Brushfire - 1. Chapter 1

The thing you gotta understand is, I was gunnin' for trouble.

I mean, c'mon. I never colored outside the lines before:

Always did my homework. Played the right sport (Football. This is Texas, okay?). Picked the right major. Married the high school sweetheart, found a good-paying white-collar job, and started the family. Good ol' reliable Jeff. What a family man. What a stand-up guy. You can always count on him. The classic southern-boy-betters-himself-and-does-right-by-everyone.

How long can a guy go on like that before his nuts shrivel up and die? Before somebody stitches a tag to his ass that says "Property Of..."?

Screw that. I'm my own damn property. I make my own fuckin' decisions.

Look, I knew it was wrong. But I been good my whole fuckin' life.

I wanted to see what it felt like to be bad.

And, sweet Jesus, he was so damn good-looking.

It's been so goddam hot this summer. Kind of hot that makes the blacktop down I-35 boil, the kind of hot that causes the scrub to catch fire. All you need is one good spark. Some heat lightning gets a little ambitious. Or some idiot in a car decides to flick his cigarette butt out the window. And bam, just like that, you got yourself a brushfire. Who knows where that fucker's gonna burn out, or when, or what it's gonna take with it before it does? That kind of heat, it does something to you. Makes you restless. Antsy to make something happen.

I swear it wasn't just me, though. So spare me your fuckin' condemnation. He was ripe for it; as ripe as I was. See, they didn't ask, and he didn't tell, and that kind of heat does something to you too.

Still, I knew this shit was hotter than a pawnshop pistol.

But I was tired of shopping at Sears, you know?

So here we are. Fucked, both of us. Burned bad. And that's not the worst part: The heat got so hot, those bridges-behind-us they always talk about are now just so much charcoal.

What the hell do I do now? What the hell does he do now?

And why hasn't he told me he hates my sorry ass?

* * * * * * * * * * *

You only end up in San Antonio if you've just started your career or if you've pissed off a superior.

Or if you have reason to be associated with Lackland Air Force Base.

In my case, I hadn't had a superior long enough to piss one off. I was an assistant math prof at a private college. I sure as hell didn't intend this city to be my final stop, although as a bullet point on the résumé, it looked pretty good.

But c'mon. San An-fucking-tonio.

Let's face it; the Alamo is a fucking bore. The Riverwalk is pretty, but the river itself is dirty. The entertainment is for shit, and not much of it. The whole motherfuckin' road system was constructed from cattle trails, and got no rhyme or reason to it. And the Spurs? Well, at least we got us a sports dynasty. Arguably the most boring sports dynasty on the planet. But you gotta have something. Something besides the fake-Mexican "charm" of the place.

Anyway, I guess I'll always remember the Spurs and the championship and that night, because that's when he walked into my life and I started down the road to Let's-See-How-Bad-You-Can-Fuck-Yourself.

It was the final game of the NBA championship and the whole fuckin' town had gone nuts. I was at a sports bar, watching the Spurs wipe the floor with LeBron James and his Cavaliers. Michele had pretty much banished me and Denny from the house during game time when the playoffs came around. Okay, so we get a little loud. I think the last straw was when we woke Scotty and it took her an hour and a half to get him back to sleep.

Denny Gray's from the physics department. I like him because he's smart, but also, we have a lot in common. He's not from the pocket-protector crowd. He knows his way 'round a basketball court. He's my friend and my workout buddy; we pace each other as we try to keep twentysomething and husbandhood and parenthood from neutering us and adding thirty-five pounds in the process.

He was sitting on my right side that night. He's from Cleveland, and he was into his sixth beer and talkin' trash to me; fat lot of good it did him. The bar was packed; there was only the one bar stool available, and it was the one to my left.

I wasn't paying much attention when a guy walked up and asked, "Anybody sittin' here?" I didn't even take my eyes off the screen. "You are, looks like," I said, as LeBron turned over the ball yet again. Man, talk about tanking under pressure. I punched Denny on the shoulder and cracked, "Looks like Wonder Boy can't handle the big games." He muttered something I couldn't hear above the ambient noise, and about that moment the new guy on the other side of me said, "So who's ahead?"

Look at the score, dickhead, I thought. I was into my third beer, and while I don't consider myself a mean drunk, the beast tends to rattle the chains when alcohol loosens things up a little. Still in control, though, I turned to him, ready to say, "We got this one sewn up."

I got as far as opening my mouth when the visuals hit me.

Jesus. An Air Force boy. Short brown hair, piercing dark eyes, and a perfectly-proportioned chin that looked like it was cut from granite. A boyish-handsome face you wanted to stare at forever. Broad, masculine shoulders, perfect for grabbing and squeezing and hanging-onto. And a grin that pretty much said, "I'm trouble, but you're gonna like it."

I choked on the words. I felt the blood drain from my face. All of a sudden, my three beers felt like seven. And just like that, a voice inside my head spoke up and said, Life as you know it is over, buddy.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I don't like me no fairies. I mean, I don't really care if a guy puts a dick in his mouth, but why the fuck do so many of them have to talk like that, act like that? Okay, already: Go ahead and call bullshit on me. It's not like my life has fallen down around my ankles because I got caught boinking Claudia Fucking Schiffer. Not that I'd pass that up either. But that's what I mean: You wanna use the terms, go ahead. I wouldn't even be talking right now if things were crystal-clear like everybody seems to think they are. So call me a fuckin' queer 'cause of what happened. I don't give a shit, because I know you're full of shit, and I know you don't know shit. All I'm saying is that you go down to the gay bars and I don't generally want to hang with those guys. The over-the-top gesturing and ridiculous way of talking: it's just not me. And seems like that's what you have to be if you play for the other team, right? I've watched Will and Grace reruns.

So I don't use the words. I don't even know what they mean, what they say about a person. When I say I don't like me no fairies, I'm not saying I get sick at the thought of a guy pumping his stuff into another guy's mouth. Matter of fact...

Never mind. What I was saying was that whatever the words mean, when I say that I don't like fairies, I mean that guys with effeminate mannerisms...okay, lemme revise.it's not that I don't like 'em. It's just that...well, I'm sorry, but I don't know how to relate. They make me uncomfortable. And I don't particularly want to get to know any of them any better.

But this was not that, and anyway, all that's irrelevant. I didn't have any thoughts about any of that shit except for they were all lucky in a way that I wasn't. When you can't hide, when shit's clear for you, at least you get to be upfront about it. As far as I was concerned, I was the only guy in the world that ever had to shove that shit into the corner, but that's the price you pay to get a real life.

And anyway, there's no way I was thinking anything like that about him. All I knew was that when he held out his hand for me to shake, and grinned, and said, "What? Last swig of beer go down wrong?" it was clear that he was just a regular guy; well, a hot regular guy. And it was clear that, quick as light, we'd sized each other up and had decided we'd be friends. Nothing beyond that, but that in itself was something. I don't usually decide I like somebody on a dime.

All right, all right. There was something beyond that. Of course there was. I'm just saying that my head couldn't have told me that. I knew I was fucked; I already told you that. I just didn't know I knew. Because it takes two, see? And I'd never. Never. The "life-as-you-know-it-is-over" voice I told you about? I shut that fucker down fast. But for all that, well, yeah, I felt shit spinning out of control. I felt major slippage happen in the universe.

It didn't take long for Denny to introduce himself. Thank God. We all got to talking together, which calmed me down a good bit and let me cover myself to myself. If I could have listened to that Alabama drawl all night, I'd have gladly turned away from the NBA game and Denny's rah-rah-Cleveland shit, and I'd have focused all my attention on this flyboy. So it was soothing in a way I didn't quite understand to have Denny there to break things up a little, inject a little normality into a scene that had quickly become surreal for me. The conversation, helped along by the beer and the game's excitement, was easy, and good, and flowed as natural as could be.

Something else was clear. From the first words of conversation passed between us, I knew I'd have to be on my guard every time I opened my mouth. Every time my eyes fell on him.

Otherwise all those years of pushing this shit to the back of my head, denying myself something my body was screaming for...

Well, all that would come rocketing out of me and heading toward him like a fucking heat-seeking missile, and I'd end up embarrassing myself, sending him running, and probably getting a bloody lip and a black eye in the bargain.

I didn't know I knew that, either. But I did.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The thing that helped me keep it light those first moments, the thing that helped me keep the lie cooking while I tried to put my head back on straight, was his name.

"'Fitz Clapton?' What's up with that?" I asked, laughing.

He blushed a little and said, "Yeah, laugh it up, funny boy. It's short for Fitzgerald."

"Even better," I grinned. "Jesus, man, did your mama hate you?"

"My mama loves The Great Gatsby, " he said. "It's her favorite book. Well, that and This Side of Paradise. And 'Clapton' we didn't have no say over."

I puzzled over all that for a couple of seconds. Okay, give me a break, I'm a math guy. But finally the light dawned, and I said, stupidly, "Ohhhhhhh. Okay."

He looked at me funny, as if he'd expected me to say something else. About that time Denny said, "What say next one's on me, soldier-boy? I don't get much chance to be a patriot." The distraction gave me a chance to reboot.

"I don't think they call them soldiers in the Air Force," I said.

He rolled his eyes. "Okay. 'Airman,' then. Whatever. I bet he drinks it anyway."

By the time his beer came, I'd recovered a little. "Hey, when I get out I'm looking to get back to school," he said. "I fucked up first time around and wasn't ready. That's why I joined the Air Force. But I really want a college degree. Where y'all teach: I know that school. It's good."

"Yeah, it's good, but it's expensive," I said. "Probably a lot of places you could get just as good an education and not pay so much."

"I figured," he said. "I don't even know where I want to go. And I've been out of all that stuff for so long, I need to look into some things, get some questions answered."

I pulled a business card out of my wallet. "Here," I said, handing it to him. "I'm definitely not out of all that stuff, and I'd be happy to sit down and talk with you about your next moves. Call me this week and we'll set up a time for you to stop by and we can look at it together. Maybe I can help you out."

"Fuck," he said, eyes wide with enthusiasm. "You'd do that for me?"

Yeah, of course I would. That and then some.

"Not a problem," I smiled. "Think of it as my patriotic duty. I wouldn't want you to think Denny's more American than I am. And by the way, your next beer's on me."

"Well, shit, Jeff," he drawled, eyes sparkling. "I'll take you up on both o'those things."

* * * * * * * * * * *

I tell myself I went into this thing with the best of intentions. And I guess in the top layers of my brain, I did.

But it's still a fuckin' lie.

Fitz was my age, but beyond that, we didn't have much in common, so it was a kick to make a friend from a totally different world. I was a southern boy, I guess, if you could call Texas a "southern" state. But surely Alabama was the fuckin' apotheosis of southern. And I sure didn't have that honey-coated Alabama drawl.

Anyway, I'd convinced myself that my dick had nothing to do with it. So, best of intentions.

Still, there was the whole man-in-uniform thing. The blatant masculinity of the Air Force. And along with that, it was the first time I'd ever made friends with a real honest-to-goodness conservative. It shoulda have told me something was up when I didn't get pissed off as he held forth on the virtues of Fred Thompson or the Reagan Revolution. The only other guy I'd ever been great friends with who was both conservative and not mind-shatteringly stupid was this lawyer up in Austin. And I hadn't even really met him, so I don't guess we could count as great friends; I only knew him from our common membership in a Yahoo group; and besides, he was old enough to be my father. But Fitz, man: I could sit there for hours listening to him spout knee-jerk red-state nonsense. And I gotta tell you: Maybe it was the southern accent, or maybe it was the chronic grin, or maybe it was just the fact that he was so damn nice, so respectful whenever I threw down some of my clichéd academia-grown-liberalism; or maybe it was something else entirely, but when he'd start talking politics he could almost make me a believer. I was in entirely new territory: Until Fitz, I'd never gotten a hard-on listening to someone talk about the virtues of small government.

In any case, the conscious part of my brain was ignoring things like hard-ons and just enjoying the hell out of making a new friend. And while the summer was still mild, that's all I had on my mind.

He'd show up once in a while at lunchtime. As the days ambled on, over sandwiches and sodas we let ourselves into each other's lives. In between bites, I'd help him through some questions he had about getting back to school; we'd talk about my family and his; my wife and kid; his last girlfriend; his hopes and dreams; his most recent booty call; what we liked in women.

On Thursdays, after lunch some of the younger faculty would head to the gym, mix together with some of the graduate students, and throw together a pickup basketball game. In mid-July I invited him to bring his gear and join us.

Most of the guys arrived at the locker room at roughly the same time. I'd met Fitz outside the gym doors and showed him in and around. As everybody dressed out, I made the introductions and people shook his hand, high-fived him, said appropriately admiring things about the Air Force.

We grabbed adjacent lockers and started getting out of our street clothes, and that's when the mild days of summer came to an end.

He was telling me about his best friend back home and the great times they'd had together back in the day. I was telling him about Grant, my best bud from high school, and about our high times.

It was the juxtaposition of the "then" and the "now" that finally fucked me.

I mean: Grant, man. All those years. All that need, that want, that goddam desire I had to walk around with, silent, carrying a big fuckin' load that got heavier each year. And I just couldn't. I wouldn't. Ruin the friendship, is what I'm talking about. Because for what.

Grant. And Fitz. It was like the frames of two movies syncing up. It was like that.

I was talking to Fitz about this thing Grant and I had on the football field, this incredible connection, and I was letting my mind go back there, and some of the regret and wistfulness rolled over me right about the time Fitz stepped out of his trousers and pushed his boxer briefs down around his ankles.

And I guess maybe some of that regret-and-wistfulness-and-unsatisfied-desire from the Jeff-and-Grant days imprinted itself onto the synapses that were busy taking in the magnificence of my new friend's naked body. A decade's worth of unrequited love for Grant, a love I'd pushed out of my consciousness in favor of chasing women, came forward to meet and mix with the impact of Fitz.

Fitz-close-enough-to-touch. Fitz-sending-out-a-fuckin'-ocean-of-pheromones. Fitz-smooth-and-perfect;

Fitz-with-an-uncut-dick-like-mine.

And I wanted.

No; I ached.

Ached, with a longing--a need--I'd made myself push to the darkest recesses of my brain years before.

I'm not sure where in the Jeff-and-Grant story my voice had trailed off; I have no idea what word he'd heard last. The cognitive centers had frozen, and when I came around, I was only aware that I was staring, and that it was obvious, and awkward.

It couldn't have been more than five seconds, but the damage was done. I looked up toward his eyes, waiting for the inevitable sneer, the cruel indictment.

My face felt like a goddam blast furnace.

But I got no sneer, no indictment. His eyes, twinkling, locked with mine, talked with mine, a quick couple of sentences that our brains would take a few weeks to decipher.

And then Fitz spoke up. "I'm sorry, man, I wasn't paying attention. Where'd you say y'all had your senior party?"

Damn. They do teach them to be gentlemen in the deep south. I'd been busted, and we both knew it. But he chose to bail me out rather than bust my balls.

I think it was the tactfulness, the consideration, the goddam gallantry, that finally made my dick rock-hard.

Fortunately by then I'd dressed out.

We hit the gym. I was fuckin' juiced and couldn't be stopped. And Fitz definitely had some game in him. So the math-and-science boys pretty much murdered the damn economics department. Who says we're a bunch of nerds?

And afterwards, working on keeping my dick down as I watched him soaping up his armpits under the shower head next to mine, I realized I'd crossed some internal line.

It didn't make me happy. It wasn't something I got any joy out of. There was an inevitability to it that was almost depressing. And, at this point, I wasn't even fully capable of putting into words what my head was beginning to know. But that didn't make it any less a decision on my part:

Just barely below the conscious surface, where awareness comes but doesn't quite hook up with words yet, things were shaping up. And down in those almost-conscious layers just underneath what we know we know, I didn't care if it was wrong; I didn't give a fuck that he was straight. I didn't give a fuck that I was straight, or at least doing my best impression of it: I was gonna fuckin' have this guy, or ruin my life trying.

How was I to know I'd end up having it both ways?