Palouse - 36. Chapter 36

Chapter 36

New Year’s Eve – December 1995

End of the Month

The New Year’s Eve barn dance was scheduled to begin at nine outside town on a farm near the Oregon border. The large, open area under the rounded barn roof had been decorated with red and blue balloons and ribbons. The hay had been swept from the center of the room leaving an open wood-plank floor smoothed to a natural gleam with years of wear. Bales of hay had been moved along the walls to serve as seats and tables.

Someone had brought a good stereo to provide music. On a decorated table near the door, there were two large bowls of punch, one bright red and the other lemonade-colored, both with a large block of strawberry-decorated ice floating in the center and plastic ladles drooping over the edges. There were stacks of plastic cups alongside. Chips and salsa shared space on another table with party favors and hats set aside for midnight.

Most of the predominantly Walla Walla College students stood in high-school-like clumps waiting for something to happen; others sat at the few hay-bale tables at the edges of the room, while still others had found places on the stacked hay bales.

Micah was with David at one of the tables; in front of them was a small bowl of chips and salsa that Micah had filled at the refreshment table. Before they left his dorm, Micah had gone to his room and retrieved a bottle of vodka that he had secreted there in anticipation of this party. So after David fetched a couple of cups of punch, Micah slipped them under the table and topped them off. When David took his next sip, he almost coughed it up before he smiled and looked Micah in the eye.

“That’s something I would do, not something a good Adventist person like you would do,” he said quietly to Micah. Micah looked about the room innocently, his lips puckered in a whistle of nonchalance.

What Micah really wanted to happen was for the two of them to kiss in front of all the students at the party, to announce himself and his boyfriend to the world, but in order to do so he needed alcohol-courage. However, he had said nothing to David that this was his intention, so maybe that was another reason to get high. Micah thought that if he was going to be reborn, he might as well do it up in a grand fashion.

Someone finally put on some Whitney Houston, and the dancing began, tentatively.

“This barn dance isn’t supposed to happen,” David whispered to Micah. “It’s against the Adventist philosophy. Tsk. Tsk.”

“Fuck you,” Micah whispered and took another swallow of his punch. “And this is private, not church, property.”

David opened his eyes wide in mock astonishment. “My, my. Aren’t we being daring? You give the boy an inch of vodka and he takes a mile of liberties.”

“Fuck you, again. I’ve spent my time in the wilderness.” Micah’s eyes were full of flirting.

David raised his eyebrows and flirted back. His fall for Micah had gone from a shallow slide to a tumultuous tumble.

“Do you want to dance?” Micah asked.

The request stunned David. “I, er, I don’t think that would be too good an idea – with this crowd.” Was Micah’s pendulum swinging too fast to the other side? David asked himself. He knew he wanted Micah to be free and open about life and their budding relationship, but he wanted above all a well-grounded relationship, not one exposed by too much alcohol. He suddenly feared that Micah was going to throw away his life at Walla Walla College – suddenly and irreversibly; David didn’t want that to happen. He wanted Micah to wade into the pool of life, not jump in from 10 meters.

David began to be concerned about the number of times Micah was visiting the punch bowl. In truth, he was concerned about Micah’s ability to handle both the alcohol and the abrupt changes in his life.

“Don’t you think you’ve had enough for a while, Micah?”

“What are you, my nanny?” Micah answered half in jest and half in irritation.

“Maybe somebody has to be your nanny,” David mumbled to himself a bit loudly.

“Look, David, I’m nervous. I know you have helped me out. I know you’ve taken responsibility for me, but I am an adult, and I want to be treated like one, even if it means you mumbling more quietly. In fact, I think it would be better if you didn’t think you had to mumble at all.”

“Okay, I know I’ve maybe been overbearing at times, but it’s because I love you. Plus, I’ve seen you dipping heavily into the vodka.”

“David, I’m not going anywhere at the end of the night but to my room, and you’re driving. Hell, I can walk to my dorm if I have to. So, if I get shitfaced, that’s my problem. Okay? The only thing that might affect you is me asking you to dance and kissing you at midnight.”

“Doing what at midnight!?”

“Kissing you. It’s going to be a gratitude kiss, and it’s going to be my first public gay kiss. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I want to do it.” Micah’s eyes turned merry. “Of course, it will be easier if I’m half-potted.”

“Half potted? God, what have I gotten myself into?” David sighed.

“Exhibitionism, with a tinge of love, I hope.”

“Before you get too ‘half-potted’, can we talk about this?”

“Sure,” Micah said, taking another sip of punch. “That’s what we’re doing.”

“You know that I’m already outed, so it makes no difference to me, but you…you will be outing yourself, and that will change how everybody relates to you.”

“David, anyone who knows you and your sexual orientation and my association with you is going to see us around town and put one and one together and get queer. Walla Walla is a small city, and our budding but wonderful relationship is going to be noticed eventually. It’s just a matter of time. Someone will see us too many times together at Merchant’s or the movies or wherever and the arithmetic of our relationship will be tallied. So, I’m simply controlling the timing of the announcement. Okay?”

David sighed, but he saw that Micah had thought about this. David’s estimation of Micah took a step upward.

The two young men stared into each other’s eyes. Anyone looking closely could only have judged that it was a look of love.

A rock song sounded from the stereo. “Let’s dance. I mean, let’s find someone to dance with,” Micah offered. “A fast dance, so nobody will know that we’re really dancing with each other – till later.” He turned to David and bowed. “May I have this dance?”

“I’d be honored, suh.”

Micah extended his hand, which David took. After they both were on their feet, Micah dropped David’s hand. He approached a pile of hay bales where two smiling, Levi-wearing women were nursing their punch. “May we have this dance?” The women brightened with smiles. The party had been slow to get started, and two handsome men asking two pretty women to dance would liven things up.

David and Micah danced for a while with the two at the table, and then they danced with a number of others who had lost their shyness and begun to join the group on the dance floor. The party had moved into full swing, and it appeared that some others had brought some fortification for their punch.

David and Micah returned to their table as the time for the end of the year arrived. Micah rose and got another punch and some New Year’s favors.

David lifted his eyebrow. “Just punch. I swear,” Micah said. “I got thirsty from the dancing.” They sat and watched the dance floor.

“Last dance. Last dance before midnight,” the DJ announced.

“May I,” Micah said, extending his hand.

“Of course.”

David and Micah wended their way to the area set out as the dance floor. The song was Mariah Carey’s I Can’t Live (If Living Is Without You), and a decision point had come. Micah reached around David and drew him in.

“I guess that means you lead,” David said with a grin on his face. They closed the distance between them, rested their heads on each other’s shoulders and moved slowly to the rhythm of the music. They didn’t hear the reaction around them, as some couples drifted away from where they were, while others, after a glance at them, continued in place. At the end of the dance, the DJ put on Auld Lang Syne, which started everyone singing. As the last notes died away, Micah took David’s face in his hands and kissed him – deeply and passionately. There would be no question in the dormitory, and probably at Walla Walla College, about Micah’s sexual orientation. Wrapped up in each other, they didn’t hear some of the angry murmurs, nor see the curious glances. Nor did they notice the few who seemed to accept what they were doing.

* * * * *

It was about one when they got to the dorm. The common room was empty; most students were still out on Christmas break. A few pop cans littered the coffee tables that fronted the low Danish-style couches. Micah went to the pop machine and bought two fresh Cokes.

A blond-wood upright piano sat in the corner of the room. Micah led David over to it. “I want to play something for you,” Micah said as he sat at the piano, paused, took a breath and began to play. David didn’t recognize the piece.

A few minutes later, Micah laid his fingers on the keyboard for the last notes, then looked up at David. “It’s Bach – one of his Sinfonias at love-song tempo.”

“It was beautiful,” but David didn’t understand why it was so important for Micah to play the piano at one in the morning. And then he found out.

“I wrote some lyrics for it – a song. Dedicated to you.” Micah raised his Coke can and clinked it against David’s, took a sip and set it on the coaster on the piano. He began to play – in a slower tempo this time – and in his clear voice sang[1]:

You told me that I shouldn’t love you,

You told me that I should leave you,

You said you’d only hurt me,

You said that it’s time to move on

You said the time for us is done

That I no longer need you

But your eyes said something else

And I cannot, I will not let us part

What you did to help me

Is in the past and now is over.

It’s time to move to tomorrow and then on

You are my light. I love you.

You’ll give me the life I’ve wanted

You are all I ever dream of

and I want to give you my love

I know that you love me

I know you’ve seen how I’ve changed

Now, let me into your life

And let us be forever together

I want our lives together

From now and ever more, forever

together to become as one

Together forever

Is what I want to live for

With you as my beloved,

as my joy of life

You are the life that I long for

You are the one that I want beside me

From now until forever

Together forever

I know that you love me too

I see it in your eyes

That we should be as one and we should be to each other

forever together true

David’s eyes were shiny when Micah finished the last few notes of the song. “You wrote that?”

“No, Bach did.”

“I mean the words, nitwit.”

“Yes.” Micah visibly reddened.

“Doubly beautiful,” he said, and he sat beside Micah on the piano bench, leaned over and kissed him fully, energetically and passionately on the lips.

“I still need to go home, but I’ll remember the song as I go to sleep.” David said with a yawn.

Classes began several days after the new year. David and Micah decided to study together at Merchant’s late in the afternoon after their first class; they had coffee and opened their books on the café table; in the evening they stopped by McDonald’s before heading for Micah’s dorm in David’s Civic.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come home with me?” David asked as Micah was about to close the car door.

“I’d better not. I have a paper to work on tomorrow plus a test to study for. Besides, I want to face my dorm mates – on my own. I feel I may have caused an earthquake, and I need the aftershocks to keep me close to reality. There probably will be some ugly ones.”

“Do you want me to stay with you?”

“I’d love that. But it’s not a good idea. Go home. Good night. I love you. Drive safely, really safely,” Micah said and leaned in and gave David a quick kiss on the lips.

As David drove back to his apartment through the evening streets of Walla Walla, he couldn’t help but admire how well Micah had handled the “official” coming out – despite the intoxication. He pulled up in front of his house, unlocked the door and climbed the stairs to his apartment. He stripped, brushed his teeth and climbed into his bed – with a full erection and fond memories of their kiss and parting.

The phone rang at the apartment too early for David the next morning. “I survived,” Micah’s voice said. “I got a few scurrilous remarks this morning at breakfast, but most of the dorm didn’t do anything. It’s a good thing we don’t have a bunch of football-team-sized guys at Walla Walla College, though.”

“Good. But you’ve only been up a few hours. The storm hasn’t had time to gather.”

“Don’t worry, but I’m counting on you if I need you.”

“Call if you need me.”