Dawn in the Orchard

by Cooper West

  fightingfor roominChuck’s mouth.

  Chuck’s hips stuttered against him, his erection

  hard and prominent and pushing into his hip through his

  jeans, and Gary knew exactly where they were both

  headed: the floor. He dropped his hands and grabbed

  Chuck’s ass, hauling him in even closer, groaning back

  into his mouth. He felt hands flex on his back, Chuck

  trying to ground himself, holding him so hard that Gary

  suspected he already had bruises, and they were not

  even horizontal yet. He dropped one hip, shifting his

  hold to Chuck’s waist and tugging at him, a clear signal

  to most anymanthat it was time to laydownand do his

  duty. Chuck finally pulled out of the dirty kiss to step

  one foot forward, bending the knee. Between Gary’s

  soft drop and rolland Chuck’s dip, they were down for

  the count. Almost.

  Chuck hovered over himon hands and knees for

  a moment, his eyes dilated to the point of being blown,

  analmost feralsmile onhis face. He moved one hand to

  pin Gary’s shoulder to the floor and leaned close in to

  kiss again.

  “Goingto take care ofyou, want to….” Gary shoved him off and scooted backward. “I

  don’t need taking care of,” he spat, the mood gone,

  furious at being pinned down and talked to like a

  bathhouse boywho needed a daddy.

  Chuck’s confusion showed on his face, and he

  knew it did, because he raised his hands in surrender.

  “Sorry. I’msorry. I don’t do this well.”

  Gary nodded in agreement, pulling his knees up

  as a barrier. Chuck studied the position for a moment,

  then nodded once, firmly, as if agreeing with someone.

  He climbed back up slowly. “Got to go. See you day

  after tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, okay,” Gary said at the retreating form

  from his spot on the floor. Eventually he scooted

  unsteadily backward to the questionable sofa and sat

  with his back to it, confused and turned on. Gary really

  doubted Chuck’s move was planned, because it was

  hardly a smooth seduction, and Chuck had ducked out

  quickly enough in the end. There was nothing about the

  whole visit that had gone to plan for either of them, he

  suspected.

  He was proud of himself for making a stand, not

  letting Chuck treat him like a rent boy or cheap trick,

  but there was still a profound disappointment in the

  space Chuck had left. Gary knew himself well enough

  to know that he wanted a relationship, and he also

  knew himself well enough to know that he had a history

  of letting that need drive him into bad choices. He was

  fairly sure that Chuck would be one of those bad

  choices, but that knowledge did not really change what

  he wanted.

  He tried practicinga few ofthe new songs he was

  learning, but the only ones he had a feel for were the

  lovesick ballads fullofheartbreak.

  Disgusted with himself, he drove into town just to

  get out of the house. Back at the library, he logged on

  again to find a tidal wave of responses in his e-mail,

  most of which said, “Worried; come home.” The e-mail

  reply from Tally was full of exclamation marks and

  anxiety, so Gary tried to write something back that said

  “working on new music, pecans ready to be harvested,

  hot closeted neighbor hit onme, but I think I scared him

  off”ina waythat would not inspire full-scale panic. The rest of them he answered with various

  versions of “still here, doing okay, figuring out next

  step” which, he thought, was fairly accurate. At that

  point, witha safetynet ofa few months and the taxes all

  but assuredly paid for, Gary was thinking that he had

  time to figure out what he was going to do. It was a far

  more proactive goal than anything he had done for the

  last two years, onthe whole, and he was proud ofthat. The “Chuck Situation” was something he decided

  to shelve indefinitely. The levels of “fucked up” there

  were getting deep and heavy and strange, and while

  Gary might be desperate and horny, he was not stupid.

  If worst came to worst he would risk the drive up to

  Charlotte and find a bathhouse, which would also be a

  convenient signalto himthat it was time to get the fuck

  out of Holden. He was not there yet, though. After a final read-through of his RSS reader, he

  logged offto runsome errands. Bythe time he got back

  to the house, it was late afternoon, and he was wired on

  coffee and stress. It was not optimal practicing conditions, but it was that or clean out another closet, so he sat downwithhis guitar inthe denand tried to act like he was a professional musician for a change. He forced himself to work on very technical songs, hoping to tire out his brain as much as his fingers. By eight o’clock he was both wired and exhausted. Which, he thought unpleasantly, was stupid. He sat at his dinette table in the kitchen, staring at toast as if it held the

  answers to life.

  It was a good time for introspection, which fit his

  mood anyway, so he tried peeling back the layers of

  “what the hell am I doing?” and “why am I doing it?”

  and “what else can I do, anyway?” He spent so many

  years playing the same tune over and over again, which

  was less of a metaphor than he liked to consider, but

  true nonetheless. While he never aimed for the stardom

  that so many of his music peers craved, he simply

  assumed fromthe first that he would make a good living

  playing music, that he would travel far and wide doing

  it, and that he would end up a respected industry

  standard as part of some ensemble or another. None of

  those praiseworthy goals had happened, and not for lack of trying on his part early on. Steady gigs never materialized, he rarely left Chicago, and the only person of any consequence in the industry who knew he existed was his own damn manager. Gary was weighed down by the incredible sense of guilt he felt toward Tally, who supported him (sometimes literally) in the times since his stage fright had become crippling, a point when any musician with any sense of ambition would have killed himself. Tally suggested therapy a number of times, and Gary concluded—as he suspected all along, if he was honest with himself—that instead of taking such a sensible step, he simply ran around like a chicken with its head cut off because it was less frightening than facing up to his insecurities and a seriously flawed relationship. The bouncing around and lack ofa reliable career was on his shoulders, and now, sitting still and exhausted in the foothills of hillbilly country on a very used sofa in a house he was not willing to call home, Gary understood the true extent of

  his failures.

  It was more than a bad relationship or literal

  performance issue, it was simply that he lived for years without much conscious thought about what kind of life he wanted, a fact well represented by his renewed interest in traditional music. He decided young that he would playanythingbut country or bluegrass because it was all around him growing up. In fact it was pretty much all he knew outside of school band or classic rock. It did not represent the rich cultural legacy of his Scotch Irish ancestry to him. Instead he put it down as the music the trailer-park trash listened to. The whole “redneck rebel” motif made his skin crawl, so he learned to play everything but co
untry, bluegrass, or Lynyrd Skynyrd, and his rebellion finally grew to encompass leaving his entire world behind. His reactionary lack of planning worked, insofar that he definitely left the Deep South and all it entailed behind him for many years. However, there was no logical reason for him to come back to it all if he did not miss

  something.

  There it was, the realtruthofit, the reasonhe was

  there in the first place: getting along in Chicago had

  always felt like “making do” until the next better (or

  good-enough) thing came along. He fell into music gigs like a temp worker and, like a temp worker in any industry, accepted the low pay and lack of respect that came with it because it was still better than the mocking ridicule he suffered for years from his own people. Of course, temp work was the nature of the music world, but there were levels to it in terms of success, and Gary knew he had not tried veryhard to get past later hurdles the same way he jumped through them his first couple of years out of college. His ambition evaporated long before his stage fright became an issue, and he was finallybeinghonest withhimselfabout how and why. He spent so much energy leaving everything behind that he never bothered to find out if he ever wanted anything else, and the truth was that he left his homeland not

  because he hated it but because he thought it hated him. He was not sure how his stage fright played into

  that, but one major epiphany was his limit for the day,

  so he got up offthe couch. Desperate for distraction, he

  fiddled with the stereo’s radio settings until he picked

  up a station that was not pop-country. He had to trip to

  the AM dial to do it and ended up with something that

  might have been gospel or the farm report, he wasn't

  too sure. Either wayit was noise.

  A few minutes into the show, the announcer

  broke for an ad, and suddenly Gary knew what he was

  doing for the night. It was Thursday, the radio head

  announced with too much forced enthusiasm, and

  everyone was invited to Brunhilde’s Lower Forty for

  down-home country music and “really darn good drink

  specials.”

  Gary left his guitar behind, not quite ready to

  make any kind ofleap into the unknown further than the

  Lower Forty’s front door.

  ChapterSix

  “Thereyou are!” Fran grinned at him knowingly as

  Gary set himself up at the bar. The Lower Forty had not really shed its former life as a small barn: the floor was dirt, and the walls were bare planks of wood. An old kitchencountertop had beenset up as the “bar”that Franworked near the entrance. The stage was the most solidly engineered thing in the place, tucked into the back and large enough to fit a small drum set and five musicians comfortably. Gary really did not want to know how the electricity had been run, something he guessed could also be said by the fire marshal. He figured gettingout ina fire was as easy as kicking a wall plank down, though, so he tried not to worryabout it.

  “Chuck’llbe happy.”Frangot inhis face, grinning as she put a beer bottle downinfront ofhim. “Not why I’m here,” Gary snarled, knowing he sounded sulky. But it was true, because he had not even thought about the fact that Chuck might be playing that night untilFranrubbed his nose init.

  “Okay!” Fran gave him a startled look and backed offfor a while.

  The night started with a couple of local acts, which set the mood for the place. The high-school bluegrass quartet was musically more proficient than the husband-wife team that played after them, but all the musicians were into creating a rousing night of it, and the audience was pleased to let them.

  Gary sipped his beer, watching the players and hugging the bar because Fran was the only person he really knew. He kidded himself that he was not checking the place for Chuck, but he was not surprised whenhe saw himin a back corner with a smallgroup of people. He was not talking much, but he was clearly in a good mood, laughingat what other people said.

  By10:30 p.m. the stage was emptyagain, and the locals were restless. Gary watched Chuck unfold out of his chair to lope up onto the stage with his fiddle. It was the signalother people were waiting for, and soon there were four others setting up and tuning their instruments. Microphones were cleared away, so Chuck tucked his fiddle next to himbefore he stepped to the edge.

  “Evenin’, folks. Time to get a little loose and enjoy ourselves. Anyone who wants to join in is welcome. Come on up.” He smiled when someone catcalled from the audience about getting on Chuck’s bad side. A few players laughed as Chuck shook his head, set up his fiddle, stepped back, and started to play.

  The players on stage followed his lead, and Gary could understand why. The quality was varied, but Chuck was clearly the most proficient musically, leading themthroughsolos and group tangents for nearlytwenty minutes on a song standard that Gary knew for a fact was at most three minutes longinits pure form.

  Eventually another banjo player and another fiddle player worked up, and after an hour the stage was littered withplayers, some sittingonthe edge ofthe platform. One harmonica player simply stayed at his table with his beer. Gary felt a pang of longing, missing the feeling of camaraderie that comes from a bunch of people used to jamming together and having fun no matter how sloppythings got.

  During a short break for everyone to refill their beers and retune, Fran leaned over with a fresh drink. “Youdidn’t bringanythingto play.”

  “Just checking it out. Anyway, spent a lot of time today on the guitar, my fingers are sore.” Gary waved his beer around.

  Fran grinned and leaned in closer, hissing out a whisper. “Heads up, Chuckie’s spotted you.”

  “Stop it,” Gary hissed back just as a hand landed on his shoulder. He turned to see Chuck, flushed and grinning but standing well back from him despite the friendlytouch.

  “Glad youcould make it.”

  “Got to get out ofthat house sometimes.” Fransnorted. “Hell, I know that feeling.”

  “Fran.” Chuck nodded at her as he withdrew his hand fromGary’s shoulder.

  Fran rolled her eyes and moved down the bar to get people the drinks they were calling for. Chuck leaned ina little without actuallymoving.

  “She’s a might too perceptive,” Chuck said quietly.

  Garynodded a little too frantically. “And bossy.”

  Chuck snorted, then laughed loudly. Gary smiled at him, glad that, despite the awkward pass earlier, Chuck seemed comfortable with him. It gave hima little hope that he was just buzzed enoughto humor.

  “Didn’t want to joinin?”Chuck finallystepped up to the bar to stand next to where Gary was perched on his stool.

  “Getting a feel for things.” Gary shrugged. He sipped his beer as Chuck turned his back to the bar to look out over the room.

  “Good people here.”

  “Fair musicians, for the most part.”

  Chuck nodded magnanimously. “Most, yep. They know their strengths, makes it easy to lead things along.”

  Their shoulders bumped companionably. Gary smiled and shyly looked over at Chuck, whose eyes were fixed at a point near the stage but bright with humor.

  “No hard feelings, you know,” Gary said, mostly into his beer, wondering what he was doing. It was not the time or place to be playing games with the son of a local patriarch, but Chuck was the one who had been pushingthings earlier before he ran.

  Chuck sucked on his lower lip—Gary tried not stare—and shrugged. “Maybe should be. I was a might… forward.”

  “You didn’t hear me complaining about it, for the most part,”Garysaid, throwingit allinthe air.

  Chuck shot him a curious glance. “No, not until youdid.”

  One of the banjo players came up, drunk and talking loudly, to buy Chuck a beer. Chuck made introductions, but Gary could not pay attention to anything other than the possibilities buzzing in his head. Chuck was in the closet, and Gary hated that,
but given he was prettymuchinthe same place for the time being, could not judge too harshly. He was not sure what that might mean for them, if anything were to happen past Chuck freaking out on him, but with Chuck warm and smiling next to him, Gary was willing to find out. That, or he was drunk.

  The music started up when one of the high schoolers got back on stage and broke out a jig reel. Chuck nodded at Gary as he was dragged off by other players to start the jam again. Fewer players were on stage since it was the time of night where the music became more freewheelingand difficult to keep up with. Gary set in to really pay attention to Chuck’s technical but talented playing, which only made him admire the handsome man even more. He knew if he was not too careful, he could end up being stupid again, and that thought sobered himup, along with the glasses of water Frankept plyinghimwith.

  He left before the music ended, not sure if he was ready to deal with the possibilities Chuck represented just yet, although part of him was more than ready for any challenge, if it involved Chuck’s body resting heavilyontop ofhimagain.

  ChapterSeven

  Thepecan harvest was noisy as hell and started at the

  crack of dawn. Gary looked blearily out his window at the dozen people moving through the orchard, setting up what he could only describe as “tree torture.” A small tractor lifted a machine up to latch onto the tree trunk, which proceeded to vibrate the tree until pecans rained down. Several people were walking huge vacuums that resembled mobile dumpsters with elephantine noses around trees that had been shaken, emptying the harvest into a waiting bin. It looked painful for the trees, and the loud multiple engines were painful for Gary. Despite their distance from the house itself, it was far too noisy to try to go back to sleep, so he resigned himself to a lot of coffee to get through the day.

  He planned to attack the master bedroomat last, as he had been avoiding it since he moved in because it was clearly the most lived-in roomin the house, layered with years of bric-a-brac and personal items. As much as Garyand Great-Aunt Harriet did not reallyget along, he felt gruesome sorting out her personal life as if she never mattered. It was too easy to convince himself to put it offfor another dayand wander into his studio with a cup ofcoffee instead.

  He pulled out his laptop. The wireless was useless inthe boonies, and he did not even know how to jack it into the phone line, much less any phone numbers he could use to connect, but he decided it was time to boot up the recording software and see what kind of sounds he could coaxfor posterity.