Mikey.”
I hate that I flush at the comment.
Peter and Sebastian’s faces keep beaming like it’s a competition. In appearance they are vastly different, Sebastian being more chub than muscle, but they still look alike in some harmonious way. You don’t have to look twice to figure out they belong together. They’ve been like that since we started school. I can recall all three of us, eight years old, sitting on Sebastian’s mother’s velvet couch and playing video games together, but I don’t remember when that stopped. They always played as Mario and Luigi. Me: Yoshi.
“Oh, leave him alone, Sebastian,” one of the girls from the table next to us interrupts. Marina Young scrunches up her face in mockery and continues. “We certainly would love it more than if it was you doing it. Please tell me you plan on keeping on your swim trunks, Seb—otherwise I’m worried I’ll have to skip the party.”
The girl and the friend she’s sitting next to break into laughter; Sebastian O’Daniels’ face goes beet red. He and Peter glance in my direction. Unsure whether it’s best to smile or frown, I twist my face into some undefinable grimace and quietly thank the higher powers when our teacher speaks up in an attempt to recapture the attention of the class. Saved by the bell.
It’s another twenty minutes until class is over, and the moment the clock hits 3:30, all the energy that has been missing during the day seems to return like a lightning strike as every kid in class leaps from their desks and bolts out the door. They leave behind them a glittering cloud of sweat, like an early morning mist. I wait until it’s settled before I get up to leave the classroom myself.
“Mr. Summers,” my teacher says before I reach the door, “you
did well on your presentation on the Atlantic Ocean last week.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“You seem to have a good grasp of the subject,” he says. “Though it would have been nice if you had been a bit more involved. Try to work on that, yeah?”
“Sure, I will,” I say, although I have no idea what he means.
“Have a nice weekend,” he says to me as I leave the room.
Outside the school gates, groups of students have gathered in their usual cliques, and in the general chattering I hear snippets of conversations, mostly concerning the best place to buy ice cream and the party this weekend. Farther ahead I spot Peter in a small group, his arm wrapped around his girlfriend’s waist. There’s some eerie quality to the scene, as though what I’m seeing isn’t entirely real, but nobody but me seems to have noticed this strangeness. I walk in a big circle around them in order to head home before he or anyone else has the chance to question me further about my attendance at the beach party. Blocking my way farther down the sidewalk are a couple of boys who have taken the first chance they could get to rip off their school uniforms. They’re bare-chested and whipping at each other with their rolled-up, wet shirts. Crude. I straighten my collar as though to counteract their behavior and hurry past them, wondering if I’m really feeling their eyes on me or just being paranoid.
My mother is the only one there when I get back home. My sister left for college last year, and presumably my dad is still at the office. He and my mother have synced up their daily routine to perfection. He has a normal eight-to-four job; she works night shifts as a security guard. The amount of time they spend together is a bare minimum.
To compensate, my mother makes sure the house is filled at all times with a welcoming scent of food, and with great success, as my father has grown fatter and fatter throughout the years. Today I am met by the smell of cinnamon cookies. I breathe in deeply. Smells like home.
“Hi, honey,” my mother chirps from the kitchen. “What happened at school today?”
