Rebel Yells (Apishipa Creek Chronicles)

Chapter 28

 

Boy this was something he didn’t want to do. He used the key to open the door even through he’d already had to take off the two thick boards he and Jack had put in place. He could have just pushed through the opening. The jamb was shattered but it was in respect for his aunt that he used the key. Inside it was cold, the old cinderblock walls holding the chill from the night and the trees kept the sun out until afternoon. He stepped in and the past came rushing at him like a bullet to the chest, striking and hurting so badly he nearly doubled over with the pain. All those afternoons of being in there with her, sorting every color of bead imaginable made of every substance he could think of. Plastic, rock, metal, leather, wood, ceramic, china, and during the fourth of July she even had beads made of candy for the kids who would come in with their parents or grandmothers.

 

The yarn was much the same. Skeins of blues and greens, yellows and ones colored with every hue of the rainbow lined the walls in bins. His favorite was hemp because that is the kind she would use to make him scarves and sweaters. He laughed at the memories of opening them on Christmas mornings, and wrapping himself up tight before his mother dragged him to services.

 

“You know this place was fun sometimes. The ladies would come in to gossip and a lot of times they would bring me pot brownies. Those were the good times,” Candace said as she walked with him through the store.

 

“I remember. I wanted one and you made Mrs. Valdez watch me so you could go buy me some from the store so I would stop bugging you about hers.”

 

He laughed and it felt fucking good. “You are smiling a lot now. It’s to be expected I guess with that hunky sheriff and his nice little butt.”

 

“Auntie you always were a little too open for an old lady.”

 

She winked at him before she feigned to be hurt and asked, “Who are you calling old?”

 

He started working after she faded. The place wasn’t too bad considering how it could have been. He figured either Lonnie Lane’s heart wasn’t in it or he just didn’t have the time to trash it more thoroughly. That fucker, just the thought of him, could take the smile of his face fast enough. Okay yeah, so he had a thing for Jack. Maybe even a huge thing for his Jack and that he could understand. What guy wouldn’t fall for him? The thing was, though, if he had the balls to say something to the man maybe Rebel would be the one drinking away his woes in New Mexico instead of him.

 

Jack was his. His. He loved Jack with all his heart and he couldn’t fathom living without him now. Fuck, just the thought made his chest hurt.

 

The cleaning was pretty easy, the memories weren’t. Everything he touched, the tiniest bead in the store had been held in Aunt Candace’s hand. The floors had last been swept by her, the windows cleaned with her ancient squeegee. He laughed as much as he choked up, and for him that was everything. To be able to remember her and not have every memory cut like a blade was the best and it let him know he could go on.

 

Because of Jack.

 

The boxes from the back were dwindling around two in the afternoon, all of them now filled with everything he thought was salvageable and in the truck ready to be taken. He knew he could sell the stuff, have a going-out-of-business sale, or the-owner-died sale or whatever would be appropriate but he didn’t have the time or energy for it. The store, like he himself, was going to be transformed. He wasn’t sure about it until he walked in and started the task of cleaning the place but he was after the first box had been packed. The plans Jack had showed him were going to be put to use and he couldn’t wait until he got home to tell his lover. That would make Jack smile.

 

Aunt Candace had been big on donation. There wasn’t a charity that asked her that she wouldn’t give something; money, signatures on petitions, help with mailing letters, gathering items for bake or yard sales or just picking up the phone and calling every name in the phone books of the surrounding areas. One of her favorite charities was the children’s center in St. Martin. It was a place kids could go after school and on weekends to keep the kids off the streets. She spent long hours there but she also donated a lot of her inventory to the place. She’d rotate her stock every few months and there would be a van load of boxes full of yarn, beads, glues and sting for them to make things. Some had gotten pretty good and had won ribbons at fairs not to mention the two girls who sold things on the internet.

 

Taking the last two boxes out to the truck Rebel felt pretty good. Sure he was scared, he was actually planning on staying put, staying in one place, one town, but it had a lot of things to keep him in there. Jack, of course, the love he never knew he wanted but now he couldn’t imagine living without, plus a business. He didn’t know how long it would be until he had it up and running. First he needed the startup capital, which would be from the sale of the house and that scared the shit out of him too. If he stayed here he’d be giving up his house for his business. If he and Jack didn’t work out…he didn’t even want to think about that. As practical as it was to consider he didn’t even want to think about something like that because it really made him want to puke or punch someone.

 

His opportunity came soon enough for that as he was settling the tarp over the load he heard feet shuffling up behind him. As he turned he heard the somewhat familiar voice of Travis Walton’s sidekick.

 

“Look at the little faggot playing with beads and yard. Gonna knit an afghan? Some doilies?”

 

Rebel turned, smiling. He looked over Gerry and said, “You are really funny. You should find one of those comedy clubs and do amateur night.”

 

The hateful glint in Gerry’s eye didn’t fade and Rebel smirked. “You packing this shit up to leave? That would be the best idea, you know. Just get out of here. We may have to put up with a queer sheriff but we shouldn’t have a town full of you.”

 

Rebel wanted to push, to say something that would start a fight but he held that impulse down. His next thought was how that wouldn’t make Jack happy and that was what his job as a sub was. It was to make Jack happy so he used his other skills.

 

“Listen Gerry, that’s your name right?”

 

Gerry took a step towards him but stopped just short of punching distance. “Yeah.”

 

Rebel nodded and said, “Okay well ask yourself this, if Jack and I were the only homosexuals in town, why then, when you walked in, to the bathroom that night I mean, was I on the floor kneeling with Travis’ pants open and his dick out? Hard?”

 

Gerry blustered and Rebel could almost see the wheels turning in the idiot’s head, trying to connect the pictures in his memory to what the explanation of the events was. It took a while but finally the light bulb turned on over the man’s head.

 

What should have ended the fight only seemed to start it. “You’re a fucking liar!” Gerry fat fist shot out from his side in an upward motion to hit Rebel in the gut but Rebel was quick and agile. He moved quickly to the side and Gerry’s knuckles made painful contact with the tailgate of the truck.

 

Gerry let out a roar of pain but anger surfaced faster and his eyes shown the things he wanted to do to Rebel. Just then, however, blue and red lights shown over them as Jack’s cruiser pulled in but it wasn’t Jack behind the wheel.

 

Gerry backed off from Rebel but gave him a scathing look as told him, “Don’t be a fucking rat on top of it.”

 

The man who got out of the cruiser was a stranger. Rebel immediately took a disliking to him and didn’t know why. He was tall, thin and blonde, his grey eyes staring into his as he walked over and asked, “Are you alright?”

 

Rebel shrugged. “I’m fine. We were just having a discussion.”

 

“Discussion? Hmm, it looked heated.” His voice was gravely and he almost slunk when he walked. He finally looked at Gerry. “I think maybe you better go home or wherever it was that you were headed.”

 

Not that he wanted Gerry to stick around or anything, shit he’d be perfectly happy never to see the fucker again, but this asshole had no right to tell anyone where they could or couldn’t be. “We were working things out just fine. Really. He’s fine.”

 

Those cold grey eyes fell on him again and then he turned his body so Rebel could see the nasty sneer of disdain on his otherwise pleasant face. “You are Jack Colton’s…boyfriend or whatever right?”

 

“Whatever, yeah.”

 

“Well you wouldn’t want me to tell him that you are interfering with an officer of the law do you?” His voice was mocking, challenging.

 

Rebel took a step toward him, his hand clenched in a fist, vision turning red around the edges then something happened that was totally unexpected. Gerry grabbed his arm and in a low voice only Rebel could hear said, “Don’t. This asshole is looking for a fight more than I was.”

 

Rebel unclenched his fist and took a breath to calm him. “We’ll be leaving in a minute. Gerry was just going to help me tie my load down.”

 

Newly appointed Acting Sheriff Simon Roark smiled wide. “I bet.” He backed two steps away while glared at them both, still with that sinister smile on his thin lips before he turned and walked back to his car.

 

oooOooo

 

Lonnie woke up under a wooden pallet. The only way he knew where he was, was the smell of French bread coming out of the vent. At least the vent was warm. He pushed the pallet away and felt the scream of pain shooting through his side and stomach. He wrapped his arm around his midsection and that hurt just as bad.

 

His ribs. Hopefully they were just bruised and not broken. He took a shallow breath went forward on both hands before trying and failing to get up. It took him long minutes of shifting from foot to foot, knee to knee before he braced himself on the brick wall and made it to his feet. Once he was standing he looked around, suddenly realizing his attackers may still be around but he was alone in the alley. Alone like he would be forever.

 

“Fucking pricks.”

 

The group that had beat him had run off. He checked his pockets and sighed when he found the money still there. Well, that confirmed it. It wasn’t a mugging, a fucking robbery, it was definitely a gay bashing. Great, here in his home, the place he’d grown up and he was being gay bashed. He headed out onto the street before he brushed his hair back. A few strands were caught in something sticky on his face and he had to pull. He felt and there was dried crud all over his face. For a minute he thought it was some kind of gunk from the bakery trash. It took looking into the reflection of the glass of the bakery itself before he saw that it was dried blood.

 

He didn’t look long. What did it matter? Maybe under the blood and hair sticking to it he had been disfigured so that at least he could understand why Jack wanted beautiful Rebel instead of him.

 

The clerk at the liquor store asked him if he needed to have 911 called. Laughing low Lonnie said no, of course no. He’d tripped. The clerk’s face was full of concern but he rang Lonnie up and gave him the two bottles in the normal paper bag. He carried them back to the house and landed on the couch just as he got inside. The others gathered around him and when he looked up he saw Uncle Charming running out of his room in just his stained boxers wrapping his tattered robe around his shoulder as Rhonda screamed and Mel held him. Then he was just gone.

 

When he came to, he was in the hospital. He knew this because of how white and clean it was. Nowhere else in his neighborhood was like this. He looked around and lifted his hand to push his hair back but as he did he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his side and in the depths of his memory he knew there was something wrong with his ribs.

 

“Blackbird.”

 

He turned to see his mother there, all glowing in white just like the rest of the room. “Mama, am I dying?”

 

“No son. You will live a long life. Now you just have to find a way to make it a long happy life.”

 

He started crying then and his mother came to him but as she neared she faded and he was left alone in the room for only a few minutes, his tears drying on his black and blue face before the doctor arrived.

 

“You’re awake. That’s a good sign.” He walked over and flashed a light into Lonnie’s eyes. “Well I don’t think you have a concussion but I would still like to keep you here for the night.”

 

Lonnie groaned. “I’d rather be home.” Damn he needed a drink.

 

As if the doctor read his mind he said, “I have told your people that to be safe while you recuperate there should be no more alcohol in your system. You had a blood alcohol of three times the limit when you came in.”

 

Lonnie shrugged. “I don’t know how that happened.”

 

The doctor who was a big and brawny, older and the lines of his face deepened as he frowned at Lonnie. “Listen I’ve see a lot since I got here fifteen years ago. Many of otherwise good people who lost their lives to the bottle. You’re young, good looking and have a lot of living ahead of you. That means the potential to find someone and be really happy.”

 

“You sound like my mother.”

 

“You should listen to her then and forget about this Jack guy.”

 

“Jack? I don’t know who you’re talking about,” he said then tried to turn away from the doctor but it hurt too much.

 

The doctor sat on the corner of the bed and looked at him squarely. “Well that is the name you kept calling when you came in here today. I get that it hurts. My first lover dumped me for a guy he met at a dance club. A fucking go go boy.”

 

Lonnie’s eyes slid up to his. “You’re gay?”

 

Chuckling, the doctor said, “Yeah and I’ve been bashed as well as heartbroken but you know what? I found the man of my dreams even after al of that. Sometimes it takes losing everything to open your eyes to what is most important. It’s a lesson life likes to give us. Or you can go back and drink him away.”

 

“That sounds like a plan,” Lonnie said smiling.

 

“Well if you ever need someone to talk to. Someone who has been there and done that? Well you’ll get my bill and my number will be on it.”

 

Lonnie nodded as the doctor left. He laid his head back on the pillow and thought about the doctor’s words. He thought about how he’d gotten there from where he was and not just location, but state of mind. He’d never had more than three beers before in Colorado, he’d never needed more. He was happy. Even if Jack hadn’t noticed yet that he was more than just some kid who hung around with them he was still pretty happy. Now look…beat up, in the fucking hospital, coming off weeks of being drunk. And for what? Because he was too much of a * to fight for the guy he wanted?

 

Before he could finish the line of thoughts though the door opened and the room was flooded with his people. His people, all with concern, love and snuck-in bottles of alcohol. After a few swigs the doctor’s words were lost in a haze of pain killers and vodka.

 

oooOooo

 

Gerry laughed a little as the Sheriff drove off. “That guy has issues.”

 

Rebel nodded and chuckled along with him then noticed Gerry was rubbing his swelling hand. “Sorry about that.”

 

Gerry looked at him then his hand and said, “Don’t worry about it. I’m the one who should be sorry. I mean, you’re right. I should have realized it before.”

 

Rebel leaned back on the truck, looking at Gerry, scrutinizing, and asked, “Listen you aren’t gonna…I don’t know, stop being his friend over this right? It’s really not his fault. Well except when he bashes the people he hits on anyway.”

 

Gerry tilted his head while he shrugged. “Nah man, I don’t really care. We’ve been friends since we were in short pants like my grandma says.” His eyes shone then, “Besides…now maybe he’ll let me have his girlfriend.”

 

Rebel laughed and patted him on the back. “Truce?”

 

Gerry held out his hand and Rebel took it. When he got home two hours later after dropping off the boxes Jack was waiting for him at the door. He pushed into Jack’s arms and kissed him hard, smiling the entire time.

 

“Good day?”

 

Rebel nodded as he slid their stubbled faces together. “One of the best.”

 

 

 

 

 

Rain Carrington's books