Jericho's Wall - 6. Chapter 6

Although the next day was gorgeous, clear and blue and hot (though not as hot as it was to get in the next couple weeks or so), a perfect storm of events involving June led Jericho and me to some hasty rearrangements and a state of mild piss-off we could do nothing to avoid. She’d finished her sunrise over the pretend farmer’s woods commission, business at the stand had dwindled the barn-bin veggies to under a quarter-full and a new project had caught her shade-sensitive eye. “I was standing at the kitchen sink looking out the window and I noticed how the noonday sun dappled off the shallow water and lit the undersides of the trees and it’ll make a gorgeous painting if I can get the light just right.”

“You’ve painted the stream a thousand times, Mom!” Jericho protested, incredulous. “There’s one hanging on the staircase wall right now! You want me to go get it?”

“I’ve never painted it midday, though, and never with the waterline this far down,” she replied, serene in the face of his pouting. “It won’t hurt y’all to share your sanctuary for a few days and your snoring won’t bother me a bit. Or you can nap in the barn, you’ve done that often enough too. Shouldn’t take me long at all to get my baselines down, maybe two weeks, and then your annoying old mother will happily get out of your hair.”

So she closed the stand and took to sketching and painting down by the creek and wild elderberry shrubs while Jericho and I grumbled but moved our after-lunch activities to the barn as suggested. On the first day Jericho dry-humped me again by sticking his dick between my clenched thighs, indirectly stimulating from another angle the spot deep inside me I was beginning to know better, and eventually spunking all over my inner legs and balls. For the next couple weeks, until June finally finished “getting her baselines down”, we spent our rest hour in the hayloft, where he’d dry-hump me between either my ass-cheeks or thighs then we’d snooze on scratchy cattle-blankets while the bats in the rafters shot us annoyed sonars for disturbing them and settled back into their own slumber. It was fun, although one day when we were in the middle of our business Janey’s voice came floating up the ladder, shockingly close. “Jericho? Mateo? Y’all up there?”

“Shit,” Jericho swore under his breath, a testimony to how rattled he was. We hurriedly pulled our jeans up and slid down the ladder, where Janey raised her eyebrows, inspecting us minutely, and I was glad both Jericho and I were wearing long, untucked shirts.

“What were y’all doing up there?”

“Sleeping,” Jericho answered shortly. “What do you want, Janey?”

“Sounded like you were wrestling.”

“He tried to take my favorite hay-bale,” I broke in, aiming for breezy and mostly making it. “You know how your brother is. I had to defend my territory.”

“What do you want, sis?” Jericho’s voice tenser than before and, realizing, he softened the end of his question with the diminutive instead of her name.

She gave him another inquiring look but replied, “I heard the Pattons had some kids they were trying to get rid of and I thought maybe me and you could gang up on Mom and convince her to buy a couple. You know Juanita won’t help, if it doesn’t run on batteries or gasoline she doesn’t care.”

“And you couldn’t have waited until this afternoon when I was in the field or tonight after dinner or even in the morning to ask me instead of barging in when you know Mat and me take our naps after lunch?”

Janey’s face scrunched in hurt. “I was just trying to catch you when Mom was distracted so we could talk about it, I didn’t know you’d be too busy to even speak to me! I wasn’t trying to make you mad!”

Jericho closed his eyes, took a deep breath, opened them again. “I’m sorry, sis,” he said, his voice carefully controlled. “I didn’t mean to yell at you, I was just looking forward to a nap and you startled me, that’s all. Okay?” She nodded uncertainly. “I’m perfectly willing to gang up on Mom with you but we’ll discuss it later, I promise.”

“That was close,” I commented as we watched her walk out into the sunlight, her shoulders still hunched slightly from Jericho’s rebuke.

“Too close. And don’t let the wounded eyes fool you, Janey is just as skilled at the scolded-and-hurt act as any pet dog. She was snooping.”

“She knows what we do?”

“I don’t think she does but she knows something is up between me and you, which means Juanita does too but the difference is Juanita won’t care enough to investigate, figuring it’s our own business. Janey, though . . .” He sighed. “C’mon, let’s go nap. If I can manage to drop off.”

I followed him back up to the loft, and as he lay down on his bale I could only describe his expression as spooked. Perhaps spooked enough to call off our . . . whatever it was, and my mind raced to figure out how to head him off at the pass. “What’s the worst could happen?” I asked. “Janey getting an eyeful and blabbing, right?”

“Yup, pretty much sums it up,” was his dry response.

“Okay,” I said, my case solidifying in my mind. “Would she spread the news far and wide, telling Darren and Jill and Rodi and whoever she might run across?”

“No,” Jericho said instantly. “Janey has her faults but she isn’t a gossip. At least about personal family stuff,” he amended, both of us perhaps reflecting on the many times Janey had gloated about something tweeny one of her peers had said or done.

“And you already said Juanita won’t care.”

“Juanita is likely at this very moment telling Janey she wouldn’t get her feelings hurt if she’d mind her own dang beeswax.” A small smile as he pictured it.

“Who does that leave she’d tell? Your Mom? Maybe Bud and Ron? They’re pretty much the only ones you’d call close family, right?”

“Got a few aunts and uncles and cousins running around,” Jericho allowed, “but I don’t think Janey would hunt them down to gossip about us.”

“Okay then,” I said, warming to my line of questioning. “June, Bud and Ron. What would they say if Janey blabbed to them?” I thought I knew them well enough to gauge how they’d respond but I wanted to hear it from Jericho.

And I did. “All three of them would tell Janey to butt out and caution me and you to be more discreet next time.” His next words surprised me though they really shouldn’t have—Jericho went miles deeper and was much smarter than he liked people to think, remember? “I’m pretty sure they all know anyhow. It’s not like we’ve tried very hard to hide our . . . how we . . .”

“No, we haven’t,” I agreed quickly, wanting to spare him the agony of trying to say something we both knew without actually saying it. I hesitated and turned his own argument from my second night here against him, when we were discussing Sunshine and Moonbeam—er, Alder and Clay. “And if they did find out, would you be ashamed?”

“No.” Another instant response and then a slow, “Embarrassed, probably, but only because it’s private.” He’d caught the reference.

“There you go,” I said softly. “When you look at it this way, Janey isn’t much of a threat. This isn’t like the old days where the artist and the curly-haired boy might have—probably would have been beaten at the least and maybe killed at the worst.” My mention of our mythical romantic heroes was deliberate.

“People still get beaten and killed for being gay these days, don’t fool yourself,” he said, but his tone was pensive again.

Time for the summation. “True. But not because of Janey tattling. Or Juanita or June or Bud or Ron. And they’re the only ones she’d be likely to blab to.” I finished a la Sister Sarah. “Simple logic.” Jericho grinned, mostly but not fully convinced. So I stood up and turned around and unbuttoned my pants. “Weren’t we in the middle of something?”

“But—”

“Janey’s been scolded by you enough today. Juanita won’t care and likely won’t come in here anyway, she won’t want scolding either. Your mom would yell something as soon as she walked in the barn door to prevent any embarrassment for anyone.” With every sentence pushing my jeans down a little more, and I know I wasn’t imagining the heat of his gaze upon me. “If all else fails, anybody trying to climb that creaky-ass ladder would alert us no matter deep into our thing we were.” I bent over the bale and gave my final argument. “I’m still thinking about somebody fucking me.” Let the jury decide.

Deliberation didn’t last long, maybe half a minute. The verdict? The one I was gunning for: not innocent. Maybe my dad was onto something about me being a lawyer. “I gotta admit I’m still thinking about fucking somebody,” Jericho mused, “and I hate blue balls.”

We annoyed the bats again. It was fun.

When we went for our weekly brownie we found Jill all spruced up, lips glistening and red, uniform shirt open to show off her ample, rounded cleavage—meaning she’d seen us coming across the parking lot. We didn’t have any particular day we stopped in and I wondered if she’d been so painstaking with her makeup and hair every shift. Probably. “Hi, Jer,” she said as bell tinkled above our heads, adding, “—icho,” when he shot her a look much like Bud’s bloodcurdling rebuke-Ron face. Interesting. Daunted but determined, she continued, “And Mateo, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Jer . . . icho said, not slowing his pace towards the high bar.

“Hi, Jill,” I said. “You look pretty today. Nice hair.”

She ignored me, as I’d figured she would; maybe I should’ve complimented her boobs instead? “How’s your mom and the girls, Jericho?”

“They’re great,” he said briefly as we seated ourselves. “Hey, Rodi, how’s the munchkin?”

The munchkin being both much better and much too curious about things his mother had no knowledge of, such as why the sky was blue or the grass green, Jericho said he didn’t know either (although he did, as did I) and ordered our brownies. Jill said nothing else as Jericho and I chattered away, not even when the bell tinkled over our heads as we left. I dearly wanted to stick my tongue out at her but I was a good boy and didn’t. I might’ve scratched my ass with my middle finger as we walked out the door, I can’t really remember.

The days passed, not slowly but not quickly, just smooth and sweet. And hot. Temperatures inched up by the minute, rain holding off so long Jericho began to fret. “We’re not at the worrying stage yet,” he assured both me and himself, “and the weather folks swear it’s a temporary thing, there’ll be plenty of rain the rest of the summer.” But he fretted.

“Ah, this is nothing,” Ron commented, picking at a crooked pinky toe—I still hadn’t gotten used to them (nor am I used to them now—shudder). “You want a heatwave, shoulda been here in the summer of ’69, right Bud?”

“What I mainly remember about the heatwave of ’69 was the storm ended it,” Bud replied. Ron did his growl-thing and I wondered if the storm they referenced was the one where Bud “took him down” in this very kitchen (we were inside the house with the air on despite Ron’s derision of the heat outdoors) while the roof leaked and wild animals looked on; counting back, I suspected the timing was right. “But I think the summers were always hotter and the winters colder when you were a kid.”

“Remember walking uphill to school barefoot and in the snow?” Ron asked, eyes twinkling.

“I wasn’t barefoot, I was wearing your shoes!” Bud retorted, and his partner laughed. “Oh, boys, while I’m thinking of it, we’re cooking out on July Fourth. They do fireworks at the high school and as the crow flies we’re not too far from the football stadium,” he explained to me, “so all of you including June and the twins are welcome.”

“This is news?” Jericho asked, grinning. “Y’all throw it every year, we come every year. It’s a tradition at this point. Mom’s already planning what she’ll bring.”

“We’ve got the food,” Ron protested.

“You tell my mom, I’ll hide and watch.”

“Point. If she wants to whip up her special recipe red velvet cake I won’t be hurt. It would go great with the homemade ice cream.”

“We’ll tell her.” Yes, Jericho and I had become “we”, much like Bud and Ron. Upon reflection I realized we’d been a we for a while, we just hadn’t noticed.

And the days kept passing. The dang deer got in again but Jericho repaired and cleaned up after them with a minimum of fuss. I shot another ugly booger, then another, spotting them before they became an issue and coldly blowing them away, Dirty Harry-style. We worked in the garden, picking for all we were worth, and the levels in the barn-bins steadily rose. We annoyed the bats in the hayloft, first scouting to ensure Janey was busy elsewhere and taking all appropriate precautions but not too concerned about her nosiness and she correspondingly dialing back her inquisitiveness a notch—I think June spoke to her, I’m not sure, but Jericho and I both were relieved when his mother finished “getting her baselines” and reopened the stand, removing herself and the girls from the farm so her son and I could do our dry-hump thing in the open air instead of the hotter, smellier barn. The bats were happy too. Next time we went to the diner Jill was all gussied again but instead of targeting Jericho she instead targeted her male customers, including an aging hippie with long hair who looked like a stoned librarian and didn’t pay the slightest bit of attention to her; I wondered if he played for our team and resolved to ask Bud then dropped the resolution, not caring if the guy were gay or not. None of my business. Jericho ignored her flirtatious antics but he did at least tell her goodbye when we left. She watched us go and I noticed her confused irritation had dropped away to be replaced with a smug speculation. She’d figured out what I had the day of our catfight: time was on her side, not mine. I knew she and Jericho would likely reunite and have babies and all that gooey heterosexual stuff and I didn’t have a problem with the knowledge or indeed with her. I just wanted her to leave us alone until I left. Sister Sarah expounded on God’s simple and approachable logic but warned against cherry-picking Bible verses and taking them out of context. “If a sentence starts out with ‘therefore’ you need to go back and find out what it’s there for.” Sounded reasonable to me. My parents called or a postcard arrived and while I was happy to hear from them, to find out how much they were enjoying their tour (and they were enjoying it) and to tell them some of what was going on here at the farm I felt somewhat at a remove, and the sense of this is how it feels to have a life apart from them intensified to disquieting proportions; suddenly the shadowy life I’d have “after college” seemed much closer and more real even if it wouldn’t happen for several more years—six, to be exact, and that was disquieting too. I didn’t feel grown-up yet (whatever grown-up means) but I was getting there. June ran us off again one Saturday, and though Jericho raised an eyebrow and commented, “Hmm, usually she goes a few months between peaceful bubble baths,” he then merely shrugged and decided she’d been stressed by days on end of the twin’s fighting, which June said was hormones and tween-turning-to-teen angst but still worked everybody’s last, finger-wriggling-in-ear nerve. Apparently they were on good terms with Isabella again as Jericho and I dropped them off at her house for an overnight and a man I assumed was Ron’s asshole brother gave me a look pungent enough to claim as a fart and I hoped he didn’t hold similar views of his step-daughter or we’d have to fight—I felt very protective of Isabella despite not talking to her much. Jericho said Herb treated the girl “tolerable well” mainly because Bud’s mom or dad or sister or Ron or Bud himself would shoot his balls off to step on and not even wear as earrings if he didn’t. In Athens, we rolled round and round the floor, not holding hands but occasionally brushing fingers as the DJ spun . . . you know what he spun. Is it an earworm yet?

The nights passed too. Though we regularly dry-humped after lunch we didn’t at night, instead doing our tamer dual-dialogue separated by the nightstand and the darkness. I didn’t complain. I grokked why Jericho stayed safely on the other side of the room at bedtime: there was a squeeze-bottle of mineral oil under the top of my mattress and dry-humping me in here so close to available lube would provide a temptation neither of us were sure we could deny. Jericho was going to fuck me for real at some point, I knew it and he knew it, he just needed to work up his nerve, and I think most of his hesitation came from his innate chivalry; he’d feel obliged to swap his own ass for mine despite my telling him several times I had no interest being on top in our dry-humps and so should have been able to deduce my interest in being on top for the real thing—ie zilch. So I waited patiently, just stretched my hole as much as I could while sharing the details with unbridled enthusiasm. Afterward, we’d talk, Jericho to Mateo, and the dark didn’t press in on us but rather freed us so our openness flowed like unseen streams between our beds. Jericho’s walls were coming down, most of them anyway, but I doubted all of them would, no matter how many times I marched around him blowing my horn—the subject of another of Sister Sarah’s sermons. There were many things he’d never talk about, not then, not later as we grew closer yet, not ever. He never mentioned his father Joe in more than the barest terms or passing references. He never discussed Jill, sexually or otherwise, nor shared why she’d broken up with him this last time (although given a few random comments I suspected she’d been annoyed by his insistence on trying anal, but what do I know?). His former best friend (man did I love thinking those words) was always brought up in the context of “Darren and me went” or “Darren and me once” and never “we felt” or “we wondered”. But he talked about his fears. His biggest was failing as a farmer; he’d taken an enormous gamble not getting a “real” job and luckily June’s fame as a painter paid the bills and something more, though don’t let me give the impression they were rich. They weren’t. He’d casually mentioned one time (outside of bed) his father’s family had owned the land here for over a century though three or four generations back the farm had been allowed to go fallow until successful insurance salesman Joe had decided to revive it, although on a part-time, hobby basis and was dubious when Jericho swore it could become a paying proposition again. So yeah, dead father and promise from son . . . easy enough to unravel. Nor did my paternally-assumed analytical mind have a problem extrapolating further. I had a pretty damn good idea of the labor involved in running a farm by now and though Jericho and I worked hard to keep up we didn’t bust our ass but I knew he had busted his ass before my arrival and would again after I left, working alone to maintain what two people did now (and I winced when I imagined him repairing the fence without someone to keep watch for ugly boogers). To build the farm from self-sustainable but barely breaking even into a larger, more profitable enterprise was going to take more work than he could give. And the cheapest labor? Children. Ugh. Yes, there were laws even back in the faraway days of 1992 against exploiting kids or forcing them to work but hey, this was a family-type thing and children have always been expected to pull their weight on a farm, especially as they matured, and as long as they weren’t being abused or neglecting other priorities DHR and the labor department were likely to pay no mind. And what could Jill give Jericho that Mateo couldn’t? Once again, ugh.

As for me, I had no walls. The only subject I carefully tiptoed around was my feelings for Jericho, a subject he tiptoed around as well. I told him things I’ve never told anyone, things I’m not going to tell you now. I described my loneliness growing up, how I always felt “other” and not just about my obvious biracial heritage and not just about my being gay either. I didn’t connect; I’d long to, I’d find someone I thought might be compatible as the fabled “best friend” only to find myself unable to reach out, to trust, and I found out Jericho had felt the same, that if Darren hadn’t reached out to him in kindergarten and wouldn’t take shyness for an answer he likely never would have had a best friend either, though he didn’t know how fabled they were; the friendship he and I shared was the kind he’d always considered a tall tale. And I confided my fears about coming out, not only to my family but to the world, and this time I wasn’t surprised when he gave me advice Bud later said was amazingly insightful, especially coming from a straight-identifying male.

“Look, you’re out to everyone here, right?”

“Well, yeah, except for Rodi and Jill I guess.”

“Forget about them, Rodi likely knows too but doesn’t care and won’t gossip and Jill has her nose so far up her own patootie these days she’s smelling her lunch. No, I’m talking about your family here.” Again, I was absurdly touched, even though I’d begun to think of them that way myself—not as relatives but as family. “How did you come out to us?”

I snorted. “I didn’t. First you figured it out, then Bud and what Bud knows Ron knows and I think June has been aware since the instant she laid eyes on me.”

He chuckled. “Probably.”

“The only people I deliberately came out to were Janey and Juanita, and they already guessed too.”

“Well, I think it took a lot of courage to announce it at breakfast the way you did, even if we didn’t make a big deal out of it. That was deliberate too. Not because your courage isn’t something to be celebrated but because your sexuality makes zero difference in how we feel about you. We love you. You’re blood-kin, you’re a good person and we love you.” Spoken simply. “But you also admitted it, at least to me, just as soon as you were asked. And I’m guessing you did the same to Bud whenever he asked you. What would you say if some random person on the street asked? Or Jill, even?”

“I’d tell ‘em it was none of their damn business,” I answered without thinking.

“But what if you were with another boy, on a date?”

“I’d still tell ‘em it was none of their business and then walk off holding his hand.” Or at least I liked to think I would.

“There you have it.”

“Have what?”

“Mateo, coming out isn’t a one-stop shop. You’ll be doing it over and over and over again your entire life, because like it or not unless you’re in someone’s face about it in some way the world is going to assume you are straight, there’s a reason it’s called heteronormative, and ninety-nine-point-nine-to-the-most-nth degree percent of people aren’t going to care enough to look any deeper and get ticked off if they’re forced. Find the people who do care enough to look deeper and either admit it straight up or flat-out tell them. Like with us, come out to one or two people at a time and one day you’ll find the whole world does know and you didn’t even have to stress.”

I followed the advice, and when someone comes to me with the same concerns I pay it forward as it’s the best counsel I’ve ever heard on the subject. But I must admit I spent many mulling-while-he-mumbled nights wondering how and why he’d given the issue so much thought, and eventually I figured it out. I’m sure by this point you’ve figured it out too. If you haven’t, you will by the end of my tale.

So the days passed and the nights and it was suddenly July Fourth, Independence Day, close to the midpoint of my summer in Jericho’s constant company and the day of Bud and Ron’s yearly cookout. Were there fireworks? Oh boy there were fireworks! And they were explosive.

Jericho and I arrived early to help Ron set up tables, and when we walked into the backyard we found him turning up a beer even though it wasn’t even noon yet. (Lest I’ve given the wrong impression: Bud and Ron were not alcoholics. Not even close. They drank on some holidays and when they went out—rare—and on Sunday afternoons, and I’ve never seen them drink hard liquor nor more than a bottle of wine or half-case of beer between them. No, if I had to label them as anything it would as potheads, and I wouldn’t even know that much for a few more hours.) “Bud’s parents are coming over,” Ron explained as he crushed the can. “I just want a little buzz before they get here and I can sneak and maintain the rest of the day.”

“Where’s Bud?” Jericho asked.

“At our storage unit picking up some tablecloths and the paper goods from last year. He was going to do it yesterday but got bogged down in galleys and I didn’t think about it because of the jam-damn-packed grocery store and fighting for the good stuff. We really need to get that storage building up.” (Again, the “we” thing between them; Bud was about as enthused over the location of the decorative outhouse—he just wanted on-property storage, dammit—as Ron was over chasing down old-timers for ancient gossip and creating tales out the findings, but still everything was “we”.)

Feeling bratty, I asked, “Have you figured out the location of the original one yet?” Ron opened his mouth but I interrupted and pointed to the center of the small garden. “I think it was over there, see how the tomatoes are growing?”

Jericho burst out laughing and Ron cuffed me lightly on the ear. “Smartass.”

As we were setting the tables up Bud’s sister and Isabella came around the corner, both of them carrying bags. “Aw Sis, I told you we had plenty of everything, there was no need for—”

“Shut it,” she ordered, throwing the bags on the back porch and digging for a cigarette.

Ron looked at her and then Isabella and back at Bud’s sister, a hard expression on his face. “Where’s Ethan?”

“With Herb and his parents.” Who were Ron’s parents too, but he didn’t flinch. “And no, not because he doesn’t trust y’all around his kid. He only starts the shit to piss me and y’all off. He knows Ethan is perfectly safe here, Herb just wanted him to see his other grandparents and I . . .” she shrugged, “I didn’t feel like calling up the asshole, he’s been decent lately, so I let him. Besides, he knows I’ll take my damn children any damn where I please.”

“Uh-huh,” Ron said, sounding eerily like his partner in intonation. He massaged the bridge of his nose and pushed away his annoyance. “Oh well, at least I don’t have to worry about Ethan running into the grill or stealing cigarettes from your purse for your dad.” He shook a finger in mock irritation at Isabella. “And don’t you sneak any for him either, young lady, I know you and your Pop-Pop are thick as thieves and if you aid and abet his unhealthy habit I’ll tickle your feet until you pee, got me?” She giggled and nodded. With the assistance of our latest arrivals we started setting up the rented tables and folding chairs and I found I was beginning to like Bud’s sister, considering her bluntness bracing instead of abrasive; she also sounded to me like she brought most of her problems on herself, but then again don’t we all? Bud showed up carrying some boxes as we were finishing and his first words to his sister were, “Where’s Ethan?” with much the same expression as Ron had worn. Again she explained, and Bud’s lips thinned as he said “Uh-huh” and I discovered I’d been right, Ron’s intonations matched perfectly. But rather than look on the bright side as his partner had done Bud continued on to say, “That man is such an asshole even other assholes don’t like dealing with him. Why do you stay with him?”

She glanced at her daughter, took a drag off her cigarette and said, “Eh, he’s a sweet-talker, real silver-tongued.”

Ron burst into a coughing fit and dragged a snickering-but-trying-not-to-let-on Isabella off to fire the briquettes. Bud looked at his sister, his mouth twitching, and said, “Damn, girl, you need to get over your sexual peak.”

She crushed her cigarette under foot, ignoring her brother’s pained expression, retorted, “Like you haven’t said worse,” and sashayed off. Bud laughed, admitted, “True,” and started pulling plastic red, white and blue tablecloths from a box. Next to arrive were a pair of people I recognized instantly despite having never met them: Bud’s parents. Bud was the spit’n’image of his dad, same build, same ferocious, piercing green eyes, same carrot-colored hair, although the old man’s had thinned and faded to a dull gray with only streaks of red, the result of age and illness. He walked with a cane, slowly but with great stubbornness, and when he shook my hand his grip was strong and steady. His greeting was gruff, merely a “Good to meetcha” but I detected no judgment in it and figured out why when he smiled and wrapped his arms around Isabella, plainly doting on her (Bud said it had been touch-and-go when his sister was single and pregnant with a black man’s baby but the instant his father saw Isabella it was over, he was in love). After greeting everyone else he turned to Ron, and though he didn’t offer to shake hands he nodded and said, “Ron,” before slowly and stubbornly marching to a seat at a table, resisting even his granddaughter’s help, and Ron watched him go with the slight smile of a boy given a small treat. Then I turned to meet Bud’s mother and found I’d been wrong. Bud was not the spit’n’image of his father but of his mother. Other than the stature, eyes and hair every single other feature was a replica of hers, from the high forehead and cheekbones to the smile on her mouth. She was gracious, a little country, and she hugged everyone including me, spending an extra-long time clutching Ron close. Bud had been in the house working on the side dishes but he stepped out long enough to greet his parents. “Hey Mom, Dad.”

His dad threw up a hand and his mother called a cheerful, “Hello, Puddin’ Pop, happy Fourth!”

“RONALD!”

Face stricken in panic, Ron held up his palms in pleading innocence. “I didn’t tell Mom anything, I swear!”

“Course you didn’t!” she said blithely. “Ethan filled me in, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any kid quite so tickled.” Apparently still considering his partner to be at fault for planting the seed, Bud made his rebuke-Ron face and did the whole fork-fingered I’m watching you thing. Ron pouted. Ignoring the byplay, Bud’s mother continued, “Where is my grasshopper anyway? I figured he would’ve come to hug his memaw by now.” The look on Ron’s face told her everything and the original of Bud’s thin-lipped annoyance appeared, along with the original “Uh-huh”. Unlike her son she let it go although I had a feeling Bud’s sister would be getting an earful later. “Do you need help in the kitchen, sweetie?”

“Yes ma’am, always,” he replied. “And I’d appreciate it if you’d help me corral Sis, keep her fingers out of Ron’s potato salad and adding more mustard.”

“She better not!” Ron hollered, appropriately outraged.

By two o’clock the party was in full swing, a fair-sized group of folks that were Bud’s cousins and Ron’s co-workers at the community college and people from church (many of whom recognized and hugged me) and one random guy from down the block who simply showed up and no one turned away. Several children ran around screaming, Janey, Juanita and Isabella ran around screaming themselves while disdaining the smaller kids. The boombox blared on the porch and though I listened for it I didn’t hear “Tuesday’s Gone”; no, I wouldn’t hear that song until later, during the fireworks show. June sat at a table with Bud’s father, talking his head off, and I wasn’t sure if he was bemused or half-asleep. Several of the men including Jericho (who given his infamous cooking skills had no business being there) were standing around the grill watching Ron flip the burgers and hot dogs and arguing on the proper way to get the scorch marks to run. Though Bud insisted I didn’t have to I helped he and his mother and sister set up the side-dishes on the tables and pour Solo cups of Ron’s famous iced tea.

By three o’clock we were in full feast mode, everybody snatching hot dogs and hamburgers as quickly as Ron could serve them, and his potato salad moved just as fast. I was sitting at a table with Jericho and Bud and Ron and a few of the other men and the conversation turned to the original outhouse location, as it was bound to eventually. Bud’s father wandered up, taking the burger Ron handed him without saying a word, listening close to the speculation and considering when Ron said the location was there and Jericho said no, it was there and one of the other men (the gate-crasher, who still hadn’t been asked to leave) said heck no, it was over there, a spot which to my knowledge had never even been under conjecture. When no one else offered an opinion the old man shook his head and said in his nicotine-stained, still-a-bit-weak voice, “You’re all wrong. It was over there. Forget the crap, look how the lawn sinks in, makes a almost perfect rectangle. I sure hope you boys can find your butts, you don’t know nothin’ ‘bout holes in the damn ground.” And wandered off.

Nothing for a moment, then the entire table broke into raucous laughter. “Gentlemen,” Ron announced, wiping at his eyes, “we have just been schooled.”

“My father sometimes,” Bud remarked, shaking his head. “We should’ve asked him in the first place.”

“Yeah, we should’ve,” Ron agreed.

Rodi and her son appeared not long after (she’d just gotten off work from the diner) and everyone hugged them, the woman with tight affection, the munchkin gingerly but with great warmth. He was a tiny five-year-old wearing glasses too large for his face and sitting in a wheelchair much too large for his body but with a smile as big as anything. Rodi pushed him over to a table and went to fix them plates and his gaze wandered to the children still running around screaming with half-eaten hot dogs or half-licked ice cream cones, and while his big smile didn’t dim it did turn a mite wistful.

“Come on, let me introduce y’all,” Jericho said, suddenly appearing at my side. I followed him over to the little boy, whose grin widened again as we approached.

“Hi, Jericho!”

“Hiya, Quincy.” Jericho gave him a grave left-hand shake, the boy’s right being encased in a cast. “How’s the munchkin?”

“Finer’n frog hair,” Quincy snapped back, his grin wider than ever.

Jericho laughed, a hearty but curiously gentle sound. I realized he’d make a great father and my heart clenched, neither in a good way nor bad, just a random clench. “This is my cousin Mateo.”

“Hi, Quincy, nice to meet you.”

“Be ca—” Jericho started, then stopped as he remembered what I’d mentioned about my cousin on my dad’s side.

Quincy’s intelligent eyes, owlish in the thick lenses of his glasses, regarded me thoughtfully as we carefully shook. “Why does your nose and your hair look black but the rest of you looks white, Mateo?”

Jericho and I exchanged glances, and I almost busted out myself when I saw the amusement in his twitching lips. Returning to Quincy I answered, “Because my father is black and my mother is white. Like Isabella.”

“Oh.” He considered. “I thought it might have been the other way around because Isabella has a white nose. Do you know why the sky is blue?” His tone so earnest I almost busted out again.

“I sure do.” I explained about particles and gases in the earth’s atmosphere scattering the sun’s rays and blue light traveling in shorter waves, trying to keep the answer down to kid level but not really needing to, he comprehended every word I said.

Quincy nodded when I finished. “Okay. I just wanted to make sure you knew. Only dodos think it’s because of the ocean reflecting light.” He smiled again and I couldn’t help it. I busted out.

Rodi reappeared with their plates and the munchkin cheerfully dug in. Leaving them alone to eat, Jericho and I started picking up trash (our mothers trained us well). “Smart, huh?”

“He’s only five years old?” I couldn’t believe it.

“Five-and-a-half. You can’t forget the half.” We chuckled. “The munchkin only watched Sesame Street long enough to pick up the basics of math and reading, now it’s Cosmos or nothin’.” Jericho sobered. “But I guess when you’re that smart and you have to be careful what else you can do . . .” He shrugged.

“But he’s so happy,” I said. “That’s what got to me, even more so than his intelligence.”

“Yeah,” Jericho said. “He’s an inspiration alright.” (Years later at the funeral the principal eulogist, a slim but sturdy-looking blond-haired young man, mentioned the “inspirational cripple” trope in fiction—Bud nodding along beside me in understanding—but said his best friend Quincy Owens had been a true inspiration and never a cripple.) Jericho and I filled and disposed of a couple trash bags and gathered empty non-disposable pans and plates to carry inside, where we found Bud loading the dishwasher and Ron scrubbing the grill utensils.

“Oh, boys, you don’t have to help clean up but thank you so much!” Bud exclaimed when he saw our loads.

“Y’all get enough to eat?” Ron asked.

“Plenty,” Jericho affirmed. “Maybe too much.”

Bud’s mother bustled into the kitchen from the bedroom carrying the well-worn psychedelic flower patchwork quilt Bud and Ron used as a bedspread. “Bud, you really should have this repaired and a new backing put on or it’s going to fall apart. You’re starting to lose the seam just here and over here too.”

He groaned. “I know, I know, but I can’t find anybody I’d trust to do it. I heard of a lady in Ardmore who’s expensive but supposedly top-notch so we drove over and what do we see on her wall but a needlepoint—a large needlepoint—with Leviticus 18:22 in lovely gothic scrollwork.” Even I knew that one. “So we thanked her politely and left.”

“I’ve never gotten that,” Bud’s mother said. “For one, the verse has been taken out of context of the times and for two, the only reason to display it so prominently is for pure hatefulness. Good for you, sweetie, take your business elsewhere.”

“I saw a guy with the verse—the entire verse—tattooed on his upper arm,” Ron said. “Ironic, given the prohibition in Leviticus 19:28, only one chapter down.” At my blank look, all three of them quoted in eerie unison, “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you; I am the Lord.” It was obvious Bud, his mother and Ron had spent many years in the same congregation, and I remembered Jericho’s remark the couple had met in the church nursery.

Bud had been regarding the quilt in his mother’s hands when he suddenly shot what can only be described as a wicked smirk at Ron. “Mom, did I ever tell you the true story of how I ended up with this quilt?”

“I’m out.” A clatter in the sink as Ron dropped the utensils. “If you’re telling the Sunshine and Moonbeam story again I’m gonna go make sure neither your dad nor your sister walk in unannounced. He’d have a heart attack to go along with his stroke and she’d have the news spread all over the county and up the city before nightfall.”

“Thanks for your thoughtfulness, mister for-the-last-time-I’m-not-jealous-I-swear.” Ron threw his partner two backwards middle fingers and all-but-slammed the door behind him, and Bud laughed again. “I’ll need to soothe him down later but sometimes he’s just too darn easy.”

“Well, what’s this story ‘s got Ronnie so ticked?” his mother demanded. “You’ve got to tell me now. I always knowed there was more to it than what you said!”

So Bud took a deep breath and began and again, I’m not going to repeat it here; it isn’t my story to tell. But I did find I already knew the beginning and the end from June, now I heard the middle from a principal player. At one point, as Bud was describing his first kiss, I got the notion he’d fulfilled some other firsts as well, and from the amused expression on her face his mother did too, but he glossed over it along with the particulars of the hippie boys’ contest and finished with, “So I dragged Ron over here and finally spilled my guts, he spilled his and the rest, as they say, is history.”

His mother nodded once, smug and satisfied. “I always figured it was something along those lines.”

“Excuse me?”

“I knowed you snuck out that night, your father wasn’t feeling well—” a strange looked passed over Bud’s face but he seemed to shake it off “—meaning I wasn’t sleeping and so saw you vanish down the street with two other boys although I couldn’t tell who they were.”

“And you didn’t stop me?” Bud asked, aghast. “You didn’t worry something bad would happen to me out there in the dark?”

“Course I worried, I’m your mother! I tugged on God’s ear from the minute you left all the way up until I heard you sneak back in through the kitchen and up the stairs, but since you didn’t sound drunk or hurt I let it go.”

“Why?”

“Would you have preferred for me to raise a stink, get your dad involved?” she asked tartly, and Bud shuddered. “That’s what I thought. You were a good kid, honest and trustworthy even if you were acting like a self-absorbed turd—”

“Mom!”

“—at the time. What? You know you were!”

“I was,” Bud admitted with a rueful grin. “But now you know why.”

She patted his hand. “Now I know why and I’m glad I trusted you. The fact you felt you needed to sneak out when you had never done anything similar before in your life told me how important it was to you, and I must admit I’ve always gotten a kick out of imagining your skinny tail wriggling out through your window. There are things a parent can’t do for their children, no matter how well-loved, and some experiences a child needs to uncover on their own. You have to let your children grow up and uncover and even fall on their behind sometimes. A lesson many parents should learn these days, what do they call them?”

“Helicopter parents. Ron had a student one time—a twenty-two-year-old student—bring a note from his mother asking for him to spared from an exam because he’d not had time to study as they’d been away for the weekend before.”

“What did Ronnie do?”

“Hand him the test and ask if he needed a pen. Weird thing was the kid passed.”

Everyone laughed.

“MeMaw?” Isabella stood in the doorway. “Uncle Bud?”

“Yes, love?”

“I’m not trying to be a tattletale or anything but Pop-Pop—” she pointed out into the yard, where Bud’s father sat at a table smoking a cigarette.

“Where. Is. Ron?”

Isabella glanced at her grandmother, nodded when the older woman drawled, “Behind the big bush in the front yard sneaking a beer and a hit off his pipe.” At Bud’s second aghast expression she shrugged and said, “Y’all really should invest in some mints. Be glad you weren’t burning patchouli, that’s always been your major tell.”

“Have we ever gotten away with anything?”

She cogitated for a moment. “I don’t think so. Except for the gay thing, even I didn’t see that one coming. Probably wasn’t looking close enough, trying to give you your privacy.”

“Well thank heaven for small mercies.” Bud sighed. “Do you want to do the honors or should I?”

“Be my guest, sweetie.”

“If he’s trying to be sneaky why is he smoking in the middle of the backyard?” I asked as Bud charged for his father, mouth already open and scolding.

“My bullheaded husband isn’t trying to be sneaky,” she answered, sounding exactly like her son, “he’s tired of being treated like spun glass and looking for a fight. Bud is just the one to give it to him.”

“Didn’t he have a stroke recently?”

“A few months ago. Don’t worry, Bud won’t get him too riled, only annoyed enough to pump up his blood, I’ll keep an eye on ‘em to make sure. And it’ll be good for Bud too, he’s been edgy not having his dad to argue with.” Ron had said something similar, so I nodded and resumed cleaning.

By 6:30 most of the older folks and those with young kids had gone, either headed for home or to take in the 8:00 fireworks show from other places. Bud and his father argued for almost an hour (the last time I passed they’d been going hammer-and-tongs over Ross Perot, the Texas billionaire running—or not—for president but I couldn’t tell you which carrottop was for the man and which against and would be surprised if they knew themselves) and by the time they were done both were red-faced and smiling, in high spirits. This changed when a handsome round-faced man I’d never seen before but somehow recognized strolled into the backyard and June squealed and threw herself into his arms.

“Who’s that?” I asked as the old man’s smile turned into a scowl.

“That’s Rand,” Jericho replied. “I told you about him. Must be back for a visit.”

“Oh, right.” Rand, who’d been known as Miranda and was June’s secret girlfriend until she moved away and had what’s now known as gender reassignment surgery. Jericho introduced us and he’d been right, Rand was a nice guy. (Being curious, I asked. In the man’s own words, “Tits? Miranda and she. No tits? Rand and he.” Clear enough. And this was decades before the pronoun debates of today.) Bud’s mother was congenial to him (Miranda had after all fake-dated her son) but Bud’s father refused to speak. Rand just smiled sadly and moved on. The old man’s scowl deepened further when a quartet of (forgive me) screaming sissies blew in, and he stood abruptly and announced he was tired, ready to go home. Without waiting for a reply he slowly and stubbornly stalked off down the side of the house. Bud and his mother frowned together and she took her sweet time gathering her things and hugging everyone, again including me, before she followed her husband, the expression on her face telling the world he was about to get another fight, this one not so pleasant.

Bud’s parents had been the last of the “old folks”, now the “young’uns” let down their hair, and within minutes most of the adults had beers in their hands, the cold cans seemingly appearing out of nowhere. The only kids left were Quincy, Isabella, Janey and Juanita and they were involved in a lively Go-Fish tournament, ignoring the partying adults around them even when the thick, ropy smell of marijuana sprang up from several groups. I saw the gate-crasher take a huge toke, blowing out the smoke and musing, “Gay people get the best weed.” Disliking the feeling the one time I’d tried it and disliking the smell now, I moved over to the kid’s table (which Bud told me later had been deliberately placed upwind) and took a seat. The munchkin was a sharp, winning the majority of the hands; why was I not surprised? Bud, Ron, June and Rand stood in a circle with their arms around each other, sharing a joint and swaying to the song on the radio, and an image sprang into my head of the four of them wearing the clothing I’d seen in their prom photos and dancing in the moonlight right here in this backyard some twenty years before. More guests arrived, the majority of them openly (and in some cases flamboyantly) gay, and though some people got uncomfortable enough to leave most didn’t. After asking Quincy if he had any queens and being smugly instructed to go fish, I glanced up to see a cop rounding the corner of the house and recognized her as Sheriff Pauline, whom Jericho had pointed out to me several times, though I was still unsure if this were her surname or given. Bud and Ron exchanged glances over the crowd and moved as one to meet her. Go-Fish requiring a maximum of four players we’d taken turns sitting out a round, so I handed my cards to Janey and headed over to Jericho, who was standing behind his mother massaging her shoulders while she and Rand sat at a table in rapt conversation. Despite the sheriff’s presence no one seemed concerned but I noticed all the hand-rolled joints and ceramic pipes had vanished, though no one could do anything about the smell. Jericho saw me coming and met me halfway. “What’s up?”

“What’s a cop doing here? And isn’t she the County Sheriff?”

“Yup, Pauline Putnam herself.” Well, one question answered. “And she’s here because somebody up the street dialed 911. Happens every year right around the time more gay people start arriving. She’s always handled the call herself, even back when she was just another deputy, because she knows this is the kind of thing could get out of hand quickly.” Bud and Ron had reached her now, the three speaking earnestly. None of them appeared upset although Bud was clearly irritated.

“But this isn’t a wild party or anything. Calm and peaceful, everybody having a good time, no fights or yelling or people firing guns. Other than the pot it could be a cookout at my house!”

Jericho nodded. “Exactly. Sad, huh? And don’t worry about the weed, she’s more concerned about the drinking. She’s just here to remind Bud and Ron to keep the levels down and tell their guests she doesn’t play on drunk or stoned driving. Most everybody here knows as much already, it’s the platform she ran for office on and she meant every word.”

Finishing their conversation, Sheriff Pauline touched the brim of her hat, courteously wished everyone a happy fourth and vanished down the side of the house again. Our hosts watched her go, the annoyance still on Bud’s face until he consciously wiped it clean and they rejoined the party. “Okay, everyone,” Ron called, “the neighborhood harassment is over for the year. Thank God for Pauline being such a sweetheart. Three cheers for the sheriff!” Everyone cheered.

“She also asked us to remind everyone to not to drive drunk or high,” Bud added, “she’s got extra deputies on the road for the holiday.” Everyone groaned, though it was good-natured. “Now back to the party!” Everyone cheered again and as Ron pulled the pipe from his pocket the gate-crasher approached.

“I owe you fellers an apology,” the man said, tipsy but not drunk. At Bud’s raised eyebrow he continued, “It was likely my bitch of a wife called the law, she’s the one did it last year and y’all don’t deserve it, you’re good folks. I’ll make sure it don’t happen again.” Before our hosts could reply he followed Sheriff Pauline around the side of the house, his gait a bit erratic.

“Well, least he’s not driving,” Bud observed. “And it was nice of him to ‘fess up about his wife, just a shame he felt the need. Who was he?”

“No clue,” Ron declared. “I thought you’d invited him.” They looked at each other and laughed, not fazed in the slightest, at least about the gatecrasher. “He comes back I’ll smoke a bowl with him. We need more friendly neighbors.”

“Amen.”

Whoever he was, he hadn’t come back by the time Jericho and I left maybe half an hour or forty-five minutes later. I’d been inside peeing and, after a quick trip to the living room to again examine the recovered artwork, I returned to the back porch where I found my cousin waiting for me. Dusk had begun to fall, the cloudless sky starting to darken, setting the stage for the fireworks show to begin shortly over the trees to the southeast, and while it wasn’t dark enough yet to require artificial light the streetlamps out front had come on, throwing the backyard into gloom except for the sparklers in the kids’ hands and the first early lightning bugs.

“Wanna get out of here, Mat?” Jericho asked.

I did, kinda, but— “Aren’t we staying for the fireworks?”

“Nah, I know a better spot. Quieter. Besides . . .” he tilted his head over his shoulder and I spotted Jill sitting with June at a table, the older woman’s mouth moving a mile a minute, and even in the dimness I could spot the younger’s bosom swelling and almost falling out of her tight, low-cut blouse. Meaning yeah, I was ready to leave. Doubly so at the idea of going with Jericho to some better, quieter spot. “We can sneak away before anyone realizes.”

“Shouldn’t we tell somebody?”

“Mom already knows, she’s using her yakking skills for good instead of evil by distracting Jill. Bud and Ron have threatened to glue our fingers to Truck’s steering wheel if we try to help out anymore and they weren’t kidding. And if we say something to Janey and Juanita they’ll want to come along, defeating the whole purpose of the ‘quiet’ part.”

“Sold, Jer.”

“Cool, cool.”

We slipped out, and I noticed as we crossed the yard Bud and Ron had been considerate of their neighbors even down to parking, as what cars couldn’t sit in front of the house were pulled into an empty lot on the other side of the disused railroad tracks. “Are you okay to drive?” I asked. No way would his mother or Bud or Ron have given him a beer but they wouldn’t have said anything if he hit a joint, not that I’d ever seen him do so with his mother on the back porch at night.

“I’m fine, I didn’t smoke anything. Not a fan. I’ve toked up a few times with—"

“Darren,” I finished for him.

Jericho laughed. “Actually no, Darren hates all drugs except alcohol. I smoked with my mom after . . . after my dad died. I was having trouble sleeping and Mom is all ugly booger on prescription narcotics so she’d get me high and I’d pass right out.” Maybe the shadows in the cab made him feel safe enough to share this with me. “Which is why I don’t partake now, weed makes me sleepy and it . . . reminds me.”

He pulled out onto the road and drove in silence, but it wasn’t uncomfortable despite his mention of grieving his father. No, this was a peace much like what we shared after we did our thing in the darkness and separated by the nightstand, and with each passed mile I felt closer to him and it didn’t matter how short our journey because he already wasn’t very far away. He turned onto yet another gravel road and climbed through close woods and eventually parked under a tree on the side of a hill, backing in so Truck’s rear faced the football stadium I saw through the breaks in the foliage. He clicked on the radio and we got out and just like three weeks ago it wasn’t dark yet but it was getting there, and we sat on the dropped bed-gate and listened to the cicadas and tinny music, a repeat of the soundtrack from three weeks ago. “This is the perfect spot to watch the fireworks, isn’t it? A clear view and quiet too.”

“Why are we the only ones up here?” I asked. “You’d think this whole road would be packed.”

“These woods are haunted,” Jericho said casually.

“What?”

“Yup. Man killed his wife and her lover and then himself in a cave just over the next hill and all of them haunt the woods. Some rumors even claim the killed lover was another woman. You’re in the rural South, Mat my friend, every patch of land has a story attached.” He gave his Jericho shrug. “From the high school this looks like a deep dark forest and you know kids, enhancing legends to scare themselves, and the faculty was more than happy to encourage them, being so close to campus and tempting to cut class in. Me and Darren—” he grinned when I repeated the name with him “—have been all over these woods, even at night, and—oh look, they’re starting.” The first of the fireworks rocketed into the sky and at the same moment he slid his arm around my shoulders and as the red, whites and blues spread across the rich deep velvet a weeping guitar poured from the tinny radio and the cicadas paused to listen to it cry while whistles and claps and pops whistled and clapped and popped on, uncaring.

“This song is everywhere this summer,” Jericho said, his hand loose on my shoulder but pulling me close, firework hues splashing on his face as he watched them explode.

“Yeah, it is,” I agreed, and when I could stand looking at his beauty no more without either crying or exploding myself I watched the celebration too but from an angle, as I lay my head on his shoulder and he tilted his head to lay against mine, tightening his arm around me while the cicadas scree-er-scree’d in time with the tinny, weeping guitar and the sky deepened to full night, the better to show off all the colors, not stopping even after Tuesday and the train rolled on.

Caddy’s spot in the turnaround was still unoccupied as Jericho parked Truck. The eternal light over the stove illuminated our path all the way downstairs and we prepared for bed in the same peaceful silent camaraderie we’d shared since leaving the party. We slid between our separate sheets and didn’t talk for a long time, simply lay in the dark listening to each other breathe, and when Jericho did speak he didn’t break the silence but instead entwined with it. “Have a good time today, Mat?”

“Yeah, Jer, I did. A really good time. Got a little irritated for Bud and Ron once or twice, especially when Sheriff Pauline showed up.”

“We think she’s gay herself, remember? She was just doing her job, which wasn’t so much about harassing us as letting her car be seen by the neighbors so they could feel all self-righteous about calling the cops on the queers up the street and settle down. Bud and Ron know this, they deal with the crap every single day in one way or another. Bud calls them ‘microaggressions’, as good a name as any.”

“It’s still wrong.”

“Yes, it is, and it annoys Bud no end. But he also says the price of living an honest life is high and straight people pay too, only in different ways. He’s a better man than me.”

“Me too.”

A slight pause. “You wanna know what my favorite part of the day was, Mat?”

“What, Jer?”

Another slight pause. “Watching the fireworks with you.”

I’d thought so. “Yeah. Mine too.”

Another pause, and while it didn’t last long it was so pregnant with meaning I knew what sex the baby was before it popped from his mouth. I knew it, I felt it coming, I had all the time in the world to prepare my response, and when Jericho finally asked the long-awaited variation on his nightly question I responded with cool, coherent aplomb.

“Eep!”

Not.