By Any Other Name - 1. Chapter 1

When I got to the shack, Joey Brand was out front, holding a flower.

A lily, actually - a large white one still on the full stem, leaves and all. He was holding it almost solemnly, gazing down at it, as if he wanted to take a sniff, but didn't quite dare. I paused to stare, and then to grin.

Joey was dressed in his usual finery - dark jeans over black boots; black tee-shirt with a pair of stylized demon-head emblems that I recognized, but couldn't quite put a name to; and his signature black fishnet hand covers before studded black leather punk biker wristbands. A military-style belt with a big stainless steel buckle completed the look, with the little silver chain that ran around to Joey's biker wallet gleaming in the sunlight.

His black-painted fingernails actually reduced the deadly look of the whole ensemble, adding to it an unaccountably effeminate tone that Joey would have bristled at had he known I was even thinking such a thing. Joey was the rebel of our group, and his refusal to conform ran fairly deep. His adoption of a dark look accented his serious nature, and most of the kids at school had simply taken one look and then decided to leave him alone, which was all Joey really wanted, anyway.

On any dude six feet tall and pushing two hundred pounds, the get-up would have definitely looked menacing. People often seem to focus on a person's clothing, and so can miss really seeing the guy inside of them. For Joey and strangers, the look worked just fine. What he wanted was the room to be himself, and the clothing he wore generally assured that he got it.

But I knew the guy that lived inside that outfit, and so what I saw was entirely different.

As displayed on Joey's slight, sixteen year-old frame, and topped by his sweet face circled by soft, longish brown hair, the clothing mostly made me smile. Think of it like putting a barbed wire necktie on a fuzzy little bunny rabbit. If you petted such an animal, you might get scratched, but that was certainly going to be the extent of the damage.

His eyes flicked up at me as I stood there, and a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "What are you looking at, Markstrom?"

I couldn't get rid of my own smile. "And what are you supposed to be, with that lily?"

He gave me a soft sigh, and shook his head. "It's an exercise in counterpoint, dum-dum. I'm supposed to be the wild, untamed energy of youth, briefly reeled in and enthralled by the beauty of nature. I signify the wild youth, of course, and the flower --"

"Is the nature part," I finished, nodding. "I get that much."

"I knew you were smarter than you looked," he decided.

I waved a hand around at the great willow tree he stood before, the painted faces and figures on the pavement at his feet, and the brown, rain-swollen river that ran beyond the edge of the pier behind him. "This place isn't weird enough, without you standing out front posing as a flower urn?"

"I told you --" he began...

Another voice interrupted him, a voice I also knew quite well. "If you're weren't standing there with your dumpy ass in the way, I could take the picture, and we'd be done."

I turned to find Rich Heckler standing there before the open door of the shack, his little blue Canon digital camera gripped in one hand.

"Oh, that explains it! You put this art crap into Joey's head?"

Rich frowned, and narrowed his eyes at me. He was blond-haired and green-eyed, dressed in baggy khaki shorts and a tee-shirt that said Banana Republic on it, and wore old brown sandals on his tanned bare feet. My smile turned into a grin. If you wanted counterpoint, just stand Rich next to Joey!

"Just because you don't have culture, is no reason Joey shouldn't have some," he said, in a slight huff. "And polite people don't just walk into the middle of a photo shoot!"

"I didn't see you there," I said, stepping to one side. "Never let it be said that I got between you and your boyfriend."

His annoyance slipped away at that reminder, and he flashed white teeth at me. He motioned with one hand for me to step back even farther, and then carefully took several shots of Joey looking all serious over the flower. "There!" He sighed, lowering the Canon. "Whew! Creating beautiful art is hot and tiring. I sure could use a beer!"

I squinted at him, suddenly suspicious. "Since when have you liked beer?"

He looked briefly guilty, and then looked away. "Beer's cool. We all drink it.

We'd all tried it, he meant. Joey had brought a six pack to the shack one Friday night, cold and ready to go. We'd all sampled one, and said how great it was, even though it was kind of plain that none of us except Joey could sip the stuff without being a little tongue-fucked. Drinking a beer or two was cool according to everyone at school, but so far the drink had not made a big impression with us.

The experiment had been repeated a few times, and had proven - at least to me - that we were still a ways off from being true drinkers. Even at sixteen, we were all still kind of lightweight, scarcely the football-hunk types. One beer made me silly, and two caused me to get rank stupid. My boyfriend Devvy was not any better, and Rich always struggled to finish one bottle, grimacing with each swallow, all the time saying how great the stuff tasted. Only Joey seemed at home with the taste and effects of beer, and two bottles didn't seem to faze him one bit.

Of course, Joey's brain cells were already different than ours, a little wacky all on their own, and a little alcohol dumped into the mix only seemed to allow him to smile a little more than his normally serious, dark mood allowed. I thought it was an improvement, myself, though I would have never said that in front of him or Rich. They shared a strong bond, and Rich loved Joey just the way he was. And, I guess I did, too. You should love your friends as-is, because you sure can't expect to change them to suit yourself.

"Oh." I was not willing to be pulled into another of Rich's beer conversations. I already knew he praised the stuff because he hated the taste of it, and the only way he could work himself up to guzzle a bottle on Friday nights was to talk about it all week long like it was pure heaven and that he couldn't wait to have at it. I wasn't crazy about the taste myself, which had first presented to me as laying somewhere in between battery acid and rocket fuel. It made me wonder how people could swill the stuff down in the amounts that they did, and when I had once broached the subject to my granddad (no way was I going to ask my dad, and get him all suspicious), gran had sighed and nodded, and raised his own bottle to me. "It's an acquired taste, Kelly. I didn't much like it the first time I tasted it, either. You have to persist with it, until your taste buds give up the fight a little and learn to tolerate having their tails twisted. Then you'll like the stuff. More or less."

I'd managed to avoid any more conversation that day that might clue him into the fact that we were actually testing out the product at the shack, but I was secretly relieved to learn that it wasn't just me that thought the stuff tasted like drain cleaner. Devvy muscled through it all because I did, and because he wanted to be as cool as everyone else...and because he loved me, and wanted to please me. I was still working up the nerve to tell him I wasn't as cool as he thought, and that it would be okay if we both just stuck with cola.

Man, it's hard being a role model!

Rich eyed me. "Tomorrow night, right? It's your turn to bring some. You and Dev."

I just waved a hand at Rich. "Okay, okay. Let's not even get onto the subject of beer right now. Is Devvy here?"

"No." Rich patted the pocket of his shorts. "He called my cell a little while ago and said he was running late, and to tell you." He cocked his head at me. "It was your phone number, too."

"That's 'cause Devvy's got my phone. That jerk Brad Kisner tripped Dev up in the hall the other day at school, and Dev's screen got wrecked when he fell into the lockers. You know how Dev is with his phone. I loaned him my cell because he can't stand to be out of contact with people. He said he'd call you and let you know when he'd get here. So I guess he did, huh?"

"Yeah. About fifteen minutes ago. Um...he sounded a little out of breath when he called. Like he'd been running."

I perked up at that. "Really? Man. I hope Kisner and his gang of criminals isn't bothering Dev again. You didn't ask him what was up? Did he say anything else?"

"No. I was busy with the camera, and I guess I didn't realize...he just said that he was on the way." But now Rich sounded worried, too.

Great. The story goes that the gay guys always get bullied at school by the jocks, right? But at Rufus T. Munson High, the jocks were usually too busy battling it out with each other to be bothered about what four harmless gay guys were doing. So seeing a need going unfulfilled, Brad Kisner and his little horde of Muskrat Hill miscreants in the wood shop had taken up the banner of 'homobusters', and had been making our lives a little miserable this school year.

"I hate guys that think wood is for sucking on, instead of building stuff," he'd told me once.

He never actually messed much with me, other than the occasional verbal sling or arrow, because my dad was one of six deputies under county Sheriff Mike Dizzard, and no one wanted Mike Dizzard to take an unhealthy interest in them. He was an old still-buster, a young deputy back in the day when illegal liquor was still big business in these parts, and he had just never gotten over that attitude towards lawbreakers. A gray-haired old cuss now, he was less active in the field, preferring to direct his deputies in their summer duties from the comfort of his air-conditioned office. But if you got him riled enough, he would come out of that office, and lord help the fella that made him do it.

"There's only a few weeks of school left until the summer break," Joey said, coming over and sticking the lily in an empty beer bottle near the door. "Then we can relax. Kisner ain't coming all the way over here to Bent Fork to mess with us when there's better stuff to do."

That was probably true. The high school sat in the middle of the two towns - our town of Bent Fork, and Kisner's town of Muskrat Hill. Even though the kids of both towns went to the same schools, there had been a rivalry between the two factions for as long as anyone could remember. It made it hard for the school sports teams to function, because one town was always trying to show up the other one, even though they were supposed to be teammates. The competition between towns was so fierce that the teams spent all their time fighting amongst themselves. I was pretty sure this dumb rivalry was the cause of our football team not winning the championship in almost thirty years, because we'd had some pretty darn good players in that time.

But with the jocks fighting among themselves, they had no time for us, and had it not been for Brad Kisner and his mob of idiots, life would have been peaceful.

"Yeah. They won't show their faces in our town just to bug us," I pointed out. "But even if they did, I have no intention of hiding from them."

"You don't have to hide from them," Rich pointed out. "Your old man is a cop."

I fumed a little at that, but nodded. "I know it's me that Kisner especially hates. He's just been hawking on Devvy and you guys lately to get at me. That makes me mad, but I'm not sure what to do about it."

"You should never have built a bookcase that was better than his," Rich complained. "You know how Kisner is about wood."

I made a rude noise at that. "Hey, the hell with Brad Kisner. It's not my fault I'm better with a keyhole saw than he is! What should I do, lay down and let him win all the time? All my woodshop projects have turned out better than his."

"He hates it, too," Rich reminded. "His daddy runs that little furniture shop on Maybell Street over in Muskrat Hill, and he expects Brad to take it over one day. He's always bragging about how good Brad is with wood tools. He was pissed when you got the award in wood shop for your bookcase, instead of Brad."

"And every other award you've won in wood shop, instead of Brad," Joey injected.

"That's because Brad's old man is just like him," I pointed out. "Stupid."

Rich nodded. "He thinks because he's on the town council over there that everything should go his way. I can see why Brad's such an asshole. His daddy is an even bigger one."

I fumed. "Well, what do you want me to do about it? Make crappy projects just so Brad can look good? I'm not doing it."

"You could kick his ass," Joey put in, pointedly.

I probably could, too. Mad as I was over Kisner's continuing harassment of all of us, I could probably level the guy, no problem. But...that would piss off my dad, who felt that fighting was never the way to solve problems. And besides, Kisner was seldom by himself, and when he was, he stayed quiet and kept moving. He was only really vicious when he was at the head of his pack, and then he was a force for evil to be reckoned with.

I'd heard that it was much cooler now to be gay in the city, or the burbs. But here in the sticks there was still a little bit of a problem with it, and only the fear of the law kept some people in check. That was one thing that had changed pretty much everywhere, and that was the hate crime laws on the books now that dished out some stiffer penalties to people who let their evil side do their thinking for them. Live and let live was not the American doctrine, no matter how much they wanted the world to believe that. If you were different in America, there was always someone who wanted to make you pay for it.

"That wouldn't solve anything," I finally said. "That would just make things hotter. They'd get back at us, and then we'd get back at them...it would just keep going, around and around."

Joey made a face. "We haven't really gotten back at them yet, Kelly. They do crap to us, and we don't do anything about it."

I sighed. "You know what I mean. But if you let a war get started, it gets nasty."

Rich shook his head at that. "Better to fight a war than to just get rolled over."

He had a point there. Being the son of a deputy had its drawbacks as well as its perks. Yeah, idiots like Brad Kisner were less anxious to do physical harm to someone when a badge and a gun might show up at their door as a response. But I had to live to a higher standard than other guys, because everything I did reflected back on my dad. And dad had a thing about people taking the law into their own hands, and acting stupid when they had the sense not to.

It left me in a bind, because I hated not doing anything about Kisner and his apes causing trouble for my friends - and especially my boyfriend. Kisner seemed to have singled out Devin at school for some antics, and I could not be with Devin all the time, in every class. I was constantly worried about what would happen next, and I was getting damn tired of it, too.

Damn Brad Kisner and his crazy mania for wood! His projects in wood shop were actually very good - better than anyone else's in class, except for mine. I just had a knack for building stuff, like my granddad, and a sense for design from my mom's side of the family, that kept winning me all the awards in class that Brad wanted; and that had Brad and his old man furious at me. The elder Kisner just couldn't get how some pansy could be better with wood than his own flesh and blood. As far as he was concerned, there was something wrong with the world about that.

So Brad's dad was always after him to do better, to show me up. I'd even heard the rumor that Brad's dad had pulled some strings on the town council to get Brad awarded a special town merit certificate for his work on the new pews over at the Muskrat Hill Baptist Church, even though old man Kisner had done most of the work himself! Brad was supposed to receive the award at the Deke Hawkins Commemoration festival in Muskrat Hill right after school let out for the summer.

Egos. It was all about egos, and nothing more, at least for Brad and his dad. For me, it was more than just my ego. I plain refused to give in to Brad's desire to be top wood guy in the class at school. I had every right to do the kind of work I liked and wanted to do, and the only way Brad was going to be better than me was to really be better than me.

It was simply a nice extra up until now that my woodwork was the only way I could get back at him, and I was not going to let it slide, and let him win. But that I felt guilty about what was happening to the guys as a result was eating me up inside, and I didn't know how much longer I could hold on. Damn.

I turned and looked up the path, hoping that Devvy had not gotten into trouble again. That Brad was after him to get back at me I knew, and that infuriated me. But what was I going to do about it? I'd told dad about what was going on, and he had asked if anyone had been hurt, and I'd had to say no, not really. But being taunted and having small injustices done to you on a daily basis was draining, and it was hurtful, even if there was no physical damage involved. It just couldn't go on.

Rich came closer and laid a hand on my shoulder. "Dev'll be okay, Kelly. Kisner's a jerk, but he knows he can't really hurt us and get away with it. It's just taunting shit. He won't do anything really stupid."

"You hope," Joey added.

Rich bit at his lip, and nodded. "Yeah."

I looked around at the shack, the concrete pier, the river that flowed through the stretch of woods that shielded the place from a valley full of rolling farmland. This was the back end of my granddad's property, and it was posted 'no trespassing'. Kisner wouldn't come here, not ever. Not with my dad working for Mike Dizzard and all, and my granddad's place just up on the hill, and him known for his hot temper and his collection of shotguns. This was our safe place, the old boathouse on the river and the weirdly painted concrete pier outside of it the one place the four of us could go and utterly be ourselves. Be free.

"I should go and look for Dev," I said then, feeling another small slice of my peace sliding away into eternity. Crap. Why did life have to be such a bitch sometimes?

"I'm right here," said a voice, and my heart did a little flip-flop in my chest.

The three of us jumped, and turned as one...and gaped as one.

There stood the love of my life, dressed much as I was: tee-shirt, shorts, running shoes...all now a ghastly white in color. Dev's hair was white, his face was white - everything, from top to bottom, was a pure, pearly white

I jumped forward, to stop in front of him. "What the hell happened?"

Dev shook his head, and spit some white out onto the ground. "Brad Kisner is what happened."

The three of us crowded around Dev now, all talking at once, until I finally stuck a couple of fingers in my mouth and blew my best freight train whistle. Three sets of eyes snapped to attention, and I immediately pointed a finger a Dev. "What happened?"

"I went over to the elementary school with my folks this morning, for the little spring fair they have there. They wanted to stay, but I wanted to get here, so I walked it. I was walking along Route Two past the old Potter place, heading here, when I heard a car coming up behind me, but I didn't pay it no mind. It passed me, and it was a pick up, and the back was full of guys. Brad Kisner and his squad of dickheads. Emmet Castleby was driving, and you know what a brainless turd he his. Brad yelled for him to stop, and he did."

"What'd you do?" Joey asked.

"I stopped, too. I'm not stupid. You don't walk up on a bunch of idiots like that."

I pointed at his new covering. "So how did that happen?"

Dev blew a frustrated breath between his lips. "They started calling me names. You know, like sugarplum fairy and Devin-dik-likker. I got mad, and flipped them the bird."

I winced, seeing where that would lead. Where it had led.

"And?"

"And, they turned the truck around and chased me. I lit out across Potter's field, but they just came on through, too. Emmet had that truck hopping and jumping across the ground, and no matter which way I turned, they followed. They finally passed me, and Brad stood up in the back of the truck. He had a paint can in his hands, and he drew back and pitched what was in it at me." Dev patted the sodden front of his tee-shirt. "And what you see is what I got."

I closed my eyes, feeling anger and sorrow at the same time. "I'm so sorry, Dev."

"What? It's not your fault."

"Yeah, it is. Brad gives you hell because he hates me."

Even under the coat of whitewash, I could see Dev's face pinch up in denial. "No, Kelly. Brad did this 'cause he's an ass, and his stupid buddies laughed and thought it was great. It's not your fault at all. It's theirs."

I stepped closer, and put a hand out. "I love you, Dev. I can't stand this shit happening to you."

He grinned at me then. "I'd give you a big, sloppy hug right now...but as you can see, that would only make things worse."

I had to smile at that. "Right." I pointed at his new, ghostly look. "That's paint, I take it."

Dev cleared his throat and spit out another gob of white. "Tastes like whitewash. I'm just glad it's not an oil-based paint."

I nodded. "Okay. Come on over here by the water and unload your pockets."

"Why?"

"I want you to dunk in the river. That stuff will come off pretty easily while it's still wet."

We went out onto the concrete pier that hugged the edge of the river. Dev was careful to walk along the edge, so as not to drip whitewash on the awful artwork there. The concrete surface was covered with all sorts of odd painting - faces, figures, groups of maybe-people, and a few things that looked like they were drug-induced. When I was ten I'd asked my gran how all that weird stuff got there, and he smiled and said a roving band of hippies had squatted in his boathouse one summer long before I was born, and he'd had to get Sheriff Dizzard to run them off.

"But by then they'd painted all sorts of weird stuff all over that concrete pier."

"You could have painted over it," I'd pointed out.

"Yeah, but why should I? I don't use that boathouse or that pier. You and your friends use it as your clubhouse. If you don't like the art that goes with it, you paint it."

And so it had stayed. It was weird, but there was a certain something about it that was kind of cool, and well...there was also something not quite right about the smile that went along with gran's story, that made me think there was some other explanation than a band of roving hippies. Whatever they were.

There was a black iron ladder that went down the side of the pier into the water, where you could draw up a boat and get aboard it. Dev carefully unloaded his pockets (I noted with a sigh the white fingerprints on the side of my new cell), and then climbed down into the water. I stood at the head of the ladder, unable not to smile just a little at my boyfriend's dilemma. It was a crappy thing to happen, no doubt. But after we rinsed Dev off, he'd have to get out of those wet clothes, and...

Things might happen. We were totally at ease in the shack, just the four of us. There was a large mattress on the concrete floor, an old sofa nearby, a small fridge with goodies in it, a TV and a DVD player - just like home, but without the worries.

"It's cold," Dev complained, as he settled into the water.

"I'm sorry," I returned. "But dunk your head under and run your fingers through your hair. You need to get that stuff out of it before it clumps any more."

We were late into the spring, and summer was just around the corner. But the Yarrow is a cold river even on the hottest days of summer, and I could sympathize with Dev's plight. He was a good sport about it, and when he next emerged from the water most of the white was gone. I pointed out a few places that still needed work, and he sighed and dunked himself again. The next time he surfaced he quickly ascended the ladder, and climbed back onto the pier.

"I don't care what's left. I am not getting back in that water."

I smiled at him. "Come summer, and those ninety-five degree days get here, you'll love this water."

He made a face at me, but didn't say anything more.

I walked around him, inspecting, and then came up behind him and put my arms around him. The water from his clothes seeped into the front of my shirt, but I didn't care. I laid my chin on his shoulder and kissed the side of his neck. "I'm sorry this happened. I'll kill Brad for you, if you want."

Dev sighed, but raised his hands and rubbed my arms. "That would be too much. But I would like to find a way to get some back from him."

I kissed him again. "We'll think of something. I guess it is time we take a stand." I sighed, feeling we were turning a corner now, and that there would be no looking back. "Come on in the shack and I'll get you out of those wet clothes."

"I don't need any help."

"Yeah, you do."

Dev twisted around in my arms then, and smiled at me. "Kiss me, and you've got a deal."

I did that, and then we went inside.