Free Love - 1. Chapter 1

It was either the last week of school before summer vacation or the week previous, I can’t remember anymore. I’d taken my lunch outside and was sitting under a tree reading something by Daphne du Maurier, most likely “Rebecca” or “Jamaica Inn”. Whichever, I was deep into the heroine’s troubles when my best friend snatched the book from my hands.

“Excuse me for bothering you, mister perfect stranger,” Ronnie lilted politely, “I was wondering if you’ve seen a short, skinny and excruciatingly homely carrottop anywhere in the vicinity? I believe I’ve misplaced one.”

I sighed in exasperation and threw my wadded up brown paper sack at him, aiming for his jaw and, due to the weight of a mostly-munched apple core, hitting him dead on. Ronnie merely blinked as the bag fell away and inquired, “I take it that’s a ‘no’?”

I sighed again and stood up, feinting as if to wipe grass from my jeans then grabbing for my paperback. Anticipating me, Ronnie evaded with the subtle grace of his ball-handling skills and the glaring advantage of his height, so at the realization my best hope of retrieval lay with playing along I shook my head emphatically. “Nope, sorry, only short, skinny and ethereally gorgeous carrot-tops in the area today, try again tomorrow.”

Ronnie mimed the expected gag-and-retch and I took the opening to attempt another grab, and again he evaded. Easily. “Whatcha reading ‘s so important you gotta sit all the way out here by yourself?” He craned his head to inspect the book. “Daphne doo Marrier,” he misread (the reason I remember the author if not the title). “Who the hell’s she? I never heard of her. This for your advanced English lit course?” A smidgen of hurt in his voice; he still hadn’t gotten over me being selected for the new curriculum and not him. Keeping the book above his head, he flipped it over and scanned the cover blurb, mouthing the words as he went because he knew it drove me crazy.

I could’ve remarked there were several reasons why he hadn’t been selected for the class, starting with the way he pronounced du Maurier, or reminded him he’d always known I read for pleasure and only gotten bitchy about it lately, but I took the easier route by agreeing. “Yes, part of the final and may I please have it back? I’d like to get through the rest of the chapter before the bell.”

“Ugh, romantic suspense.” Ronnie’s generous mouth twisted in disgust. “Does it at least have some titties in it? Y’know, buxom blondes washing ‘em down with lemon juice?”

My more miserly mouth twisted in disgust. “Ugh. No.”

Ronnie immediately lost interest but rather than return the book he held it behind his back, the muscles in his arms rippling with the movement. “You can read later. Summer’s coming up quick, spend some time with your ol’ pal here, huh?”

“Summer’s coming up quick,” I reminded him in his own words, “I’m absolutely positive we’ll spend scads of time together doing absolutely nothing.”

Sobering, he tossed over the paperback without further remark, a clue his serious side was emerging—rare, but not unheard of. “I ain’t seen spit nor snot of you in weeks, bud, only book covers hiding your nose. Did I do something to piss you off?”

Instant guilt. “No, no,” I assured him. “You’re cool, I’ve just been a moody bastard lately. Ask my mom.” I forced an awkward chuckle and he shot me a tight smile. “I’m sorry, I really am, I’ve had a lot on my mind and been kinda ignoring everyone. I’ll try to do better.”

His tight smile loosened. “You know you can talk to me about anything, anything at all. I mean, I’m still your best friend, right?” Tilting his head the way he always did when he wanted to sound more confident than he felt.

“The best! And I know I can talk to you, I do.” Still, how could I spill my secret? How could I tell him I’d noticed my feelings for him had changed, noticed the way his arms flexed and his neck muscles corded, the way his compact behind swayed as he walked, the way a certain body part shifted in his khakis when—stop! “I’m not ready to tell anyone right now but when I am I pinky-swear it’ll be to you. Okay?” Because I would talk to him at some point. At heart, how could I not?

Ronnie wasn’t happy but locked pinkies and nodded as if he were. “Sure. Whenever.” He hesitated and at that moment a group of students broke through the cafeteria doors onto the quad, marching our way. Upon seeing the two boys in front Ronnie grinned and I groaned. “Hey, looks like Sunshine and Moonbeam are at it again.”

“You mean Alder and Clay?” Variously known as Sunshine and Moonbeam, Dobie and Maynard or sometimes even Ginger and Mary Ann; yes, my peers were founts of originality and wit.

Ronnie shrugged. “Whoever. Wanna go watch, maybe bet on the, heh, outcome?”

“Nah, you go.” I’d been to three or four of these ‘sporting events’ and from the first experienced a steadily unfolding and uncomfortable awareness of previously ignored self-knowledge, a slow epiphany if you will, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about attending another. “I’d rather finish my chapter. Maybe there really are some lemon-boob-washing scenes coming up and I’ll fill you in.”

“Nuts. Might be the last time the weirdos duke it out this year.” He shrugged again. “Or ever, our dads get their way, and I’d like a chance to win back my baseball card before they go.” Something else I can’t remember: the hero on Ronnie’s ball card or what I put up in return, only that I won. I’d ask him but he likely wouldn’t remember either, both our memories for detail are shot to shit. “C’mon, bud,” he cajoled as the group approached and began to angle around the rear of the gym. “I won’t ask again, I promise, no matter who wins.”

I caved, as we both knew I would. “What’s the wager?”

He considered. “If I win, my card. If you win . . . hmm, a matinee one day this summer?”

“A date?” I asked, unable to resist despite my secret.

Ronnie huffed and crossed his arms, muscles rippling. “Call it whatever you want long as you’re there.” I blinked. Of all possible answers, he’d given me one I didn’t know how to interpret. Before I might ruminate any further he huffed a second time and unfolded. Again, muscles rippled, and I forced myself not to glance down. “So, we on? I’ll even let you choose your champion.” He held out a hand.

I shook, sealing the bet. Sliding my doo Marrier into my back pocket, I plodded off with my best friend to join the group of boys and no few girls interested in the coming contest, many of them murmuring in anticipation as they placed their own wagers. To this day I have zero idea how the adults missed those gatherings. Then again, maybe they did know and chose not to interfere, figuring as long as no one came out bleeding or (worse) pregnant, what’s the harm?

Man, different times.

Swinging around the gym to a secluded and windowless indention where a hallway joined the main building, Alder and Clay seemed as usual to be unaware of the commotion behind them. They were new students as of the first of the year, and wow! were they exotic to us normal Chisaw County folk, with their long shaggy hair and swarthy, glowy skin and faint scent of what my mom claimed was patchouli. Several of us tried to make friends, out of curiosity if not genuine interest, but the boys just grinned amiably and didn’t reply to our overtures. Actually, they grinned and didn’t reply to anyone who talked to them, even faculty, and if called upon in class for any reason would, you guessed it, grin and not reply. Since their grades appeared otherwise satisfactory teachers eventually stopped calling, as did the rest of us, but despite their strangeness (and their “family”) no one ever tried to bully or fight them, as you had the feeling there was no point, they’d only notice if you landed a crushing blow, and even then they’d probably just grin and not reply. Alder and Clay were whole unto themselves, no room or interest for anyone else, conducting intricate and prolonged conversations with raised eyebrows and secret smiles and the occasional hushed whisper into an attentive ear. I’d see them out of school sometimes too, roaming the streets or down by the crick as if they strolled through a realm where everyone besides them were ghosts, and trifling ones to boot. Though they shared a surname and were thus theoretically related their exact relationship was a mystery, with some people saying they were brothers and others cousins, but nobody knew for sure, and the speculation only grew when word began to spread of their weird lunchtime competition. They lived and worked on a crafts-and-produce farm outside town with a large group of other people, a goodly mix of bearded men with ponytails and bra-less women with bushy underarms and a gaggle of half-wild, half-naked children too young yet for education. Mom said the group was a commune dedicated to free love, Dad opined ‘free love’ was about as likely as a free lunch and the filthy hippies were simply too damn stoned to know who was under ‘em, or on top of ‘em, or— Mom swatted Dad with a dishtowel, told him to hush his ugly mouth and instructed me if I ran into any of them selling their wares in town to be polite but to under no circumstances ingest anything offered, her standard line when speaking of anyone who wasn’t normal Chisaw County folk. There’d been a quiet but spreading discontent since the “filthy hippies” arrived during Christmas break and, like Ronnie, I had a notion the commune wouldn’t be there much longer.

Different times indeed.

Alder and Clay took their places in one corner, going face-to-face and ignoring everyone else. We spectators settled in a wary semi-circle around them, close enough to catch every nuance but far enough away to avoid any possible splatters. “So who do you want?” Ronnie hummed in my ear.

I picked at random. “Alder.” Ronnie nodded, accepting my choice, and turned his attention to the front. I took the opportunity to fake-stretch and wriggle my right shirttail out of my jeans and over my crotch, attempting to make the placement appear mussed and accidental instead of preparing a cover for any forthcoming activity down there. Ah yes, I was a resourceful teen; weren’t we all?

The whispers faded as the boys stared at each other, stone still but watchful, calculating. Alder was the taller and by a grade eldest of the two, with puberty-scarred cheekbones and a wispy pre-mustache and raven hair bound into a braid halfway down his back. Clay was smaller but chunkier, with sparkling blue eyes and a perpetual lift to one brow, as if he were moderately surprised at everything life offered, and he wore his wavy brown tresses loose over his shoulders, occasionally brushing a strand behind one ear to keep out of his vision. They didn’t resemble each other at all, except somehow they did. Their sole shared physical characteristic was the tone of their complexions: swarthy and glowy as mentioned above, not quite light enough to be white but not dark enough to be anything else, so their true similarity lay somewhere beyond the tangible, perhaps in the almost visible aura of their bond or the set of their shared . . . ethics, for want of a better term. Alder and Clay were, to my mind anyway, beautiful and untouchable and completely out of this world.

I swear they built the suspense on purpose, and I worried the bell would ring before they started; now I was here I was committed and every bit as anxious for the event as those around me. Finally, however, at some unspoken signal, Alder began unbuttoning his shirt, exposing a lean and narrow torso with small trails of raven bristles between his pecs and below his bellybutton, while Clay lifted the hem of his tee over his head to stretch around his hair and neck, baring a fleshy chest and belly, smooth but for faery rings around each majestic brown nipple. Without breaking visual contact, their hands fell to their waists and, in a flick of buttons and a zing of zippers, dropped their pants to their ankles. Neither of them wore underwear (a scandal in itself), and though everyone had seen them before the crowd gasped as the boys’ uncircumcised privates tumbled into view, already plumping in their respective tangles of curly raven and bushy brown pubic hair. My own private part elongated in my jeans, but I ignored it except for a brief surge of relief I’d had the foresight to loosen my shirttail.

They stepped closer, angling their bodies slightly to either side, as if preparing to tango, and laid their foreheads together. Placing their left hands on the other’s shoulder, they dropped their rights to grab hold. Another collective gasp. Alder made a tight fist, squeezing his opponent tight, while Clay ran his fingers up and down, rubbing at Alder’s exposed glans with his thumb. Both members rose splendidly to the occasion, attaining maximum stiffness within seconds, as did my own. They were evenly matched in terms of size, though Clay’s had slight leftward tilt while Alder’s was stubbornly straight, and they handled each other with the ease of long familiarity as their contest began in earnest.

“C’mon, Sunshine!” somebody called to Alder, while somebody else, a girl, encouraged, “Hold out, Moonbeam, mama needs a new pair of shoes!” No reaction. They were too busy. Sweaty foreheads sliding together, left hands squeezing shoulders, right hands working hard to bring the other to climax first. There was nothing particularly erotic about their contact, which is probably why no one called them queers and waded in with violence, amiable grins and lack of reply notwithstanding. No, this was a competition, friendly but fierce and utterly without mercy, the loser to suffer a decisive and, to anyone else, humiliating penalty.

It was at the last of these events I’d attended where my slow epiphany burst into a glorious supernova of awareness. I’d come to accept how turned on I was by the sight of two sweaty, half-naked boys locked in a primal struggle for superiority, much more turned on than I had been by any girl doing or wearing anything ever—ergo, I liked boys, and while the situation wasn’t ideal by any means (or a surprise, if I’m honest) it could be sussed. But the cherry on the supernova, the last revelation of my epiphany, fired when I happened to glance over at Ronnie. He’d been staring forward, engrossed in the contest, but a movement lower on his body caught my eye: a slithering, shifting motion in his khakis. Surprised, I shot my gaze to his face, still focused on the combatants, then back down. Yup, definite activity in there. And bam! the final epiphany: a surge of staggering want for my best friend. While I was attracted to and aroused by Alder and Clay, their pull was diffuse, unsubstantial, a nice dream until the alarm clock buzzed. But what I felt for Ronnie—what I felt for Ronnie was a flame, searing my insides with the intensity of a thousand horny candles, and it seemed I’d felt this way for a long time, I’d just deliberately not noticed. I’d become quite adept at censoring my fantasies when jerking off in bed of a night, at only imagining touches and kisses and pleasured sighs instead of pesky details like genitalia, now suddenly I had an idea the kisses and touches and especially the sighs belonged to Ronnie. And the worst or maybe the most delicious part? The movement in his khakis suggested Ronnie might like boys too! And if Ronnie liked boys too, then— “Dammit!” he’d exclaimed as he surrendered the baseball card—the bout was finished and I’d won. I couldn’t even remember who I’d supported. I snatched my prize and fled, feeling his puzzled gaze on the back of my neck and the queasy turmoil of possibility in my belly. And so began my period of confused self-exile from my best friend.

“Attaboy, Moonbeam, clamp down hard!” Ronnie hooted beside me and, steeling myself, I glanced over and cursed; I’d forgotten he wore a long tee-shirt today, and tees were never ever tucked in; only sissies or poindexters wore tucked tees. So no clue if there was movement in his khakis. Or maybe he’d planned ahead too? Argh! Irritated with myself, I returned my attention to the contest. “Go, Alder!” I hollered, feeling reckless. “I got a date riding on you!” Ronnie threw back his head and chortled.

Two minutes or so in, and already the finish loomed. Alder’s tongue poked out the side of his mouth in concentration, Clay’s eyebrow no longer lifted but instead scrunched in determination. Their faces red with exertion, their breaths harsh and audible over the rambunctious crowd. Their hands a blur at each other’s crotch, their balls drawing up underneath, the side indentions of their flanks flexing as they fought not to hunch into unforgiving grips.

Suddenly, a choked breath, a low moan of mingled pleasure and defeat, and Alder spurted all over the grass, his narrow buttcheeks clenching with every shot, while Clay milked for force and distance, aiming away from the crowd. Cheers and groans rang out, Ronnie’s and my own among them. Alder finished coming, and as the last shocks of pleasure coursed through his body he shook his head in chagrin then, meeting Clay’s eye, began to laugh—laugh! And, sinking to his knees and pulling his drooping pecker out of Clay’s grip, Alder opened his mouth to engulf Clay’s, not going all the way down but suckling on the first few inches and stroking the rest.

Again, nothing erotic about the action, simply a loser paying off a bet, but suddenly I had, no, not another epiphany, but a flash of, yes, possibility. For the first time I pictured myself and Ronnie in their positions, competing in a battle both of us would ultimately win. The flash was so vivid I almost missed when Clay grunted twice. Recognizing the cue, Alder came off and pumped Clay’s shaft furiously. Clay’s knees buckled, his plump and surprisingly hairy butt jiggled, and then he too was coming, long strings of semen jetting our way, as Alder didn’t bother adjusting his aim. The girl in front of me squealed and stumbled backwards, crashing into me and rubbing her ample ass against the stiffness in my crotch. Luckily she didn’t notice. She didn’t apologize either.

Conversation resumed, money and other items changed hands as Clay finished up. Bending to pull a wad of crumpled cafeteria napkins from his pocket, he offered some to Alder and as they wiped their fingers and drooling members I had the strangest feeling they were disappointed, though as to why they felt so I couldn’t fathom. They pulled up their pants to put themselves away and right as I wondered if I had time for a quick jerk in the brand-new handicapped stall (the only one with a door) the ten-minute-warning bell rang, dashing my hopes; I dared not be late to algebra again.

“Damn close race, huh?” Ronnie asked, sanguine in the glow of his victory. “I’ll take my prize now, please.”

“Like I carry it with me at all times to kiss when no one’s looking,” I retorted, though my gaze kept flickering to Alder and Clay, who’d finished wiping up and were fully dressed again, tucking the used napkins into their pockets for later disposal and sending a shiver of guilt through me—I’d left my wadded lunch bag under my reading tree. Resolving on retrieval, I continued, “I’ll bring the card to you tomorrow and you can kiss it then.”

The group of gamblers around us began to disperse, but Ronnie stayed put, jamming his hands in his pockets. “That’s cool.” He didn’t speak again for a long minute, and though I should’ve been heading inside myself I stood there, curious what he had to think so hard to say. Alder and Clay brushed past, and I followed them with my eye as I waited. “Listen, bud,” Ronnie said suddenly, tilting his head, “about that matinee.” Alder and Clay halted and, to my astonishment, turned to stare directly at me. “We can still—” Noticing I was looking past him, Ronnie trailed off and twisted around. Alder and Clay stared for a split second longer, Clay brushing a stray strand of hair from his face, then they dismissed me and turned away, their shoulders hunching together as they conversed. Ronnie stared after them, glanced at me, back to them, finally settling on me as they rounded the corner and were gone. “What the—” Ronnie’s gaze flickered down, and his generous mouth set itself into a grim line. “Your shirttail’s out,” he accused.

My stomach jumped to my throat. He knew! “Uh, yeah, must’ve pulled free in the excitement, this shirt’s a little small.” Ronnie watched me, his mouth still set in that grim line. “I, uh, I gotta pee before class, I’ll fix it then.”

“Sure, mister embarrassed face,” Ronnie jeered. He pulled his hands from his pockets, crossed his arms, muscles rippling. “You should probably go take care of your business.” Wheeling around, he strode away.

“I, uh, I’ll bring your card tomorrow,” I repeated weakly, following after him.

“Don’t bother,” he called over his shoulder. “Bring it to me when you’re ready to talk.” Breaking into a jog, bony elbows pumping and compact behind twitching, he left me in his dust. I stopped in place and, since the camouflage was no longer necessary, I tucked in my shirttail, retrieved and properly disposed of my lunch bag and trekked to class, sick at heart, trying and failing to convince myself I hadn’t just screwed up something I didn’t even understand.

And so began Ronnie’s period of annoyed self-exile from his best friend. We were together often those last few days of school, and he was affable enough, but I didn’t bring the baseball card and he didn’t laugh at my jokes. Alder and Clay finished out the semester as they’d begun, grinning and not replying. They also eschewed their weird contest, much to the displeasure of several gamblers, as a busy bookmaking industry had sprung up around the bouts and everyone doubted the boys would return in the fall. Then the last bell rang and we were free.

I didn’t see Ronnie much at the beginning of summer, mostly at church or the odd potluck after, where again he was affable but still didn’t laugh at my jokes. I felt the loss of him keenly, as we’d known each other since childcare during Sunday services and I literally could not remember a time we hadn’t been attached at the hip. Even Mom noticed (she always did love Ronnie), and when she inquired and I replied everything was fine, we were still friends, she pursed her lips in askance but thankfully let the subject rest.

Time passed, and I drifted, the way you do when the thrill has worn off vacation but you’re not yet bored enough to long for school to resume. I argued with my sister over daytime tv, cleaned and organized my room so it sparkled with efficient pomposity, groaned in misery as I pushed the lawnmower back and forth across our huge yard: a heat wave had settled in, each day hotter and more humid than the last. I sat on the couch and watched the news, as usual ignorantly unaffected by the ongoing racial tensions sweeping the rest of the country (we had great relations with our Negro neighbors, long as they stayed in their corner of town after dark, and we hardly ever called them the n-word—I shudder now to recollect our complacent, absent-minded racism) but repulsed by the carnage flickering across the screen from the war-that-wasn’t-a-war and Dad’s approving remarks on the police action to halt the spread of godless communism until, finally maddened beyond common sense, I’d start railing at the spectacle of insanity and (proudly integrated) bloody waste and Dad, a veteran of the previous war-that-wasn’t-a-war, would rail back, turning purple in the face and alarming Mom so much she’d be forced to step in and soothe his temper while imploring me with her eyes to please! shut! up! and go to my room, which hurt because I knew she agreed with me. At night I tuned in to staticky, far-away radio stations and turned on to rock-and-roll promising to change the world . . . just as soon as it finished the next joint/orgy/two-dollar music festival in the park promoting peace and love, tee-shirts and posters extra. I combed the meager shelves of the county library, in search of me, of fiction with ‘gay’ (as they—we were beginning to be known) characters and themes, and though I found one book—“The City And The Pillar”—I was disgusted by the ‘tragic but avoidable’ conclusion, a trope I was to come to despise and then to joyfully witness disappear—mostly—over the next not-quite-two decades, until AIDS reared its devastating head and judgementalism freshly costumed as red-ribboned compassion weaseled back into style.

And, in my copious spare hours, I wandered. Book in my hand or back pocket, I traipsed the streets and woods looking for a quiet place to read. In summers past my favorite spot was in a glen down by the crick, where the banks widened and the water ran cold and shallow, perfect for sweaty feet, but this year I was surprised to find my spot usurped, and by Alder and Clay of all people. I stumbled out of the trees one day to find them snoozing in the sun, buck naked, clothing pillowed under their heads. Fingers touching, evidence of some masturbatory activity, competitive or not, drying on their bellies. I backed away, unwilling to disturb them, resolving to return tomorrow. But they were there again the next day, and the day after that, so I ceded my claim and resumed my explorations, sometimes trudging the railroad tracks, unafraid since only the rare train came to Chisaw County anymore, and when it did, it always blew through at night. On one such journey I finally found the haven I’d been looking for, a ruined three-room shotgun shack sitting much too close to the ties, so close I wondered how on earth anyone had ever managed to sleep there. The yard was a circus of weeds and overgrown bushes and the odd warped plank from a collapsed outhouse, wood too rotten for kindling, and the clapboard shack had been partially burned and fallen in on itself, but most of the kitchen and the entire roofed back porch stood strong and solid and proved the ideal oubliette for my solitary soul, the ‘good vibes’ soothing my restless nature; something right nice had happened here once, I thought, but didn’t pursue the intuition further. I didn’t expend much energy at all wondering about the former occupants, other than thanking them for providing me a sturdy foundation, and spent less worrying about the current ones, a family of foxes who tolerated my presence but shied clear of any proffered treats. I developed a routine: I’d visit the glen by the crick, hoping to catch Alder and Clay in the midst of their activity and failing; if they were there, they were always naked but never hard, sometimes snoozing in the morning sun, more usually sitting face-to-face conducting one of their intricate, untranslatable conversations. They never noticed me, and I always eased on by so they wouldn’t, then I’d walk the railroad ties to the shotgun shack’s back porch and my book and the family of foxes, and there I’d stay until the greatest heat of the afternoon had passed and I risked Mom’s ire for being late to supper.

Those were my days. My nights weren’t much different, except I spent most of them wandering through my own dirty mind and my quiet place was the privacy of my bed. I beat my dick raw, having finally uncensored my fantasies and unapologetically focused them on male/male sex, sometimes imagining Alder and Clay but mostly myself and Ronnie. I’d not seen his lower torso in years, since the time we were “Chickenshit!”-shamed into joining a distance-shooting competition with a few other rookie adolescents (I won, I think), but I had a good enough memory and imagination, not to mention my late close observations, to ad-lib certain details. As I grew more sure of myself and let my creativity soar, I began to imagine other boys I knew in congress with each other, sometimes but not always in Sunshine/Moonbeam-type contests, and I giggled as I dreamed up odd pairings: the quarterback and the poindexter, the class clown and the chess club champion, the bully and the homecoming prince. (And only as an adult did I stop to consider how many of the boys I fantasized about might have actually indulged in sexual play with one other, they just hadn’t performed for a crowd—my best friend and I were probably late to the ‘experimentation’ game.) But my desires always seemed to come back to me and Ronnie, and at the moment of crisis, whatever activity I imagined us doing, it took only the image of his generous mouth crashing down on my more miserly one to send me flailing over the edge.

And afterward as I lay sweating there in the dark, chest heaving, damp jerk-sock containing the mess expelled by my drooling, softening member, the elation would ebb and the remorse, the guilt, the confusion would swell. Were such sessions possible with my best friend after all? Yes, there’d been activity in his khakis one time out of five I could swear to, but was the movement sexual in nature, or more because of the struggle itself? I’d read some ancient tribes went to war naked and aroused, both by the prospect of killing and as a means of unnerving their foes, who’d fight (theoretically distracted) to the death to prevent themselves being sodomized by the barbarians (sometimes I think I was too well-read as a kid!). Was Ronnie thus primitively afflicted and then appalled when he realized I also had gone hard during Alder and Clay’s contest but, knowing my views on warfare, surely not from battle-lust? Did he intend for me to bring him his baseball card so he could lay into me when we were alone (I trusted he’d never bawl me out in public), so he could flay me with his opinion on my hellish perversion and maybe invoke a Bible curse or two? I should have trusted he’d never treat me so awful in private, either—if he ever had a problem over anything (rare), he was forceful yet kind in approach, and all issues could have been resolved sooner had I just possessed the stones to take him the darn card and sit him down for a long overdue explanation. But I was too mired in my narrow upbringing, my tenuous social standing, the fragility of my newly-awakened sexuality to behave logically, so I procrastinated, wallowing in my agonizing crush on my best friend, needlessly suffering my own hormonal, self-indulgent and often tedious melodrama. In other words, I acted like a typical teenager.

More time passed. June melted into July, the heat wave stretching into a record-shattering second month. Although sometimes storm clouds gathered on the horizon, thunder rumbling and lightning flashing a time or two, the dreadful stillness refused to break. My visits to the glen dwindled, not only because I began to feel I was violating their privacy but also because the sight of Alder and Clay snoozing naked in the sun disturbed me, left me feeling a vague jealousy they should be so intimate while I stupidly held myself away from my best friend and he stubbornly held himself away from me. Instead, I took to spending my mornings on the square in town, where a contingent of builders were constructing the new Sheriff’s Department; I’d sit and read at one of the picnic tables in the park, occasionally glancing up to appreciate the men hard at work and to stash away the most attractive for my nightly routine. It was also during these sightseeing missions I became aware sentiment against the ‘filthy hippies’ in the free love commune had built to a seven-month high, taking on a nasty urgency as oppressive as the weather. The supermarket and diner cancelled their contracts to buy from the farm, claiming the produce was blotched and wilted, inedible. A group of bra-less women had all spring sporadically set up on the square, selling exquisitely crafted jewelry and accessories, and where once they’d sparked a minor fashion craze among high school girls for fringed, beaded-leather handbags and among boys for shell necklaces (I owned one but didn’t wear it where Dad would see, nor my sister—she never did learn to keep a secret and he confiscated her purchase straight away), now people crossed the street to avoid them until the inevitable hostile rousting by the police, several of whom had previously bought the handbags for their granddaughters, and not a few the necklaces for their grandsons. Then came the evening I arrived home from my shotgun shack to discover a cadre of grim-faced men—Ronnie’s sire among them—gathered with Dad in the living room, and before I could ask what was going on Mom hustled me upstairs to model new church clothes. When I returned, the men were gone and no one would speak of their purpose.

All in all, the mood concerning the commune had swollen to worrisome levels, and I dithered but a minute or two next morning before reaching a decision. Making my way to the glen, I was relieved to find Alder and Clay there as usual, snoozing in the sun, semen drying on their sweaty and now tanned, freckled bellies. I hesitated a breath and, swallowing my irrational jealousy, stepped out of the trees. “Uh, hey guys.” Inspired opening, I know, but I was nervous.

Neither of them started, only languidly opened their eyes and turned their heads my way, not bothering to cover their nudity. Neither grin nor reply, though Clay did lift his eyebrow.

Keeping my attention fixed on their faces, I said, “I, um, I just wanted to, uh, let y’all know,” cursing inside at my mealy-mouthed lack of vocabulary, “to warn y’all something’s going down in town. Some, uh, some people don’t like y’all—not me, I think you guys are, you know, pretty groovy,” cringing and cursing, “but some people, uh, don’t. I think it’d maybe be best for you and your, uh, family to stick close to your farm for a spell, until all the, uh, trouble dies down.” Like I imagined the trouble would die down.

Clay’s eyebrow lost its lift, and both of them stared at me, their expressions shuttering, as if they’d spotted a pitchfork-wielding mob in my shadow, waiting for me to lull the filthy hippies into vulnerable complacency.

“Truly,” I emphasized, “I don’t have any, uh, anything against y’all, anything at all. I just, uh, I just wanted to warn you.” And then, because I never seem to know when to stop talking, “In fact, I think what you two have is pretty, uh, cool. You know, being as close as y’all are. I wish I was so close with my best friend. We love each other, we do! except lately—” Somehow I managed to grab onto my yammering and shut my jaw tight.

Their gazes softened, and Clay exchanged glances with Alder then returned to me, lifting his eyebrow, and both of them grinned, not with their usual mute amiability but sad, rueful.

“So I, uh, I’ll go now,” I said, backing away and flashing the peace sign, adding a nonsensical, “Right on, man!” I cringed again, aware I’d make a sorry representative for the counterculture, and fled. At the last moment I risked a look over my shoulder to find them sitting cross-legged on the crick bank, face-to-face and in the middle of an intricate and impassioned discussion on what I assumed was my caution, the messenger apparently forgotten.

I left my shotgun shack and family of foxes early that afternoon, as I couldn’t stop thinking and worrying about the commune, or more specifically Alder and Clay, and the words in my book held no charms for once. On the way home gray-black clouds again began building on the western horizon, advertising themselves with low grumbles of thunder and infrequent flashes of lightning, like a dark army threatening siege, and a curious, electric sense of waiting settled over the town and into my anxious bones; no dogs barked, and even the whistles and twittering of birds sounded hollow and uncertain. The wind picked up, blowing leaves and cigarette butts into scratchy mini-cyclones, then died away, abandoning the detritus to lay scattered across the sunburnt sidewalks and streets. Coming through the side door, I heard the weatherman on the kitchen radio assuring valley listeners the storm wouldn’t break until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest but to be prepared for a humdinger when it did, and now back to Paul Harvey, gooood day! (In our house, when Paul Harvey was talking no one else did, under penalty of death by silent suffocation, as everyone was interested in “the rest of the story”.) On the national televised news a busybody commentator (I hesitate to call him a reporter) informed us the riots in New York City, which began late last month with the unreasonable resistance by female impersonators and male prostitutes to the righteous and lawful pre-dawn raid on The Stonewall Inn, a tavern notorious for illegal homosexual activity, were beginning to settle down but an increasingly vocal group of homosexual (in case you missed it the first time) agitators were refusing to shut up and swish back into the slime, thus threatening all of modern civilization through the trampling of the traditional values of the nuclear and God-fearing family. This was the first I’d heard of the riots which were to solidify into a distance-sprinting but ultimately successful push for legal if not social equality (though not the first nor certainly the last I was to hear about how the traditional values of the nuclear and God-fearing family were being trampled, nay, obliterated by homosexuals, the rock-and-roll-sexual-revolution-drug-culture-commie/pinko-peace movement, women’s liberation and anyone not of pure White Anglo-Saxon Protestant heritage, roughly in that order . . . second verse same as the first, and here good ol’ endangered modern civilization still has the nerve to limp merrily along; funny, huh?), and I was amazed when Dad, who refused to allow Laugh-In so much as a single opportunity to Sock It To Him, didn’t order me to change the channel while he grumbled about the lack of decency on the airwaves these days, even on the damn news. For once I possessed enough common sense not to comment, about homosexuals or the war-that-wasn’t-a-war, though inside I cheered on the rioters and exulted at the shattering of ‘gay’ invisibility while at the same time resolving, for the present at least, to hold my leanings tight, since it was nobody’s business but mine and possibly Ronnie’s anyway—the concept of ‘the closet’ as a place gay folk must come out of was not yet in vogue. Dad retained his unusual quiet at supper, and Mom kept looking at him with worry in her eyes while ignoring my sister, allowing her to prattle on and on about her rivals rather than chastise her for gossiping. I was quiet too, the curious, electric sense of waiting in my anxious bones near vibratory in intensity, and I started to think more than one storm was coming, a couple of ‘em potentially destructive, but one, I thought, hoped, perhaps irrationally, one of them might prove cleansing.

As I lay in bed later, I didn’t indulge in my usual twin-orgies of self-pleasure and self-flagellation, instead choosing to lay on top of the covers in my jockey shorts, arms behind my head, listening to the patchy wind rise and fall outside and to the eerie stillness inside. I took several minutes to realize what was missing: distant but deep rumbling snores from my parents’ front bedroom downstairs. The slow-ticking locomotive rotor of my clock-radio ground loud and inevitable in the silence, the numbered half-cards of the display clacking over with measured, monotonous regularity, rolling past eleven and beyond. The curious, electric sense of waiting tingled in my anxious bones.

At first I thought the sound was nothing more than the breeze tossing minuscule debris against my window, but when the tiny, sandy scratches came again, and then a third time, I sat up in bed. Ronnie! But what was he doing coming by so late? I hurried over and raised the sash, sticking my head outside to find not one boy-sized shadow but two. As I wondered who’d tagged along with my best friend the waning crescent moon broke through the clouds and I discovered my midnight callers were none other than Alder and Clay! I stared down at them in astonishment, not wondering how they knew where I lived so much as thanking God they picked the proper window, while they stared up at me in amusement, none of us stirring until the moon was once again overtaken by the dark army, marching overhead in scattered but implacable siege formation.

“Come down!” an unfamiliar voice wheedled, and the boy-sized shadow that was Alder raised his shadow-hand, waving for me to join them.

I hesitated, glancing back into my room with trepidation even though I’d already know if we’d been busted. “It’s too late,” I called in return, hoping my hushed voice reached their ears. “I can’t!”

“Come down, come outside and play!” The moon again peered through the clouds, illuminating their hopeful, eager faces.

I glanced at the hallway door again, sorely tempted. “It’s fixin’ to rain!”

“Not ‘til tomorrow, Granny Dear said so! Come play, man!”

Oh, well, if Granny Dear said so . . . I hesitated again, reflecting the weatherman on the radio agreed with her, whoever she was, and the temptation overwhelmed me. Waving for them to wait and laying an admonitory hush-finger across my lips, I ducked back inside and dressed, cursing when I bumped into my desk chair, freezing in place until convinced I hadn’t been detected. I slid my shell necklace over my head, patted my pocket to make sure I carried my key and, disinclined to brave the eerie, non-snoring rest of the house on the creaky-staired way to the side kitchen door, resolved to exit via my window; I’d be unable to close it behind me, meaning I’d likely have to reorganize stuff blown about by the incoming breeze, but I didn’t care other than to offer a brief prayer the rain would indeed hold out and not make the mess any worse. Unfortunately lacking a ladder I’d be forced to return via the side door, increasing my chances of a bust, but it’s easier to get forgiveness than permission, as the old wisdom goes, and since I was in general a “good kid” the worst might happen anyway would be a lecture, grounding and denial of my shotgun shack privileges for the rest of the summer, a risk worth taking for the experience my tingling, anxious bones promised to wait out there in the night.

I slid under the sash and dangled by my fingers from the sill, then, holding my breath, released to drop the ten or so feet to the ground, a willing victim to gravity. Landing in a crouch and springing up, I joined Alder and Clay, who’d bound their shaggy raven and brown hair tonight to keep from blowing in the wind. Alder clutched a blanket under one arm while Clay wore a brightly colored fabric bag over one shoulder, and I discovered the unfamiliar voice belonged to Clay when he welcomed me with “Peace, man,” and a side-hug while Alder flashed the vee-sign with his free hand.

I greeted them in return and urged them to lead on, glancing over my shoulder at the darkened windows and hoping neither my dad nor my sister peered outside. We hurried around the house, past the vehicles in the driveway (both Dad’s truck and Mom’s wagon were there, I’m sure of it) and onto the deserted sidewalk, keeping as much to the shadows as possible. Alder set a fast pace through town, too fast for questions, but I figured out our destination anyway when he plunged into the woods, winding us along a path they seemed to know as well as I did, and I was proven correct when we stepped out of the trees into the glen by the crick, my old reading spot and their assumed sanctuary. Several stones had been newly arranged in a ring near the water, and Clay pulled a Zippo from the bag to coax a flame into life on the small pile of assembled kindling within while Alder spread the blanket and kicked off his shoes, sinking to sit cross-legged and watch. I didn’t use the time to ask any of the questions which should have been on my lips, instead simply adding my body as a windbreaker to Clay’s, breathing in the intoxicating scent of patchouli. I never once, not that night or ever, wondered why they chose me to bring into their intimacy, however briefly, I simply celebrated they did. Soon we had a satisfactory fire going, enough to provide some illuminatory assistance to the sporadic glimpses of the waning moon, and Clay and I kicked off our own shoes to join Alder on the blanket. We sat in companiable silence for a minute, listening to the crick gurgle, the fire crackle and the breeze sigh through the tops of the trees until Alder gently smacked Clay’s knee, made a gimme-gimme motion with his fingers. Clay laughed and passed over the fabric bag, then stroked the shell necklace around my throat, his touch warm and pleasant on my skin.

“Granny Dear made this,” he stated, his voice as warm and pleasant as his touch, his eyebrow lifted as if he were moderately surprised to see someone wearing an item crafted by his family.

“She did?”

“He.”

“Huh? Oh, okay.” I didn’t comment or speculate further on Granny Dear, as he was clearly someone they respected, I merely accepted. “Tell him I love it, I wear it whenever I can.”

“Right on.” Clay considered the adornment while Alder rummaged in the bag, muttering under his breath. “Looks good on you, man.”

“Uh, thanks.”

“He made this too,” he continued, indicating our cushioning. “With my mom. She’s dead now,” he added as an afterthought.

“I’m sorry.” Clay shrugged but I didn’t pry. I examined the patchwork quilt, small octagons creating large psychedelic flowers in colors vibrant even in the dimness, obviously stitched over many painstaking hours. “This is lovely.”

He grunted and Alder finally located his quarry, crowing as he held it aloft: a rolled reefer, the first I’d ever seen in real life but unmistakable. Handing it over to Clay, he reached back into the bag to pull out a beer and a churchkey. He cracked open the can and sipped as Clay lit the joint, struck flame for a moment outshining campfire flame on his swarthy, glowy face. After a long pull, he exchanged with Alder for the beer and asked me, “You get high, man?”

“Uh, sure.” I accepted the proffered reefer and inhaled deeply, coughing only slightly at the harsh and acrid taste.

Clay laughed again and passed me the beer, taking his second toke while I sipped. “Want a shotgun?”

“A what?” I asked, picturing my shack and family of foxes. Both of them laughed this time and Alder inserted the reefer backwards into his mouth, leaning towards me and cupping his hands. I grasped the concept and breathed in what he blew out, a much smoother method of ingestion, and caught a brief guilt-glimpse of my mom, tossing and turning in her bed (only later did I determine if she had been tossing and turning with worry that night, the cause wasn’t me smoking pot). Alder drew back and did the same to Clay, who inhaled with the assurance of long practice. A couple more shotguns, a couple more sips of beer, and I was feeling mighty fine, not tore apart but instead articulate in the universe, open to the world, and I decided if this was being stoned, I liked it. So when Alder leaned forward and touched his lips to mine, in a kiss and not another shotgun, I didn’t flail away in terror of my desires as I might have done any other time, I accepted, going so far as to press harder, to sweep my tongue along the bottom of his mouth. Alder pulled back and Clay took his place, kissing with more urgency, nibbling at my lower lip until I opened to him. Alder’s hand came up to caress my cheek, rub through the bristles of my normal Chisaw County haircut. They swapped out again, and yet again, kissing me breathless between them, and I savored their taste: beer and pot and something wild yet mellow, wheat on the prairie, growing not for bread but for pure adoration of the sun.

“So I guess y’all are guh-gay?” I asked as they paused to remove their shirts and I had a second to think. “Like . . . like me?” Admitting my secret aloud felt good. Nerve-wracking, but good.

Alder shrugged.

“We just like to live life, man, meld into the everything,” Clay explained, licking along my jaw, his whisper shivery in my ear. “Getting high, making love, whatever.”

“Is that what this is?” I let my head fall back, allowing him room to explore. “We’re high, so it’s time for the free love?”

To my surprise it was Alder who answered. “Love ith alwayth free.” In a flash I understood why they never spoke aloud at school: one was sensitive about his speech impediment while the other stayed silent in solidarity, and so moved was I Alder’s actual words only resonated when Clay finished, “Granny Dear says it’s the lack of love lays heavy.”

Even as early as July of 1969 these sentiments were beginning to ring frayed and trite (a cynicism perhaps pointing to an incident coming before the close of the year and alongside The Rolling ‘Let It Bleed’ Stones to a place called Altamont Speedway and to a human of color named Meredith Hunter, an incident of cold-as-sin murder now widely regarded as the bloody cap to the bloody peace-and-love decade), but in my stoned state the philosophy sounded so simple yet so profound I wanted to weep. “Granny Dear sounds like a wise person,” I managed to say, then gasped as their hands wandered to the buttons on my shirt.

“The withetht,” Alder agreed, and I had not a moment to relish the trust he’d shown me before all coherent thought along with the ability to speak complete sentences vanished. They stripped me down, taking turns unbuttoning and unzipping and laying their lips upon mine for more delicious kisses, and within seconds (or, in reefer time, an eternity) I lay naked on the patchwork quilt between them, feeble firelight exposing me to the dark army seething and sieging overhead. Clay laughed, cooed, “Look, Alder!” while combing through my pubes, as bright and shocking a red as the hair on my head, and Alder laughed too, in delight. The kisses continued, and they were naked with me, my fingers and eventually my mouth as greedy on their bodies as theirs on mine. I learned Alder’s narrow torso writhed when lightly stroked, and Clay’s majestic brown nipples begged to be tweaked and suckled, and to this day the aroma of patchouli and pot mixed with musky fresh sweat drives me clear outta my everlovin’ mind (a kink my husband has cheerfully exploited many times over the years, to our mutual satisfaction). I asked them to loosen their hair and they did, mingling raven and brown as they tickled the strands down my body, making me squirm from sensation overload. They allowed me to watch as they loved each other, conducting a conversation I could not understand, but at the realization I wasn’t called to understand the last of my jealousy dissipated into wisps as elusive as the moonlight.

Afterward, we lay shoulder-to-shoulder-to-shoulder on the quilt, me in the middle, our sweaty bellies splashed with semen, the initial and urgent rush of our buzzes and lusts faded to comfortable purrs. The fire had dwindled to a mere golden glow, so when the moon again peered through the drifting dark clouds she was accompanied by a smattering of cautious, impartial stars, then all were lost as another battalion marched in. The crick gurgled, the fire glowed, the breeze sighed through the tops of the trees.

“We’re leaving tomorrow morning,” Alder confessed as he slipped his hand into mine.

“Granny Dear wouldn’t turn us loose tonight ‘til we were all packed.” Clay grasped my other hand, creating a chain.

“Oh.” I didn’t ask why they were leaving, I didn’t have to, and while despondent at the news I was relieved they might go before violence erupted. “I’m sorry.” Sympathizing with them? Apologizing for their treatment? I wasn’t sure. “Where will you go?”

Another shrug; either they didn’t know or didn’t care to answer, and I didn’t press.

“We thought thith wath a nithe plathe.” Alder’s grip tight, his thumb rubbing across my knuckles.

Clay squeezed. “At first everybody was so sweet and polite, sugah wouldn’t melt in y’all’s mouf,” he commented, his accent exaggerated. “Y’all even bought our stuff and damn, we were so happy.”

“But then rockth thtarted getting tothed through our windowth. Nathty phone callth and thlathing our tireth and putting acthual thit in our mailbockth.” A litany of intolerance I’d not imagined, only aware of the blight of attitudes and not deeds. I was sickened. “Cantheling our contracth tho we had no money! Man!”

“Why did everybody change?” Clay sounded perplexed.

“I . . . I’m not sure.” All these years, this lifetime later, and I’m still not sure. Was it envy? Fear? Dismay at the so-called trampling of the traditional values of the nuclear and God-fearing family? Why not live and let love, the way a normal Chisaw County Christian who allegedly followed Christ should do? I’d say the reasons don’t matter anymore, but I’d be fibbing. Now I think the reasons matter more than ever.

“Your friend’s dad?” Clay specified, proving again they’d been more observant than anyone suspected, more observant than we had been in turn. “He told one of the little sisters she’d grow up to be just another diseased slut like her momma.” Clay sounded more wounded than the “little sister” likely had been.

“Nobody should talk that way to a kid,” I ventured. I didn’t ask if my own father had been ugly to their face, as I was convinced he hadn’t—I’m still convinced of this, Dad was a man of action and resolve and would never waste anyone’s time with petty harassment.

“Nobody thould talk that way to nobody,” Alder affirmed.

“No, they shouldn’t.”

“We tried to thow them love. We thmiled and were nithe even when they weren’t. We thold our thtuff for cotht tho everyone would like uth and let uth thtay!”

“Me and Alder tried too, at school, dig? Several times we tried to show y’all love.”

“We even dumbed it down becauthe we didn’t want people to get all pithed and offended,” Alder said bitterly.

“But nobody noticed.” Clay sniffled and wiped his cheek with his free hand. “All they wanted to do was bet on who got sucked.”

Silence for awhile, then Alder concluded, “Normal Crick ith not a nithe town.”

I wanted to argue. I’ll admit I sometimes chafed at the pace of life in Chisaw County, and I yearned to one day far in the future fly free, to see what else existed in the world the tv or the radio or my precious books couldn’t tell me, but I loved my home and ached to defend against anyone who slandered us. Unfortunately, though, I could not deny that, right now anyway, Normal Crick wath not a nithe town. No, it wathn’t a nithe town at all.

“I . . . I wagered too, with my best friend,” I conceded, “it was sort of my reason for being there, I guess.” Clay squeezed in understanding. “I get lost in my head sometimes, so lost I don’t see the water for the well, as my mom puts it, but even I could see the love y’all have for each other.” Another squeeze, from Alder. “Maybe not the big picture, the way I see it now, but y’all showed love walking down the hall or eating lunch, the kind of love I want with Ronnie . . . or,” coming to the realization for the first time, “or someone else if he’s not interested.” Because there would be someone else out there for me, I was sure. I figured everyone to have several fate-given potential soulmates out there, Cupid forever hedging his own bets, and I still believe so, even if I’ve never had reason to test the theory (knock wood). “So y’all did set an example, and if I noticed, then other people probably noticed, and maybe they learned something too.”

Clay rolled over on top of me, his cheeks wet but his blue eyes a-sparkle in the dying glow of the campfire, his eyebrow lifted higher than I’d ever witnessed. “Normal Crick might not be a nice town, at least for us,” he whispered, “but we think you’re pretty groovy.” Grinning at the reference to my terrible attempt at counterculture slang. I started to giggle but he swallowed both the grin and my amusement, and nobody talked much after. Alder produced from the fabric bag a stoppered jar of aromatic oil (patchouli, rose hips, I can’t remember what else—another Granny Dear special) and they introduced me to more ways of making love, ways I hadn’t dared imagine in my solo romps as the mechanics mystified me. The campfire finally lost its glow, hiding us from the dark army overhead and hiding from us any disapproval.

When I awoke from my snooze sometime later Alder and Clay were gone, and I might have thought our encounter a warm and pleasant dream except I was naked in the glen with an oddly sweet ache in my backside. They left for me the patchwork quilt and, on top of my neatly folded clothing, the jar of oil, a single rolled reefer and the empty beer can, a mute but amiable request to leave no litter behind. I ensured the campfire was extinguished in the traditional manner, by pissing on it, and just then the moon once more broke free of the clouds for a moment as if to witness “the rest of the story” before being recaptured, not to show her waning crescent face again until the storm had passed and the dark army considered the heat wave good and vanquished and went to siege somewhere else for a change. I shivered in the crick, washing away stickiness with cold handfuls of water, and dressed. As I folded the quilt and gathered the joint and jar, I didn’t question why Alder and Clay had left these things for me; they were gifts, freely given. Nor did I regret they’d offered me no chance for goodbyes, nor further yet to wonder what might become of them in their uncertain near future. Never wondered since, in fact, or wondered if they wondered about me. We knew we’d never cross paths again, not in this vale of tears, but I loved them and cast them to themselves, to conduct their intricate, intimate conversations and to live their lives, to get high and to make love and to meld into the everything, whatever, man, and, much as I felt for the empty beer can I deposited in the first curbside trash bin I ran across, I appreciated, thanked and moved on.

I set a slow pace home, tired and lethargic from the last of the marijuana’s effects but wired by my experience. I didn’t feel changed so much as opened, moved so much as expanded, and the curious, electric sense of waiting seemed to have been soothed from my no longer anxious bones; I felt confident in my course, serene in my determination to reclaim my best friend by returning his baseball card and confiding in him, hoping to take our relationship to the next level, to invent the language of our own intricate, intimate conversations but fine if he wasn’t interested, long as we maintained our friendship and love. There was someone out there for me, I was still sure, maybe not in Normal Crick or Chisaw County, but somewhere. A solitary dog barked, then another further away, gossip carried on the wind, and though the storm still hadn’t broken I noticed the sense of waiting had vanished from the town too, replaced by a curious sense of melancholy or possibly even regret. But maybe that was just me too, I figured; maybe the disquieting knowledge I’d gained concerning my neighbors had soured my regard.

It wasn’t just me—I never have been able to see the water for the well, if you’ll recall.

I trudged up the driveway, lost in my exhilaration, and quietly unlocked the side door. Mom’s wagon was there, I’m positive, as she always parked closest to the house and I would’ve wondered where she’d gone in the middle of the night, especially with a storm brewing, but Dad’s truck? I’m not sure. I didn’t notice. Removing my shoes, I crept on sock-feet through the kitchen, the eternal stove-light illuminating my way, and tiptoed up the stairs, avoiding the majority of the creaky risers, my single-minded stealth so focused I also didn’t notice if deep, rumbling snores emanated from my parents’ room. Once in my space I leaned my forehead against the wall and allowed myself to breathe.

A fair amount of debris had been blown from my desk to the floor, including my Sunday School homework and current paperback, and a corner had loosened on the Doors poster (Mr Mojo Risin was so mysterious and alluring, a poet who tickled my love of words and language even as his carnal beauty left me dizzy) I’d tacked to the back of my own closed door (so neither Dad nor my sister would see) and it wibbled and rattled in the breeze. Opting to deal with the mess in the morning, I left the window open, as I didn’t think I could bear to feel closed in, and lay the blanket across my bed. After considerable rumination I decided to stash the reefer and jar of oil in the torn upper left corner on the underside of my box-springs, a hidey-hole I was reasonably sure my sister did not yet suspect; if she did, the reefer would be gone tomorrow (later today) and as for the oil, only one conclusion would flit through her nosy mind, but since I knew her battery-operated toothbrush handle sometimes vanished from the bathroom cup overnight I was also reasonably sure she could be blackmailed into keeping a dang secret for once in her blabbermouth life—maybe I could store one of the replacement brushes with the jar as a warning. I snickered in tired bemusement at the maturing of our sibling rivalry and undressed, moaning in abashed awe at how I ached, and in what places! Who knew making love could be so taxing? Certainly not me, though I rejoiced in the knowledge now. Relieved to not need be so quiet, as my family were well versed in my odd nocturnal bathing habits, I indulged in a long shower, the almost-scalding water relaxing my sore muscles and sluicing away the last physical remnants of Alder and Clay, not to mention the smell of pot, and fell into my bed butt naked, lying atop the spread and covering myself in my new patchwork quilt, luxuriating in the faint aroma of patchouli. I listened for a few drowsy minutes to the breeze, an ally to the dark army above, sighing through the tops of the trees and now and again through my open window, snooping like my sister through my room, rattling the blinds and my Doors poster with every pass, then rushing back out to sigh a report to the clouds, until at last I fell into wild yet mellow dreams of numberless wheatfields on myriad prairies, growing not for bread but for pure adoration of the sun.

A tapping summoned me home from my warm and pleasant journeys, and Mom’s voice called, “Up and at ‘em, sweetheart, it’s gone nine o’clock already!” She waited a few more seconds (a lesson she’d finally learned after too many embarrassing-for-us-both encounters) before tapping again and stepping inside. “I swan, son, you’d snooze the day away if I let you.” I yawned in answer and squinted at her. “Lord, what a mess in here. And oh, you’ve left your window open with the AC running!” Avoiding the worst of the scattered papers she crossed the floor to close the sash, leaving the blinds up to bestow grudging gray daylight inside. “Your father’s going to raise the roof when we get the bill!”

I yawned again. “With this heat wave the electrical usage is gonna be astronomical anyhow, he’ll never notice.” We held our gazes a moment, Mom’s lips twitching as we completed in tandem, “He’s still going to raise the roof.” We laughed.

She cocked her head. “You seem better this morning,” she observed. “You’ve looked kindly peak-ed the last few weeks, I was starting to worry.” Not only about my appearance, to be sure.

“I feel better,” I admitted, realizing it was true. “I’m sorry for being so . . . so . . .” I flailed for a word.

“Crabby and absent-minded and funky as old cheese?” she filled in, lips twitching again.

I chuckled. “Yes ma’am, all of that, I guess. I’m sorry.”

“I figured you’d work your way through whatever was bothering you, and if you couldn’t, you’d come to me or your dad. Or—”

“Or go to Ronnie,” I finished.

She smiled; Mom always did love Ronnie; still does. “I’m not going to pry,” she assured me. “There are things a boy can’t discuss with his mother or sometimes even his father. I’m just glad you have someone you can confide in.”

I grinned amiably and didn’t reply.

Suddenly her nose wrinkled. “What’s that smell? Patchouli?” Her famous-and-dreaded bloodhound appendage sniffed. “It’s coming from your blanket. Oh, this is lovely!” Echoing my sentiments. “Where did you get it? And when?”

“Alder and Clay gave it to me yesterday,” I replied, not wanting to flat-out lie but fudging on the timeline. “Granny Dear made it with Clay’s mother. She’s dead now,” I added as an afterthought.

“Alder and Clay? You mean those hippie boys, Sunbeam and Moonshine?” Damn my sister. “I didn’t know y’all were friends.” Mom’s voice faintly reproachful. “They could’ve sold this for a fortune! Why would they give you something so precious?”

“Maybe because I call them Alder and Clay instead of Sunshine and Moonbeam?” I sassed, and Mom flushed. “I don’t know why, I just accepted. It was a gift, freely given.”

Her gaze softened, and she bent down to kiss my forehead and smooth back my normal Chisaw County hair. “You’re a good kid,” she murmured, and though I rolled my eyes I prickled with pleasure at her praise. She continued smiling for a moment before once again wrinkling her nose. “And you’ve already laid it on your bed and slept under it too! Honestly, son!” She reached down as if to snatch it but hesitated, another lesson learned after only one embarrassing-for-us-both encounter.

I slapped my hands down on the crisp fabric to make sure, as I was naked underneath. “It’s not lice-infested, Mom.”

She flushed again. “Okay, okay,” she surrendered, pulling back. “But if it is, you’re going to be the one scrubbing your scalp and body down with lye soap.”

Since I had no fear of being proved wrong (and I wasn’t), I nodded. “Fair enough.”

“Just don’t tell your father where you got it.” Mom’s lips twitched a third time. “Or your sister, you know she can’t keep her yap shut.”

I groaned in rueful agreement.

“And son? You might want to keep this a secret too.” Tapping at her collarbone.

The shell necklace; I’d forgotten; it felt so much a part of me I didn’t think about it. “Yes ma’am.”

I expected her to leave me be, but she didn’t, and I tensed. “These boys,” she said, choosing her words with care, “these . . . Alder and Clay . . . I heard they committed some . . . unnatural acts at school and the students would bet on them.”

I again damned my sister and considered bringing up the correlation of unnatural acts with magically disappearing battery-operated toothbrushes out of spite but instead replied evenly, “They didn’t do anything other boys our age don’t do. Maybe the way they did it was a little . . . a little weird and public, but it was only because they loved and trusted each other, and if anyone told you different, she was exaggerating.”

Mom nodded, reassured a bit. I was aware she was aware I masturbated (how could she not be? Not only did she bust me too many embarrassing-to-us-both times before she learned to tap twice on my lockless door, she sorted my crinkly socks!) but I was also aware she considered the practice natural if private, not a sin as some in our congregation seemed to believe. (She’s a class act, my mom, and when I came out several years later—yes, the concept of the closet as a place gay folk must come out of was in vogue by that time—she was tearful but supportive, in large part, I think, due to Ron. She always did love him; when he was disowned she had some choice words for his parents, in front of the entire church too, and during the AIDS crisis was an inspiration to us all, despite Ron’s and my safe monogamy and her relief. As for Dad, we’ll just say he relaxed some after the first stroke—not from our confession, thank God, but later—and after the second would allow no one but my man to carry him anywhere; oh, how those muscles rippled.) Another pause, and she finally came to the meat of her objection. “Did you gamble?”

I couldn’t lie. “Yes ma’am.” She sighed, giving the breeze a run for its traitorous money. “But only with Ronnie, and only ever for little things, for fun,” I assured her, like that made our transgression any better. “A baseball card, or . . .” A flash of something forgotten. “Or a movie.” What about that matinee?

“Just don’t let it become a habit or a problem,” Mom warned, and let the subject drop, again probably because of Ronnie’s involvement (did I mention how she always loved him? Sometimes more than she loves me, I suspect.) “Clean up the worst of this mess then get dressed and come downstairs. I kept a couple bacon biscuits back and you can fix yourself a bowl of cereal too.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She vanished, closing the door behind her so the loose corner of my poster wibbled with the movement. I yawned again and, since she’d been wearing one of Dad’s old shirts (meaning deep cleaning, further meaning I needed to hustle and find business elsewhere or be roped into helping) I swung my legs off the bed, walked naked to the window and peered outside. The dark army had solidified into a pure front of clouds overhead, sieging their gray hearts out, allowing only the bare minimum of daylight to bleed through, and though I couldn’t hear the breeze I saw it sighing through the tops of the trees, constant and not at all patchy now. Yes, rain coming today, you didn’t have to be a weatherman or Granny Dear to tell. I made a pit stop to the bathroom, my body and backside achy but less so than last night, and stared at myself in the mirror, amazed I looked exactly the same as I did yesterday, except maybe now I had a bit more sparkle to my green eyes, a tiny curl of lost innocence in the corner of my mouth, my first inkling that only the most severe and traumatic experiences leave a visible mark while all other experiences, both trite and profound, merely mark us on the inside with tattoos and wounds no one else can see. I dressed quickly and, after more than a minute or two of dithering, decided to leave the shell necklace around my throat, drawing my first line in the sand (I still have it, by the way, though I don’t wear it anymore; too fragile). I picked up from the floor my Sunday School homework and Ronnie’s baseball card and my latest paperback (which for some ungodly and unfathomable reason I clearly remember to be “The Valley Of The Dolls”—hey, no judgement please, I was a horny teen!) and after folding my patchwork quilt (I’m looking at my tired and worn but still lovely gift now, draped across the foot of my hospital bed—the long COVID, don’tcha know, and ain’t she a bitch? But no worries, I’m on the mend!) I traipsed downstairs to breakfast, and where usually I would’ve carried along my book, I left it sitting on my desk. I’d always have a passion for reading, an unquenchable desire to drown in words and worlds, but today I decided to open myself up, to examine my immediate surroundings, to witness with my own eyes instead of through some author’s exquisitely crafted viewpoint, and to live my own life for once—so put down your damn physical tome or electronic reader, whichever you use, and look around yourself occasionally, you never know what you might learn—after you finish my tale, of course. Don’t fret, we’re almost done.

Dad was at work and my sister, like me well aware the meaning of our mother’s attire, hightailed off to parts unknown, so the only noises in the house came from the kitchen radio and from Mom in her bedroom, her sweet tenor singing along with the sad story of Billy Joe McAllister’s mysterious encounter with the Tallahatchee Bridge (why did he jump, anyway, and what the hell did he and the girl throw over the side? Sigh. We’ll never know; the awful movie doesn’t exist for me; tragic but avoidable, see?). Singing along too, I grabbed the biscuits and a large plastic butter-tub from the cabinet and poured myself a heap of sugary deliciousness. The girl dropped her flowers off the bridge, a couple commercials ran, then the news. Nothing earth-shaking; notes on the war-that-wasn’t-a-war and Nixon’s response to something, can’t recollect what; weather—it was going to storm; zilch about the gay riots in New York City; stay tuned for Paul Harvey coming up at 10:20! More commercials played as I rinsed my bowl, caring nothing about Paul Harvey for once in my life, as I was anxious to discover how my own rest of the story panned out, but however it did determined to have a gooood day.

I turned down the radio a bit, punched the familiar numbers on the kitchen phone and, glancing over my shoulder towards Mom still humming away in her bedroom, stretched the cord around the corner into the dining room while the call connected. After three or four rings Ronnie’s mother answered, her voice clipped and harassed. “Hello?”

“Hi. Is, uh, is Ronnie there?”

Recognizing me, her tone faded from grudgingly polite to grudgingly friendly. “Sure, Ronald’s here, I’ll get him. He’ll be glad to hear from you, he thought you’d dropped off the face of the earth.” Like it didn’t make no nevermind to her either way, but I didn’t take offense. I was used to it.

The clunk of the receiver being laid down, then her voice, loud and harassed, calling my best friend’s despised full first name—he always said she did it to piss him off, and I’m inclined to agree. A minute or so passed, then the slide of the receiver being grabbed up and Ronnie’s voice. “’Lo?” Despite hearing only one partial word, I knew something was wrong.

“Hey. It’s uh . . . it’s me.”

“Oh. Hey.” Not friendly but not hostile either. Tired, with an undertone I couldn’t identify and unnerved me.

“Are you okay?”

“I . . . I’m fine. Why you callin’, mister not-ready-to-talk-yet?” The taunt was half-hearted and I ignored it. “You wanna gossip about what happened to the commune and your friends Sunshine and Moonbeam?”

I drew a deep breath. “Actually I’m calling because I am finally ready to talk. I’m sorry it took so long, I am, I was too lost in my own head to make sense to anyone else.”

“Couldn’t see the water for the dang well.” Yes, Ronnie agreed with my mom. No wonder she loves the ass—said affectionately, of course. (The ass is reading over my shoulder now—ouch!)

“Yeah. But first tell me what you meant about the commune?”

“You didn’t hear?” A long pause. “A . . . a group of men, fifteen or twenty of ‘em I heard, burned down the hippies’ farmhouse last night. And shattered all the windows on the greenhouse where they grew their produce.”

My blood ran cold; funny, I thought that was just an expression. “What? Was anybody hurt?” More specifically, were Alder and Clay or Granny Dear hurt? I could cast them to their own lives and still worry about their welfare, after all.

Ronnie drew his own deep breath. “I don’t think so, not bad anyhow.” My shoulders loosened and I leaned my forehead against the wallpaper in relief. “Apparently they were all packed and ready to go, they just hadn’t left yet. The . . . men, whoever they were, didn’t care and destroyed everything anyway, even breaking a couple of the hippies’ car windows as they drove away. Herb said there was blood everywhere and one of the kiddies got her hair burned clear to the scalp, but you know how Herb is.”

“Yeah.” I did know how Ronnie’s older brother was—a real tool (and I use the modern dis because he still is). We found out later and from a more reliable source (the farm’s actual owner) there’d been exactly two physical injuries: one when a bra-less woman reached into a burning desk for a metal cashbox and the other when the landlord himself tripped over a smoldering beam and broke his wrist. (The landlord also commented the hippies had been enviable tenants, paying their rent on time and keeping the property in good repair, and every single splinter of the damage was caused by his Christian friends and neighbors—he was royally and rightfully pissed, and eventually sold the lot plus his own nearby acreage, both upwind of Normal Crick’s hoitiest-toity neighborhood, for cheap to a not-so-sanitary dairy farmer and quit Chisaw County in disgust—bully for him!) But buildings could be rebuilt, greenhouse and car windows reglazed, wrists healed, even hair burned clear to the scalp, Heaven forbid, could be regrown. What about the words? What about the shouts, and the slurs, and worst of all the feral hating gazes of people who not only don’t understand, but who don’t even want to try to understand? These are the kind of experiences to which I referred earlier, the kind that mark us with wounds and tattoos inside, and they’re the God damned worst kind. “I know how Herb is.”

“And this morning at breakfast . . . this morning, bud, this very one . . . my dad smelled . . .” Ronnie took another deep breath, and I figured out why he sounded so strange. “My dad smelled like gasoline.” Ronnie was crying, and I had a brief memory of Clay, wiping his cheeks with his free hand, the one not squeezing mine. Does everyone have to hurt? Is it a law?

“Oh, Ronnie.” Neither for the first time nor certainly the last I wanted to track down Ronnie’s fucking sire and beat the living snot out of him; if not for his sperm making the most perfect man in the universe (like that, ass? ouch!) I wouldn’t spit on him to give him one last drop of moisture before kicking him through the burning gates of Hell.

“Why would he do that, bud? Why would he be so . . . so . . . mean when the hippies were leaving anyhow? I don’t understand, bud. Help me understand!”

I held the receiver tight against my ear, wishing my best friend were in my arms and not standing alone in his own foyer three-and-a-quarter miles away. “I don’t understand either, Ronnie,” I admitted, and he sniffled. I dithered a second or two. “I saw Alder and Clay last night. Before all this crap happened. They even talked to me, if you can believe it.”

“Yeah?” A faint irritated undertone. “What’d they say?”

Four words lisped in my ear, though I didn’t repeat them verbatim; Alder’s speech impediment is a secret I’ve kept to this very day, even from Ron and Mom, and I’d keep it now if I didn’t feel the truth were important: sometimes the world ith not a nithe plathe. “Alder said love is always free and Clay said it’s the lack of love lays heavy.” Leaving out any mention of Granny Dear too.

“That’s malarky,” Ronnie said, more because it’s what he was expected to say than the way he truly felt, because I’d swear I heard a note of hope in his voice.

“Maybe, maybe not. The point is I think they’ll be all right, all of them, because they have love, even if we don’t comprehend how. Not every place in the universe knows how to be tolerant of what they don’t comprehend, I guess, but surely there’s one somewhere.” This also is something I still believe, because I must. “They left me some cool stuff, too.”

“Sunshine and Moonbeam? Why would they give you stuff?” Yup, finally figured it out: the irritated undertone was jealousy, and I fought not to grin. Now who can’t see the water for the well? Ouch!

I shot Ronnie the same sass I’d shot my mom. “Maybe because I called them Alder and Clay instead of Sunshine and Moonbeam?” I heard his generous mouth grimacing. “I don’t know why. They were gifts, freely given.”

“What kind of stuff?” Trying to sound disinterested and failing. Quite badly, too.

“Oh, just stuff,” I said vaguely. “I’ll show you when I bring the card.”

He exhaled shakily. “Don’t bring it over here, today’s not a good day for visitors.” Very few days were good for visitors at Ronnie’s, but I didn’t comment. “I’ll come to your house.”

“Better idea,” I said. “Meet me down by where the railroad tracks cross the crick.”

“It’s fixin’ to rain,” he pointed out.

Yes, it was indeed going to rain today; Granny Dear said so. “When have we ever let a little rain stop us?” I asked lightly, though the weatherman on the radio and the dark army outside threatened more than just a little.

“True,” Ronnie agreed, brightening some. “Where’d you have in mind?”

“I’ll have to show you,” I promised, picturing my shotgun shack; surely there was room for a family of foxes, two young men and a psychedelic flower patchwork quilt to ride a storm out in what was left of the kitchen, wasn’t there?

He sniffled, long and loud, pushing away his ache, as he was wont to do. “Okay,” he said finally, showing his ultimate trust in me.

“Hey!” I said, peering around the corner to make sure Mom wasn’t close. “Bring a lighter.” Dad’s was in his pocket at work, Ronnie’s sire had too many to count. “And maybe a beer, just one. We can share.” Ronnie’s sire wouldn’t miss that either.

“Okay,” he said again, his voice intrigued. “You got something else planned besides explaining why you’ve been a butthole the last couple months, mister my-shirttail-pulled-out-in-the-excitement?” Proving we were on the same wavelength, even if he didn’t know all the details.

“Maybe I do,” I replied. “Maybe I even have an idea for a new—” peering around the corner again “—a new wager too.”

“Oh really, bud?”

“Yeah. Really.” Ronnie laughed in anticipation, sounding a thousand times better than when he’d answered, and, promising to meet me in half an hour, hung up. I stood in the dining room, thinking, not liking the direction of those thoughts, then carried the receiver back into the kitchen to drop on the hook.

“Was that Ronnie?” Mom asked, startling me; I hadn’t noticed her kneeling in front of the under-sink cabinet, her back to me.

“Yeah, I mean, yes ma’am.”

“Y’all got big plans today?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“Good. I’ve always liked that boy.”

(Sigh.) “Yes ma’am.”

She glanced up at the window above the sink. “Going to storm. Will y’all be out in it?”

“Yes ma’am. If it gets too bad we’ll find somewhere to hole up for awhile.”

Mom grunted, finally finding whatever she’d been looking for, and that was that. No problem whatsoever trusting two teenage boys to roam the countryside with a heavy storm just waiting to blow. Different times, remember? “Have fun and make sure your hole is a good one.”

Thank God Ronnie wasn’t there, he’d have howled and rolled on the floor while Mom turned pink and muttered you know what I mean! Whereas if I’d laughed right then she would’ve smacked me—see what I gotta deal with? “Yes ma’am.” But I couldn’t help a snicker she didn’t hear over the radio.

She stood up and turned and her eyes lighted on the shell necklace around my neck. I thought she’d admonish me but she didn’t, only quirked up one corner of her mouth as if to say it’s your funeral. (Oddly enough, and to the astonishment of everyone who knew us, Dad never uttered a single solitary word about the necklace. Acted like he didn’t even notice. He sure noticed my second line in the sand, though, when my hair grazed my collar.) Mom touched my cheek and smiled then sailed off down the hall to her bedroom, while I stood there a minute or so longer, thinking hard. Was it there or wasn’t it? Was he or wasn’t he snoring? I couldn’t remember. Dammit, I couldn’t remember.

“Mom?” I followed the sound of humming to her walk-in closet, where I found her bent over two boxes, shuffling things from one to the other. “Mom?”

“Hmm?”

“Last night . . .”

“Hmm?” Shuffling from one to the other. Sorting, maybe? But why just shuffle stuff instead of actually sorting it? Then again, maybe I don’t understand because I’m a boy. Girls, huh?

I considered a minute while she continued doing . . . whatever she was doing. “Last night, did Dad . . .”

“Did Dad what, sweetie?”

I changed what I was going to say. “Was Dad better this morning? He was quiet at supper and I thought he looked kinda peak-ed.”

She may have paused, I couldn’t be sure, she moved on smoothly enough. “He wasn’t feeling well, and he didn’t sleep much either, so you might better think twice before riling him up over the news tonight.”

I don’t think she would’ve lied to me. I could call her up in the old folks home right now and ask, she’s still holding ninety-odd percent of her marbles, enough to remember and tell the truth. And she would tell the truth, I have no doubt, but I’m not picking up the phone right now for the same reasons I didn’t ask any additional questions then, simply said, “Okay, just curious,” and moved along. Because if I asked and the answer was “No, of course not” I’d feel disloyal, and with plenty reason. But if I asked and the answer was “Yes, son, he was” then the images of him I have in my heart and mind would shatter. My father was a good man, a normal Chisaw County good man and a Christian, but a man of his times. He was a dyed-in-the-wool conservative, a true believer in the traditional values of the nuclear and God-fearing family, and he didn’t have a problem with the blacks or the gays or the whomevers so much as he wanted those groups away from him and his family, not out of any sense of superiority or calculated bigotry but because he believed in his heart, right or wrong, that some philosophies were just too volatile for any small-town boy or girl, especially his own. He didn’t like the hippies, the ones in our county or the ones on tv, and he didn’t understand. He thought free love about as likely as a free lunch and was morally offended at the idea of sexual promiscuity or sharing a woman. Women, to his mind and as he was taught, were meant to be cherished and protected, not flop around with their legs spread in some crackpot notion about how screwing was going to bring the world together, and he damn sure didn’t want his children getting mixed up in any such shenanigans. But hating the hippies enough to burn them out when they were already set to go? No, I can’t see that. And most of the time, I believe it. I comfort myself with the knowledge that while the population of Chisaw County was and is admittedly small, only fifteen or twenty men were aroused enough to participate in the ever-popular senseless act of violence and destruction. (Then again, as another old wisdom goes, when you see one roach-bug . . . because nobody did anything to stop them, either, including Dad.) The odds are extremely low he would’ve been one of those fifteen or twenty. Dad was a good man. Surely when Ronnie’s sire came calling my father told him no, to go peddle his devil’s papers elsewhere, and surely that awful (and wonderful) night he was quiet at dinner and sleepless and unsnoring in bed because he worried and prayed and still could do nothing to stop a tremendous sin, if even the cops did nothing how could he? I could’ve asked him before he passed, and he would’ve told me, but I never asked and he never said. He was dead wrong in many of his opinions (and, to my irritation, dead right in too many others) and we fought like cats and dogs right on up to the day he left us, railing so hard both our faces would turn purple and Mom or Ron would be forced to step in and soothe both our tempers, but I love him and I miss him, for he taught me to be a good man myself the traditional way, by example.

But on rare occasions, usually in the dark of night, when Ron is snoring beside me (yes, you do too snore) and I can’t sleep, I clutch my patchwork quilt to my chest and wish I had the courage to ask while knowing I never will. Sometimes the well is too dang deep to peer at the water.

Not much left to tell. I came out of the closet (sorry, couldn’t resist) and went back upstairs, where I put on my shoes and gathered what I wished to bring along to my meeting with Ronnie. I slid his baseball card into my pocket (nope, still can’t remember the hero, and he says he can’t either—told ya) and grabbed the reefer (leaving the jar of oil in a for-once-smart decision to not move too fast) to wrap in the quilt, reflecting I’d fed Ronnie’s little green monster (ouch!) quite enough about my midnight meeting with Alder and Clay—I’d tell him “the rest of the story” someday, he wouldn’t have to hear it on Paul Harvey. At heart, how could I not? (I did tell Ron, eventually, in what I swear was the mid-seventies but he mistakenly insists was the late, and he reacted pretty much as I expected: he sulked for a couple days before realizing if it weren’t for Alder and Clay the schism between he and I might have lasted long enough to break us, so he’s fine now, though he still grouses occasionally—ha, missed me that time! I never told Dad, fearing the escapade might’ve given him a heart attack to go along with his strokes—joking, mostly—or my sister, who would’ve found somebody to gossip with about it, but I did tell Mom, everything up to the kisses at least—there are, after all, some things a boy can’t discuss with his mother. She’s a canny old broad, she figured out the rest on her own.) I glanced from the quilt to the window and the dark army outside and back to the quilt, finally shrugging like Clay. If it got wet in the rain or dirty on the shotgun shack’s kitchen floor, well Lord knows Mom was itching (pun intended) to “warsh’n’arn” it anyhow. Holding my freely given gifts close, I stepped out into the gray, overcast day.

The dark clouds sieged and seethed overhead, and thunder grumbled, promising it was about to come in and open a can o’ whoop-ass. The curious, electric sense of waiting had returned, but now the atmosphere felt eager; anticipating the storm, not dreading. Dogs barked, birds twittered, leaves and cigarette butts blew into scratchy mini-cyclones to dance and dance and dance. I met up with Ronnie and showed him our shotgun shack, and the rain came, and we found that though the kitchen floor was indeed big enough for a family of foxes, two young men and a psychedelic flower patchwork quilt, the dang roof leaked like hell, and we laughed and got high and made love and melded into the everything, whatever, man, and how his wet muscles rippled. But hey! That’s another story, long and ongoing and, God willing, without end, best friends forever, amen.