Outland
Page 19
"Yeah, this is way too much!" he said, taking one of the tickets from me. He read it, shaking his head. "Ain't never been out of the country before. We don't even have passports!"
"You can get them right quick enough," Jethro said. "We wanted to do this for you. You tried to do something great for our community. We wanted to show you how much we appreciated it."
It hit me then, all of it. My eyes welled up, and the hand holding the ticket started shaking. I couldn't help myself; I broke. "It's all gone, Jethro. Outland is gone."
"No, Beaver, you're wrong," he said, patting my arm. "The building's gone, yeah, but Outland ain't dead. Not as long as any of us are still here." He sighed, and looked back and forth between Hank and me. "You don't really understand, do you? Outland wasn't just a bar. It was a symbol, a belief, and you can't burn that."
Skeeter nodded. "That's right. Outland was all of us, standing up and telling Bellows and the rest that we're here, that this is our home, and we're not going anywhere. That nobody's gonna run us off, or push us back into the closet, not anymore."
Hank sniffed loudly, and I swiped at my face. My nose and eyes were leaking like faucets. "Thank you," I managed to say. I couldn't say anything else, not without starting to bawl.
As it turned out, I didn't need to say anything else. From the wetness in their eyes, everyone understood.
Epilogue
It's been over a year since the night Outland burned, and just like the phoenix in the old Greek myths, it's risen again from the ashes.
Not in our yard -- when I told Hank we were too old to rebuild, I'd meant it. No, it was Fargo, Skeeter, and Jethro who opened a brand new bar over in Twilla, and named it Outland in honor of the old one. Fargo's lawyer had been right -- the boy did have a case, and he won it in court. Got an apology from the police department and the hospital in the form of a big ol' fat check, and he used part of it to buy the bar.
Jethro and Will brought back their drag characters of Miss Amanda and Miss Charity, the two of them doing karaoke in the new bar. Me and Hank went as often as we could to watch them. It was drive over to Twilla, but we tried to make it at least once a weekend.
My leg healed, although I limp now, and need to use a cane if I'm going to be doing much walking. Hank is doing well, too. He's lost weight, and some of the sharp edges I remember him having in our younger years are showing through again. I tell him I'm going to have to beat the younger guys away if'n he gets any skinnier. He usually socks me a good one in the arm when I say that, and laughs. It's true, though. He's a handsome man, my Hank.
At the moment, we're lying on beach chairs facing a blue-green sea, watching the gentle waves roll up onto the sand. The beach in St. Maarten is sugar-white, and the sun's hot, and it's quiet and far away from the sideways glances we'd been receiving at home.
Small towns are like that. Once a rumor gets going, it's harder to stop than the waves licking at the shore. Somebody said that Hank murdered Smith and Matthews, that they were unarmed, and come up to our place just to talk. Lies, of course, all of it, and the scar on my thigh proved it, just like the video tape from the security camera, but it didn't matter none. Gossips love to spread the juicier story, whether it’s the true one or not.
I think Bellows was behind the rumor, although Hank says it could've been anybody with time one their hands and nothing better to do but think up lies. Either way, we see suspicion in people's eyes when we go grocery shopping, and more than one has crossed the street to the other side when they see us coming.
"Think Bellows will ever give up harassing folk?" Hank asked me, taking a sip of whatever coconut-milk cocktail he'd ordered. I stuck with beer, never liking that fancy shit.
"Don't know. Not likely, I guess, although we ain't heard from him since Fargo's trial."
Bellows had shown up with his congregation and their placards, waving and marching around in a circle in front of the courthouse. In addition to their usual "God hates homos" signs, they'd added a few "Murderer!" and "Cop-killer!" to the mix, even though Fargo hadn't been the one to pull the trigger on Matthews and Smith, and Hank was never charged. Guess it didn't matter to Bellows -- one fag was as good as another in his book. As far as he was concerned, we probably all looked alike, too. Stupid bastard.
Before we left for St. Maarten, we stopped at the graveyard to pay Ashley a visit. I know it was more for me and Hank than Ashley's memory, but we needed to do it. It was like we were putting the whole sorry mess to rest.
We brought a few flowers, a small bouquet of mums and daisies we bought at the Piggly Wiggly, and set them in front of his tombstone. The marker had his name engraved on it, and below the date of his birth and death, it read, "Forgiven and missed. Rest in Peace."
Fargo had paid for the stone when he got his check. Guess that was his way of putting the past behind him.
"You done a lot of wrong to us, Ashley, but we're okay now. Sleep well," Hank said, bowing his head.
I thought about Ashley and remembered how angry I'd been at him, how bitter. I remembered how he died, how horrible it must've been for him, and added a short, "Amen." There wasn't much else I could say.
Jasper Bellows still holds services in his little clapboard church. He still uses the pulpit to preach his hate, still tries to worm his way into the media spotlight whenever possible, but for the most part, he's left us alone. At least he hasn't tried to start any trouble at the new Outland, hasn't even held a protest there. I don't know if it'll last, but me and Hank can't help hoping he's learned his lesson about using violence against folks. It was only by a miracle that he wasn't implicated in Ashley's murder and Fargo's beating. If either Matthews or Smith had survived the night they shot me, we were sure Bellows would've been arrested right along with them.
On the lighter side of things, Fargo and Skeeter are now a threesome. They brought Jethro into their little love affair, and the three of them are nearly inseparable. Hank can't understand it, thinks its more than a little bit odd, loving two men like that, but I figure whatever makes their socks roll up and down is a good thing. They seem happy, and that's all that matters.
As for Hank and me, well, for now we're taking it real easy, soaking up rays on the beach in St. Maarten. We'll go home at the end of the week, back to our house with the pile of rubble out front that used to be the Outland Bar. We'll go back to watching television, having a beer on the weekend at the new Outland Bar, and making love in our bed, just as we have for the last quarter century.
We're a little older, a little wiser, but still as much in love with each other as we were twenty-five years ago, and nobody can change that. Not now, not ever.
The only thing about us that's changed is the fact that we're out. We're done hiding in the closet. I hold his hand in public when the mood strikes me, and he slings his arm around my shoulders whenever he gets the urge, and to hell with what anyone thinks.
We walked through fire, and found ourselves stronger for it. That was Outland's legacy to us.
~End