Palouse - 39. Chapter 39

Chapter 39

Back to Endicott – February 1996

A Month Later

And the question is, was i more alive
than i am now?
I happily have to disagree;
I laugh more often now, I cry more often now,
I am more me

– Peter Bjorn and John

“I think we need to go up to Endicott some weekend and tell my parents that I want to go to Whitman next year.”

“I heard ‘we’, so is that the only thing you’re going to tell them?” David asked, with concern in his voice.

Micah grinned. “The rest I’m going to show them.” He kissed David warmly on the lips.

“Are you sure you want me there? You do have to ask them to keep supporting you, you know.”

“How can I show them if you’re not there? I can’t hide my feelings for you. They’re going to find out soon enough if they don’t know already from Vice President Asher. I think Dad will be okay, and I think he will continue to help me financially despite Mom if she can’t be convinced. She may not like me being gay, but I think she’ll still help.”

“This I’ve got to see.”

“You will. I assure you, luv. It will be interesting.”

“‘May we live in less interesting times’ is what the Chinese proverb should have said. In fact, I’ll take boring times.”

“You know you like the challenge, David.” Micah grinned and kissed him on the cheek and let his tongue flick at David’s ear.

“The problem is that the consequences affect both you and me.”

“Not seriously. We’ll work our way through this no matter what happens.”

“I don’t want to see you hurt.” You’re still fragile and delicate, David thought.

“I am not fragile,” Micah said.

“How did you know what I was thinking?”

“It’s my Navajo side.” I gambled and hit, Micah thought. Lucky guess.

* * * * *

“Hi, Mom,” Micah said into the telephone. “Can you handle a couple of visitors this weekend?”

“Of course, Micah, we look forward to it.”

“I have some news.”

“Can you tell me now?”

“Mom, I want to tell you in person.”

After he hung up, Micah thought with relief that the college must not have called his parents about his meeting with Vice President for Student Affairs Asher. So she didn’t know about his relationship, let alone the testy office visit at the college.

Later that afternoon, Micah and David were at the apartment’s kitchen table, books open for studying. When they’d both reached a rest break, Micah, said, “So. This is the meet-the-parents weekend.”

David jerked his head up.

“We’ll take your car,” Micah continued. “Yours is more reliable than a crappy pickup.”

David looked at him without speaking for a moment. “This weekend, huh? Well, I might be available. But I’m thinking, maybe it’s not me you’re inviting as much as my car – and my great driving talents. First Seattle, now Endicott. And your crappy pickup is only crappy because you won’t spend any of your savings on it.

“A chauffeur is all I’m good for, I guess.” David affected a pout. “I did drive by your house in another one of your excursions, as I recall, so maybe going again might be doable.”

“You don’t have to come, luv, even though I said you had to.”

“I want to come, I think. If I’m there, it will be more interesting, at least. I’ll be at your side, and there may be fireworks.”

“That’s what scares me shitless, but I have to do this now. With you there and a couple of very public kisses from me, I won’t have to say a word, will I?”

“You might want to think some more about how you want to make an announcement, but that’s up to you. I’ll wear body armor, in any case.”

“Does that mean a jockstrap instead of boxers?”

“No, a cup.”

“Do I get to drink out of that cup?” Micah asked with a fake leer. “I’ll furnish the coffee; you furnish the –”

“My God, I’m in love with a pervert. You don’t go into things without passion.”

“Come here, luv, let’s take a coffee break; I want a cup.”

Micah didn’t mean Starbucks.

* * * * *

They were on their way by 2 p.m. Friday afternoon, stopping for coffee and a snack-to-go at Merchant’s. Micah became increasingly quiet the farther they drove north and east, climbing slowly into the Palouse. In the lower, warmer valleys, new, brilliant spring-green wheat pushed through the stubble of the previous year, making the rolling land a patchwork of new green on the flats and winter brown on the bordering hills that framed the valleys they drove through. David reached across and grasped Micah’s hand, trying to pass some of his confidence through his fingers into Micah.

They climbed the hills into Dayton with its colorful Victorian houses and then followed U.S. 12 until turning off onto State Route 127. That took them down a steep canyon to the Snake River, which they crossed at Central Ferry State Park. As they passed the park entrance, Micah suggested they stop for a picnic.

“Let’s not,” David responded, feeling a bit of exasperation. “It will only delay the reckoning. Plus, it’s 3 p.m.”

“But the park is beautiful at this time of year.”

“So are you, and my road to you leads straight ahead.”

Micah knew he had lost the argument even before it began. They took the canyon up to the Palouse country itself and then dropped down into a crossroads called Dusty, where they turned left onto SR 26, then right toward Endicott and St. John. The distance was only about 90 miles from Walla Walla, but the twists and turns made for a long trip.

A few miles past Endicott they crossed the Palouse River and then turned off the main road and headed toward the Kingman farm. They drove past the white picket fence that enclosed the large yard. In the background, the porch furniture had been covered for the season. East of the yard, they drove up the driveway and pulled onto the graveled parking area. David turned off the key. They sat in David’s Civic for a few moments, listening to the tick of the engine cooling, then opened the door and climbed out.

By this time the kitchen door had opened and a troop of Kingmans and two barking dogs appeared, just as they had done so many years before when Micah first arrived – only they were all older now.

Micah waited for David to come around the car and then went up to Betty, Stan, Maria, Kat and Ricardo, who came up and gave him hugs. Hugs completed, Micah took a deep breath and let it out slowly, as he did at his entrance on a concert stage. “You remember David from Spokane?” He asked. David shook hands all around.

David and Micah stood side by side, Micah acting hesitant. He then took David’s hand and said: “David is my boyfriend.”

Betty frowned sharply, Stan looked pensive, but Micah’s siblings’ reaction could be described as “eyebrows raised.” A frost had settled on the welcoming environment, though.

Well, that went well. Maybe I should have waited until we were leaving, Micah thought. He looked into David’s eyes and saw only sympathy, and David’s lips formed a hidden kiss. That was enough to restore some of Micah’s confidence.

Micah’s siblings picked up their luggage, and Micah put his arm around his mother’s waist and led her to the kitchen door. But the frost that had formed outside at their arrival followed them into the kitchen. Betty offered them iced tea, and soon they all were sitting at the kitchen table, glasses in front of them, trying to make conversation.

As if a light switch had been flipped, Betty suddenly warmed, seemingly casting aside her gloom. “Well, what’s the big news that brings you home?” she asked, smiling, hoping that there was some news besides her son’s boyfriend.

“I have an opportunity to go to Whitman next year,” Micah answered. “I’ve gotten some scholarship money, and I’ve gotten a tutoring job in the music department. It’s an opportunity to graduate from a far better college.” Micah did not mention that he was playing the violin, and David wondered why.

“You’re 20; you don’t need our permission,” Stan observed.

“But, I still need your help, Dad – financially. If you can help me as much as you’ve done at Walla Walla College, I’ve…we’ve figured I can make it work. Even though Whitman’s more expensive, I’ve found enough other support, plus I can dig deeper into my savings.” There was no immediate response from Betty or Stan, and Betty looked sharply at David. Micah said finally: “Please think about it tonight and tomorrow.”

Betty’s ears had perked up at one thing in Micah’s request: the tutoring job in the music department. “You’re tutoring violin?” she asked.

“Yes, and I’m playing again, Mom. I will be playing in a quartet at the Whitman music department if I go there,” Micah said with obvious enthusiasm. “And the Walla Walla Symphony said they might like me to solo for them.”

“Your mom and I will talk about your request tonight, son. We know that Whitman is a better school, education-wise, but I know your mother will be concerned about your moral education,” Stan said as he looked over at his wife.

Micah decided that he would not tell his parents that he effectively had been asked to leave Walla Walla College because of his “moral” choice. He didn’t want to raise that issue if his parents were willing to provide him some support at Whitman. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, Micah believed in this case. He knew Whitman had a relatively conservative student body, but compared to Walla Walla College, the student body was a free-love, antichrist group of people who tolerated the gay lifestyle.

What could he say about Walla Walla College to his parents? If asked, he could say he had worked for his grades but felt no intensity towards studies – that he was becoming an automaton, regurgitating lessons onto test sheets. Until David came along, he was drifting in a stream, without direction, taking life as it came to him – and passing him by. If he forsook David, he could probably stay at Walla Walla College and continue to suppress a good part of his life: his music. At this time, however, forsaking David was out of the question. He hoped it would be so at any time of his life.

“Is anybody hungry yet? Shall I start dinner?” Betty asked, changing the subject and breaking the mood that was threatening to get too serious.

“That would be wonderful. Thank you,” David said. Betty looked perturbed.

“Yes, I’m hungry,” Micah chimed in.

“I made a light supper because I didn’t know when you would get here or whether you’d be very hungry. Tomorrow, Greg’s coming up from Pullman, and we’ll have a big fried-chicken dinner with all the fixings.”

Soon, they were all sitting around the kitchen table with bowls of lentil soup, coleslaw and home-made bread and butter. David was the first to praise: “This is wonderful. Thank you.” It was the right thing to say – and the wrong thing – because it reminded Betty of David’s presence – something she would have avoided if she could.

“Thanks, Mom,” Micah said, and his siblings chimed in with compliments and thank yous.

As the dinner progressed, Betty noticed the looks of love passing between Micah and David, the casual touches between them and their hands placed on top of one another. She wished that she’d made them sit on opposite sides of the table.

Betty’s attitude began to cast a pall over the dinner despite how good the food was. She simply remained silent, planning what she was going to say to her son and his “friend,” her face showing a grim determination. Stan tried to compensate for his wife’s silence, carrying the conversation. They continued with a dessert of peach pie and ice cream, along with coffee, in the music room.

“I’m going to put David in Greg’s bed, if that’s okay,” Micah announced as the last of the dishes was being pulled from the table. Betty didn’t like the idea, but there were twin beds in Micah’s and Greg’s old room, and both were currently empty with Greg being in Pullman. She would have preferred, of course, that David sleep in the living room – or in the barn. Her lips curled in a smile at that last thought.

Life went out of the conversation fairly soon thereafter.

“Anyone want to play some Hearts?” Stan asked.

“Sure,” David answered, and there were nods from the others, except Betty.

“I think I’ll go upstairs and read awhile, instead,” Betty said.

The mood in the room lightened perceptibly after Betty left the room.

“I’m sorry,” Stan said, looking at David, “she’s not feeling well about this. I’m sure you understand.”

“It’s okay,” David said.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

“Deal, then,” Stan commanded. “What’s holding you up?” He had a grin on his face.

David was happy that he was able to dump the queen of spades on Micah twice and then shot the moon, winning the first game easily. He gloated too much, because in the second game the others ganged up on him, giving him the queen of spades three times and lots of hearts.

“Unlucky cards,” David lamented.

“And it was skill when you won?” Micah sneered with a smile.

“Of course.”

“After that arrogant statement, I’m going to bed,” Micah announced, assembling the cards into a neat pile and putting them on the mantel. He rose and gave his father a warm hug good night, kissed his younger siblings on their foreheads, took David’s hand, and led him up to the bedroom.

David and Micah fished their shaving kits out of their bags, took their toothbrushes out and walked down the hall to the bathroom. They slept in separate beds.

The next morning passed quickly as Micah gave David a tour of the farm, including a ride on the tractor out to the far corner of the property, with David standing on the three-point hitch. On the way back, Micah stopped on the farm road above Micah’s sanctuary, turned the key off and led David down the path at a run into his special place. It wasn’t music that Micah played that afternoon, except the music of the heart and the body.

It took Micah 30 seconds after arriving at the bottom of the hollow to have his clothes off, and in another 30 seconds he had David’s clothes off, both piled on the rock as a cushion and an insulator. It was cold and hard– and it was hot and hard– both at the same time.

“Are your intentions honorable, suh?” David asked as his boxers were pulled down.

“Of course they’re honorable. I want to honor this member with my best behavior.” David gasped as Micah’s soft mouth wrapped itself around his erection. He drew his fingers through Micah’s raven hair and along his pony tail in a series of caressing motions.

Micah pushed David down onto the rock where they had sat several months earlier, and David flipped Micah around so he could reach Micah’s erection. They knew each other now, and they knew the signs of pleasure and of urgency and of consummation, which came rapidly. After their final moans, Micah switched his body around so that he could give David a long, deep kiss, allowing a “frontage” soft meeting of their genitals, the feelings of a few minutes before migrating into the memory of their bodies.

“Wow,” David said when he came up for air. “The only thing missing is a cushion for the rock – and a blanket or three.” He wrapped his heels around Micah’s back. “I love you, Bright Eyes.”

“I love you, too.” Micah rolled them both onto their sides. “However, I have a feeling that we shouldn’t test Mom’s hospitality too much.”

“She didn’t look as if she was a happy hostess.”

“You noticed.”

“Unfortunately, yes. I have a feeling that we will have words sometime this weekend.”

“We’re doing the right thing,” Micah said, reassuringly. “I believe it.”

David drew Micah in for a long kiss. “I’ll suffer whatever I have to. It’s your life that’s affected.”

“Thank you, luv. I appreciate that.” They stayed clinging to each other for another few minutes. “I suppose we’d better get back. Dad’ll send another tractor out to find us if we’re gone too long.” The two young men slipped their clothes back on, linked hands and climbed the trail out of the sanctuary.

David balanced himself on the three-point hitch and put his arms this time around Micah’s waist to steady himself, managing to get in a couple of tweaks in the crotch as the ride went on.

Micah drove the tractor under the shed roof. The only sign that anything had happened earlier was the high color in David’s normally Scottish-rose cheeks and the plumpness of Micah’s crotch area – nothing that those who didn’t know them well would notice. Micah gave David a peck on the lips as they left the tractor shed. That peck was noticed from the kitchen window – with a frown – by Betty. She fled to her room to avoid having to confront David in front of her son.

* * * * *

“I’m going to tell him that he has to leave. And leave now!” Betty knew it was the right decision for Micah and the Kingman family. It was just plain wrong for two men to lie together. That’s really what this came down to, wasn’t it? She would figure out the rest. One gay son was more than enough.

She decided she would check on dinner and then tell David to leave. The kitchen was empty when Betty went through the back door. She was glad to see that Kat, who had come in from her home in Ritzville for the weekend, had started dinner, carving the chicken into pieces and putting them in buttermilk to tenderize. Kat had also peeled some potatoes, cut them up and left them in a cold-water pan, ready to be cooked for dinner. Betty could hear Kat in the den, along with Stan and Micah. And then she heard David.

That was more than she could stand; she stormed into the living room and up to a startled David. “I want you to leave,” she said sharply.

“If that’s what you want, I will,” David said, rising. Micah rose with him.

“No, he’s not leaving,” Stanley said. “I had one son leave in unhappiness, and I won’t have another.”

Betty glared at Stanley as if he were intruding into her domain. “Stanley, I want to speak with you. Right now!” She turned and disappeared down the hall into the den and waited for Stanley. She slammed the door after he entered.

David and Micah sat, trying not to listen to the sharp noises that emerged from the hallway. David finally got up, went up to Micah and Greg’s bedroom, stuffed his clothes into a couple of bags, went back downstairs and took them to his car. Micah was right behind him, carrying two of his. They went back into the house to get the rest of their bags and the boxes holding some of the things that Micah wanted to take back to Walla Walla.

They started to carry their second and last load out to the car when Stanley stopped them, putting his hand on David’s arm. “You’re not leaving,” he said forcefully.

“I think it would be best,” David said.

“No, Betty will have to learn to live with this. She can. She needs to grow up. Last time, when Robert was here, she walked out, went to her sister’s, and didn’t come back till the day he and Sam were leaving. This time, I think she’ll stay. She’s in the kitchen with Kat finishing dinner. That’s an improvement. Dinner will be a bit tense, but bear with it, David. And you, too, Micah.”

Before anyone could say anything more, the front door banged open with the arrival of Greg and his girlfriend, Rachel, to join them for dinner. Greg went off to kiss his mother hello as Stanley led David, Rachel and Micah to the living room. Greg knew to keep Rachel separate from his mother. Betty believed that, on paper, this girlfriend was everything that a mother would look for in a daughter-in-law – she was active in the church, she was polite to a fault, she had finished high school – but Betty didn’t like her. There was something cling-y about her; there was a note of desperation in her attraction to her son. Betty didn’t think she brought anything to the relationship with Greg. They think they’re adults, she would say to herself, but they’re just playing adult. They don’t know what adult is. And that goes for Micah and that David, too.

Greg returned from the kitchen shortly thereafter, a bewildered look on his face. “I think I’m missing something here,” he said, looking closely at everyone in the living room.

“You remember when Robert and Sam stopped by for a visit?”

“Yeah…oh,” he said, as he looked at Micah and David. “Oh, shit. And Mom’s leaving again?”

“Not quite,” Stanley said, “but close. She’s still here this time.”

“What’s happening here?” Rachel asked, not understanding any of the subtext of the conversation.

“Nothing, sweetheart. I’ll tell you later,” Greg said, but he knew that he would not say anything about what was truly going on unless he had to.

They began a conversation about topics that none of them would remember a couple of hours later; there was no energy in their interaction. The sounds from the kitchen in the background – the bangs, the doors closing – sounded louder than they needed to be, and the purpose of the conversation seemed to be to drown them out.

Betty was taking her feelings out on the dinner fixings as an antidote to the anger and uncertainty that had been filling her mind. The chicken pieces were being pounded flat, something that would never have even been done normally. The vegetables suffered the wrath of a sharper, more persistent knife. Kat stood back and watched her mother’s intensity and decided that her best course was to stay out of the way as much as possible. She finally retreated to the dining room, where she began to set the table.

David jumped up to ask if he could help – his way to escape from the falseness of the living-room conversation. He was quickly joined by Micah. The three of them were able to get the table set in a few minutes. Kat squeezed the arm of each of the two men and returned through the swinging door to the kitchen.

The meal was wonderful – all Micah’s favorites, but it wasn’t soon enough for the meal to be finished and the change of one tense scene for another.

After Kat, Micah and David cleared the table and the kitchen, everyone ended up in the living room, except Betty, who had gone upstairs again to her bedroom. Relieved of the dampening cloud, the conversation quickly grew boisterous and joyful as the siblings recounted some of their growing-up adventures, with Stanley either taking his brunt of the embarrassment or turning a ‘you-did-what?’ face as he realized some of the events that he missed but probably should not have.

In one of the few lulls in the conversation, Greg asked Micah, “What are you doing with your music?”

Micah turned to look at David, a warm expression on his face, before he turned to Greg answered: “I’m playing again.”

David’s mien showed pride, just like the time that Micah made it known publicly that he was gay. For David, his ex-protégé had grown up and become his own man, as David had always hoped.

The exchange of looks and the expression on David’s face did not go unnoticed by Kat. “Play us something,” Kat said.

“If David will, too. We’ve been working on some duets.” Micah looked over at David.

“I’ll just go upstairs and get our instruments,” David offered as he got up. As David walked up the stairs and back to Micah’s bedroom, he smiled to himself in amusement at the number of back-and-forths of luggage there had been in the day that he’d been in Endicott. He retrieved the instruments along with Micah’s bow case and the music they needed and headed back downstairs. They had left the Guarneri back in Walla Walla for safe keeping.

Back in the living room, he carried the cases over to Micah and set them down at the end of the couch. Micah pulled David down by the neck and planted a chaste kiss on his lips. There was a slight pause in the conversation, a leap second or two, and then it resumed as if it had never been interrupted, as if what had happened between Micah and David had been fully absorbed, as if the love that flowed between Micah and David in that brief kiss was too deep not to be accepted. Well, Greg thought, at least Rachel doesn’t need to be told what’s going on.

They opened their cases and readied their instruments, moving off to the end of the room near the piano where there was more space to play and where they set their music sheets on the stands that had been there since Micah first performed for the family. Kat went to the piano and played an A, so they could tune the instruments, and there were a few minutes of dissonance before the violin and cello were ready.

Micah smiled at David and nodded sharply as he started into the Boccherini piece that he had used to change his relationship with David. In a minute, for Micah there was no one else in the room except David. It was he and his violin and the sounds of a cello – and the memories of that evening at David’s. All living beings, including David, were absorbed into this 300-year-old conversation with Luigi Boccherini. When the piece was done, Micah heard the applause, a clap of the hands that wakened him from a trance. David was looking deeply into Micah’s eyes. They continued to play other pieces for another half hour.

Then, Micah asked Kat if she was willing to play the piano in a Beethoven trio. It was a piece that he had hoped his mother would be willing to play with them that weekend. He knew his mother would do well sight-reading the piece. He knew Kat had played the piano for many years – she did have a piano teacher as a mother and she taught music in the Ritzville public schools – but he didn’t know how well she would do. It didn’t really matter, finally, he thought. They weren’t performing. Instead, what was significant was that this was family, making music together, enjoying each other and who they were, and that David was part of that.

Kat was only politely reluctant as Micah handed her the music. They played the first movement, with Kat’s piano only getting stronger as they continued. Stanley, Greg and Rachel and the young Kingmans wouldn’t let them stop there, even if they had wanted to stop, so they finished the piece.

“Now, you finish off the night with a duet with Kat,” David commanded. So Kat and Micah, sister and brother, played a sonata by Mozart, a piece they had played before when Micah and she were still living at home. Micah appreciated Kat’s effort but knew his mother played the piece so much better.

Upstairs, Betty cried as she heard first the duets, the trio and then the piano-violin duet – the same piece she had played with Micah many years ago. Why, she asked herself…why did life have to be so cruel? Why had God tested her so deeply?

When Stanley came up later, she had fallen asleep, but Stanley saw and felt that her pillow was wet – with tears. Somehow, he saw the fact of tears as opening up the possibility of reconciliation with Micah – and, with luck, David.