Under the Willows
For too many, there is no voice. For too long shadows have ruled where the sun should shine. Too many tears, children’s tears have gone unseen, their prayers unanswered.
Morning dawns cold, especially in the Tennessee foothills. The sunrise creeps slowly over the sleeping mountains and into the blue fog of the forested valleys and wakes the trees and bushes leaf by leaf. Fastened to the ancient stone were a dozen small mobile homes, their faded paints neat, but thoroughly worn. To some, they were home, to others, prisons.
Rick’s alarm screamed its six o’clock call to rise. The warm dream fluttered away, leaving him in darkness. It was time to get up, but why? To get pushed down again? Was it worth it? He rolled over with a sigh and turned the alarm off before shuffling past his brother’s bed, dodging mounds of crap the jerk refused to put away.
To the bathroom, to the sink, washing the sleep away. Getting up, his one thought was how he would return to that sanctuary, back to the warmth and simple comfort. Blue-green eyes stared back at him, with lines and dark circles marking their boundaries. From the right angle, the bruise on his jaw almost seemed to vanish. There was another zit setting up camp on his forehead, but arranging his dark, brown, curly hair just right, no one would ever know.
No, they would never know, and yet, somehow, they always found out. Nothing stayed hidden. Rumors took care of that.
Daniel, now awake too, bullied his way into the small bathroom and took over. Back in his dark room, Rick fit himself into the meticulously chosen clothes. Nothing gaudy, but he wasn’t about to look like he was covered in potato sacks either.
Walking to the kitchenette, Rick could already hear shouts of older sisters fighting at the table.
“I had it first!” Laura growled.
“I’m older!” Reena said, pulling the milk jug towards herself. Rick tried to walk a wide circle around them to reach the bagels on counter beyond without notice.
“Rick, did you get into my mascara again? It wasn’t where I left it last night!” Reena snarled. In her glare, Rick felt himself a slimy, insignificant thing.
“Hey, give it back!” Reena shouted as Laura pulled the jug away and began pouring the milk in her bowl. With the attention safely diverted, Rick snatched a bagel and chewed on it as two more siblings trundled into the kitchenette. Peeling linoleum on the counters, a muddy floor underfoot: to Rick this place was hell.
As though by some repelled by some physical force, he did not look at the half-dozen miniature statues of the Virgin Mary on the window ledge just above the sink. “Forgive me,” he thought quietly, “forgive me, please?”
“All right everyone,” his mother called out, “in the van!” Rick swallowed the last bit of bread, gathered his tattered orange backpack, and began stepping out the front door when Laura shoved him against the doorframe.
“Out of the way, queer boy,” she growled. He watched her climb into the van and slam the door. Rick tottered around to the other side of the van through mud puddles to the only open door – little Jena’s. She didn’t look at him from her booster seat. Even she followed his siblings’ example looking him in the eyes. Cold air filled his lungs as he sighed and shivered in the moist air.
The van rumbled along the potholed road, jarring everyone inside. Rick’s mother turned on the radio to tune out the sounds of Daniel and Laura arguing about this years football statistics.
“Brothers and sisters,” the preacher called out over the din from the speakers, “Today we are under assault by the minions of hell! Brothers and sisters, today gays have taken everything over! Today we live in Sodom and Gomorrah! What did the Lord Almighty do to Sodom and Gomorrah? Brothers and sisters, he destroyed them! He wiped that filth off the earth!”
“What did he do to the woman who turned around? What did he do to their sympathizers! That’s right, brothers and sisters! He turned her to salt! That perverted filth has no right to stain the Lord’s earth!”
“Amen!” Rick’s mother yelled in time with the radio.
“Brothers and sisters, we must fight to plague of homosexuality wherever we find it! In our homes, in our schools, in our communities; it has no place here!”
On the other side of the car, Rick saw Reena nodding to herself with a smirk.
“Did you hear that, queer boy? If you don’t change, you’ll go to hell!” she said, leaning across Jena’s seat. If it was not Reena, it was another sibling, turning this into a daily ritual. And still, deep inside, it was as though she was taking a knife and cutting away at his heart until only bitterness remained.
The preacher railed against the world and its sins until the van clattered to a halt in front of the school. There was no separation for elementary, middle and high schools here. Rick stepped out of the van after helping Laura unlatch the seatbelt and shuffled, head-down towards the building.
“Was it the –?”
“It’s always the same stuff,” Rick interrupted Jamie, as he shuffled to his locker. Her locker was just beneath his, so while he put his stuff away, she quietly waited. He noticed, as always, there were a few boys gaggling over her.
“Ricky, this isn’t forever. You’ll go to New York or LA or someplace like that. You’ll be happy, successful, envied. Damn it Rick, don’t give in!” He gathered his books and followed her through the tight halls, lit by the cold fluorescent light strips.
Rick shuffled to his seat beside the window and let his books tumble onto the table. Outside the smudged windows the sun was just above the blue mountain peaks. It felt like Rick’s only tie to the outside world. Mr. Heathrow, the lion-maned math-teacher strode into the classroom and inspected the class, scratching his gray locks as he took roll.
“Books open to page 162, please,” he roared and class commenced. Some in his class liked the subject – personally, Rick couldn’t stand it. Instead of paying attention, he followed one little beam of light as it filtered through the shades and fell on Drake.
The beam illuminated him, tracing his features. Shadows of suggested muscles beneath a shirt that defined him to just the right degree, eyes that shined no matter how the light fell – to Rick he was perfect. Looking at this athlete, known around the county, Rick couldn’t help but wish that someday Drake might look at him with something other than contempt.
Math buzzed around the outside of his skull and his hand vaguely swatted at it, leaving the little corpses of numbers scattered across his notepaper. The moment Drake looked his way Rick dropped his gaze. Had he seen Rick looking? Sure he had. Just like Jamie knew guys were watching her, Drake knew.
The clock ticked on and math continued buzzing about until the sound of the bell tore through the air. The old teacher looked up, as he did every day, shocked by the interruption. Impatient classmates were already out the door and in the hall for break.
“You were doing it again,” Jamie said with a smirk. Rick’s gaze was glued to the floor and he felt his face get warm.
“Was it that obvious?” he asked quietly.
“Pretty obvious,” she said. “Why do you keep looking at him? It’s not like he’s going to look back.”
“You look at him, don’t you?” Rick asked.
“But that’s different.”
Rick sighed.
“I would do anything for him to like me,” he said quietly.
“Rick, you know he won’t.”
It was like another sliver burying itself deep into his heart. In his entire life, he hadn’t asked for much – the only people he really admired were completely out of his reach.
The next moment, Rick felt like he’d been run over by a freight train.
“Out of the way, fag,” Christopher, one of Drake’s friends growled. Rick took a few steps back. His heart plunged as he felt himself run into another brick-like body.
“You lookin’ for a fight, sissy-boy?” the voice behind him said, with a slur. That must have been the same Samuel who had clubbed him in the face at the beginning of the week. A pair of huge hands gripped his shoulders and threw him to the floor.
“On yo knees boy!” Samuel yelled.
“Stop! Stop it! I’ll tell—“
“Who’s a-gonna believe ya?” Samuel interrupted Jamie, whom Christopher held captive in a vice-like grip.
The bell rang overhead and Samuel grunted.
“You betta not mess with us, little queeny boy, or you’ll be regrettin’ it ‘till you die!” Samuel aimed a kick into Rick’s stomach and charged off to class.
“Rick, Rick,” Jamie sobbed as she kneeled next to him, rubbing his shoulders, “Can you breathe alright? They didn’t hurt you too bad?” Rick managed to groan and staggered to his knees.
“I’ll get over it,” he said, blinking the tears out of his eyes.
“It’s not fair,” Jamie said, wiping her own tears away, “It’s just not fair.”
“You’re late, Rick,” the English teacher said as he and Jamie shuffled in. Even though she was probably in her thirties, this teacher already had the aura of a hawk swooping down on its prey when she looked at him that way.
Rick sat down, still clutching his chest and glanced at Drake. His face was usually stony-serious, now there were hints of something more. Drake’s arm casually brushed against his brown backpack as he sat in his chair.
Mrs. Francko began her daily discussion of writing improvements she marched back to her desk, heels making a dreadful clop-clop-clop across the tile floor.
Like always, Rick turned a little in his seat to catch a glimpse of the boy he could never have. Suddenly his blood ran cold; his stomach went into freefall. There, two rows over sat his idol, his dream, aiming a 9-millimeter handgun straight at him.
The look on the Drake’s face was a twisted smirk that didn’t meet his shining eyes. Before Rick could say anything, he felt his whole body convulse and a warm spot flower in his chest, quickly followed by a burst of unearthly pain.
The blast Rick somehow missed hearing had silenced the class. All eyes were now on the two boys. It must have been some horrible nightmare. Rick could feel his heart beginning to beat too fast.
As though waking from a trance, Jamie screamed, leaped up from her chair and ran towards Rick. Drake’s eyes went wide from shock. He pointed the gun at Jamie and shot her through the back. Watching her lithe figure, his guardian angel, fall to the floor was more painful than the bullet in his chest.
Rick could feel the warmth flowing from him, he was getting cold, but Jamie was falling to the floor and he had to help her, had to do something. When he dragged his failing body from the chair, and felt a second stab of pain in his arm. This time Drake was standing.
“Faggot, you made me do it! You don’t deserve to live! Look what you made me do!” he screamed, his face wild and red. Around them, no one moved. The teacher stood frozen in her steps. Classmates watching in utter shock.
Rick took another step and felt another bullet fly through the left side of his torso. He met the floor with a thud, not far from Jamie. He looked into her eyes. Tears beaded from them, mixing with her makeup and running down in black streams across her cheeks.
“It wasn’t supposed to end this way,” Jamie whispered in the silence, “Rick, I’m sorry.” Her sob was cut short by another gunshot and the sound of Drake’s body hitting the floor, then his gun clattering across desks.
There was no warmth left in Rick now. He was cold. Things were getting darker and the muffled screams faded completely from Rick’s awareness.
Someone was standing over Rick. He could feel it. When Rick looked up, he saw his grandfather. This was not the man Rick saw deteriorate and die two years ago. Here was a man in his thirties, exactly like the photographs Rick had seen in old albums.
Another feeling told him someone stood on his left too. His great-grandmother, dressed in a flowing gown shined like an angel in the blackness. Behind him, around him, more people than he recognized stood and watched solemnly.
Jamie was there in the darkness too. She lied as she had fallen. Slowly, Jamie’s eyes opened; she lifted her head and looked at him. The pain that he had seen living there every day, the soft sadness that had dwelled in them was gone, only the warm twinkle remained
“We’re proud of you, Rick,” his grandfather said in his deep bass.
“You are?” Rick asked. His grandfather nodded and took offered a hand. “Let’s go home now.”
The darkness melted, like snow melting in spring, when the cold retreated and gives way to warm sunlight. It blossomed around him like the flowers blooming around a fresh pair of gravestones that marked a friendship that would remain unbroken.
The carved stones stood proudly, beautifully where Rick never could, and whispered in their final epitaphs to each other:
“Love thy neighbor as thyself,”
and whispering beneath the blowing willow branches, “Give and it shall be
given to you. For whatever measure you deal out to others, it will be dealt to
you in return.”
