The force of my love is unstoppable. The force of my love knows no margin. My love rips through earth and sky. My love slices open your skin, breaks apart your sternum, and takes in your heart.

There is no love like that of a father for a son. Don’t believe anyone who tells you any different, who fills you with spurious reason. A man’s love for a woman is something that makes you feel complete. But feeling whole is merely an oblique way of gazing upon your ego. In narcissistic reflection, your lack is the focus of your introspection. When you regard the woman you love, and you feel love for how she differs from you, you are actually feeling self-pity for those very things with which you are not imbued. Loving a woman is a torturous self-love, which strengthens no man.

A son, however, is inexorably you. A treasure, in many ways even more so. You are faced with an overwhelming presence of yourself, a horrifying majesty into which you can do nothing but delve. You weaken. You are faced with something so beautiful, majestic, and awesome, you can do nothing but fall on your knees before it, crying and shrieking. You humble yourself; you offer yourself up. That is true love, my dear pup.

And what makes this love greater than any other is this: it is not returned; away it is pissed. The true test of this love—what fires it, hardens it—is that it is not returned in force. A realization slowly grows that the son never will fully embrace his source. Forever a father will enact the lover unrequited. He’ll be the back-door woman, the science-class nerd ogling his prom-queen lab partner, the shopping mall schlep who smoothes his lanolin-slicked hair and nibbles breath mints yet never accrues more than looks of contempt from the women to whom he sells shoes. The father knows this is his relationship role: he is forever the one weak, desperate, hopeless. The wife, the patsy, the mistress. Incessantly loving with all his passion, dedication, and ferocity, and praying some day his love’s strength will inspire reciprocity.

I realized this, and yet my love persisted. I loved selflessly and unconditionally, despite being resisted.

And my adoration advanced into an action less about an adored and increasingly about the adoring. I loved my loving, less my beloved. I loved my love. I loved myself.

Love is hopelessness. The sole real love is hopeless. Only the strongest souls are suited for it. It is a solo scene. Some soliloquy of supreme isolation. Loving solidifies solitude; love solely shouts of existential distance.

Still, there is a single supreme advantage to this love. It is a love that actually appreciates no envy. A love actually so adamantine and acutely actualized; a wife, lady, or gay buttboy is unable to affray its absolutism. Absolutely nothing can annihilate such adulation.

I acquired this ardor in an affiliation fourfold.

I constructed a world of love. Culled from chaos, love’s comfort cradled me. The nocturnal crescent cried coruscating tears of love. Daybreak’s crystalline kisses of carmine and crimson streaked the sky, causing me to awaken before a cosmic canvas of love.

I knew more love than any man who’s ever lived.

You could have had even more.

Jake opened his eyes, sighed. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, blinked, and rubbed his forehead. He stared at the floor, his father’s dream lingering in his mind.

Dad hangs himself, Jake thought, but I still get these damn dreams.

Jake shifted uncomfortably in the metal clutch of an airfield station-gate chair. Outside, three black-and-gray dirigibles floated in the airfield sky, rising and lowering slowly, their tethers trailing down like tentacles. His parka and gear filled the chair beside him. Across the aisle, a cluster of suited Japanese businessmen bantered privately. A hearty young man in plaid wool slapped the back of a bearded Russian in a sable hat. A wiry guy in glasses from the Lower 48, sporting a patched-together attempt at cold-weather wear, whispered into a portable tape recorder.

Jake scowled. An intercom crackled. “Yukon Airways airship number 501 from Portland, Oregon, now descending at Platform Three.”

Jake folded the transcripts into the envelope and stuffed it into his flannel shirt pocket. The disembarking crowd trickled down the walkway.

Jake stood and saw himself—head shaved, beard trimmed into a meticulous stripe down the chin, eyes blued by contact lenses—but nevertheless his own face.

Jake coughed and licked his lips. He nodded. His brother nodded back. They left the airfield station together.

“The snow looks like confetti.” His brother nodded toward the windshield of Jake’s truck.

“Huh?”

“All swirling around in the headlights. It looks like confetti on New Year’s.” The highway stretched before them into blue-blackness. Rows of short trees, stunted by the thin air, mobbed the sides of the two-lane road. Snowflakes circled and whirled in the truck’s displacement of air.

“Isn’t confetti all different colors?” Jake asked. He flexed his fingertips around the steering wheel and glanced over at his brother.

“Yeah. It could be glitter, though. Or white confetti. Like at the White Party.”

“What’s a white party?”

“It’s a circuit party. They’re amazing. Gay guys from all over the country go. Like thousands. Everything’s white, and everyone dresses all in white until they, ah, well, most of them end up taking their clothes off.”

“You go to it?”

“No. But I’ve been to some like it. You should come down to one some time.”

“I don’t think those guys would like me.”

“No, no really. Some guys are really into Bears these days. Bears are big, hairy guys like you.”

“I’m not somebody’s ‘Bear.’”

“I’m sorry. I’m just saying it wouldn’t hurt you to try to meet somebody.”

“Not interested.”

“Look, you can play Miss Bachelor with the rest of us, but you know I know better. I worry about you.”

Jake glared at his brother in the passenger seat, the man who’d just done such a good job of burying their father. His brother was a well-groomed, well-dressed version of himself. His Hollywood brother. If this really was a movie, Jake would be the real person, and Hollywood would be the actor hired to portray him.

Jake returned to the road ahead. His brother gazed at the black outside the passenger window.

“How far is your place?”

“About an hour.”

Twenty silent minutes later, Jake cleared his throat.

“Thanks.”

“Huh?” His Hollywood brother had dozed off.

“Thanks for taking care of everything at Dad’s. I know I could’ve come down and helped, but I just didn’t want to see it all. I couldn’t go back there. By the time I would’ve gotten down there you would’ve been done already.”

“Oh. It’s okay. No biggie. I was already down there. You know, you do what’s got to be done.”

“And thanks for coming out here.”

“It’s okay.”

“None of the rest of us would’ve done it.”

His brother’s breath fogged the passenger window. “It’s okay.”

“At Dad’s place, in Oregon City, it was weird being secret again. Compared to living in West Hollywood. I haven’t had to be secret with a guy since—a long time ago.”

Jake held the shot glass against his mouth. The whiskey-trickle burned down his throat, fumes rising up his sinuses. He ran his tongue along the lip of glass.

“Huh,” he said in a nonplussed half-grunt. “You and the sheriff, huh?” Jake set his shot glass on the steamer trunk between him and his brother, avoiding his eyes.

“After the church bazaar,” his brother said, “everyone went toward the park, and I went along with the crowd. I went to go see him play in a benefit softball game.” His brother seemed distant and dreamy, gazing up into the rafters of the cabin, idly stroking the furs swaddling him on the couch.

“All the bleachers were full. There wasn’t an empty seat except for the ones boxed off for the mayor. When she came, the game started.” His brother stretched out, the pelts and military-surplus blankets gathered up to his neck.

“I brought binoculars. He looked so hot in his softball uniform. It said ‘Los Toros’ on the back. ‘The Bulls.’ I thought that was funny, a Spanish name for a softball team in Oregon. Turns out the coach was the son of Mexican migrant workers.

“I was sitting in the bleachers up above his team’s cages. He didn’t look up at me much, but he was always down in front where I could see him, watching, playing catch, stretching. He was so showing off for me.

“His team won. And after the game, he came over, even with everyone around, and I congratulated him on the game. And he hugged me. And he took his ball cap and put it on my head.

“I hate baseball caps, you know? They’re just a little too gay, and they just scream of some old fag who’s self-conscious about losing his hair. But it was so sweet of him to give it to me. A corny gesture, but sweet, and I just gave in to it. The cap was all sweaty. And it smelled like him. I wore it all the rest of the day.” His brother poured himself another shot and knocked it back. Jake watched him silently.

“God, he’s hot,” his brother moaned. “And the sex was like—like nothing else. I mean, I had no idea.”

Sitting in the rocker, Jake shifted his weight, frowning. “I can’t believe you did it with him in Dad’s house.” He drew his arms across his chest.

His brother drew in a slow inhale, breath gliding between his lips while he searched for words. “It felt like, like he cared so much about me. Even when he was talking like a total pig. He said—”

“You know,” Jake said, interrupting his brother. He sat up in the rocker and leaned forward. “It’ll get cold down here when the fire goes out,” he told him. “You’ll have to wake up to feed the fire.”

His brother nodded, staring into the fireplace, face cocked with a lingering half-smile.

“My stove upstairs in the loft, it lasts longer,” Jake pressed. “It keeps warm all night.”

“I’m fine down here.”

“I just thought it’d be warmer,” Jake said. “With me. That’s all.”

His brother nodded.

Jake reached over, tipping the rocker on edge, and poured himself another shot. He filled his brother’s empty glass. The liquor quivered in his unsteady hand. Jake eyed the firelight refracted through whiskey, a dancing, rutilant djinn.

“Well, just have to stock up on liquid fire, then!” he said, forcing merriment. His brother smiled and sat up on the couch. They clinked glasses. They drank. Each exhaled loudly.

Jake’s eyes watered. His brother’s shaved head wasn’t as notable in the deep, shifting shadows. In the umbral firelight, he looked more like him.

Jake pulled the bearskin closer around his legs, creaking the rocker. He had a hard-on. The fire cackled. Jake tasted whiskey on the roof of his mouth. He stared at his brother and pressed his lips together.

“I know why Dad died.”

“Yeah, he was crazy. Fucking drama queen. And that video and everything! Control queen, too.”

“No, I know why he really died.”

“What’re you talking about? You weren’t even there.”

“But I know why he really did it.”

“So do I—he was psycho.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“He’d lost it, girl. All those computers? He’d finally gone over the edge. I saw him at the end. He was bitchcakes. You know, crazy.”

“I saw him just a couple of months before. He wasn’t crazy. You can’t be crazy and know how to work all those machines. You can’t be crazy and make that video, leave us all those instructions. Yeah—you were there, so tell me this—didn’t Dad know exactly what he was doing?”

“Yeah. But you can be crazy and know exactly what you’re doing, if what you’re doing is the crazy part.”

“He wasn’t crazy!” Jake slammed his glass down on the trunk. His face softened. “He was angry. He was punishing us.”

“You are so full of shit.”

“I started it. Then he did it in front of you. He was punishing us. You and me especially.”

“What are you talking about? What did we do?”

“We loved each other. We loved each other more than we loved him.”

“What do you mean? We all hate him. But I hate Ennie, too.”

“Glowie, it’s more than that—”

“Don’t start calling me that!” His brother ran his palm over his scalp and sighed. “I’m sorry, just please don’t start with that.”

Jake lowered his head. “Before your visit—when Dad—”

“Yeah?”

“I was the last one to go out there. I’d been out to visit him not long before.”

“You saw a lot of him, huh?”

“Well—more than any of the rest of us.”

“So. You were down there in Oregon.”

“Yeah. Dad and I never did a whole lot. I’d show up and do some work around there. Last few times or so he’d been all busy with all his machines. I worked on the house or garden, whatever needed tending to.”

“Damn, he had a lot of stuff. Packing all that up took forever, even with all the church ladies. Did he ever show you what any of that stuff was all for?”

“No. Said I was too stupid to understand how it worked. He’d shoo me off if I tried watching over his shoulder.”

“The hard drive had been cleaned out before he died. I didn’t find anything in there beyond the stuff we saw in the will.”

“That didn’t have anything to do with why he killed himself.”

“Oh? Yeah? Then you tell me what it’s all about.”

Jake stood up and tossed back his liquor. He walked across the small cabin to the windows. He pulled aside the deerskin hanging in front of the frosty glass.

His brother studied him from the couch.

“I haven’t seen you in a long time,” Jake said from the window. “You never come see any of us. You hadn’t seen Dad in years—”

“Hey, don’t start blaming me for what Dad did! He couldn’t even tell which of us I was. He thought I’d just been there to visit him before.”

“I know—I’m not saying that’s why he did it. I’m just saying—I know we’re all far away, and I miss all of us, but, you know, you the most sometimes.”

His brother waved him off. “You’re just lonely,” he said. “You wouldn’t miss us if you had friends and other people in your life. And you know what would help with that, but I’m not going to have that fight with you again.”

“What?” Jake turned from the window.

“You know.”

The brothers stared at each other.

“If you’d just admit you’re a fag, living your life would be a whole lot easier. And less lonely.”

Jake’s eyes watered. He stood at the foot of the sofa. His brother swung his feet out across the steamer trunk. Jake sat beside him.

“Here,” his brother said. He lifted the quilt and blankets off his legs and draped them across Jake. He stretched and wiggled his sock toes at the wood stove’s heat.

“I don’t want to preach at you, but how do you expect to ever meet anyone, ever have anyone in your life, if you’re still in the closet?”

“I don’t need your life,” Jake said. “I don’t need a whole bunch of sex clubs and men sticking their dicks through the wall in public bathrooms—”

“Hey, gay guys don’t all do that stuff all the time. Tearooms and baths are just, like, a good way for men who aren’t out yet to meet each other. Guys that are scared—sometimes that’s the only way they can start out meeting other guys. I’m sorry. I’m just always trying to let you know how much there is out there you could be taking advantage of. That could help you meet someone. Someone you could have something real with. Like I think I might.”

“I don’t need all that.”

“Then don’t bitch to me about being lonely.” They stared at the stove’s glow. His brother ran his palm across the fuzz of his scalp. “I don’t see what all this has to do with him.”

Jake pulled on his beard. “It happened when I was visiting. I’d been weeding all afternoon. That night when I came in, Dad was with all his machines. He’d already eaten and didn’t want to talk or nothing. So I went upstairs into his loft.”

“He let you sleep up there? He made me take the couch.”

“He had me sleep up there because he’d work on his machines all night, then just sleep on the couch.”

“Yeah, well, he’d just wake me up when he came down and started working on them at dawn.” His brother sighed.

Jake rubbed his face, swallowed. “So I would spend nights up there, and I’d start looking at the picture.”

“That one I sent you?”

Jake nodded, listening. “You remember,” he said, “you remember that day?” He looked at his brother.

“Oh yeah! We’d been swimming instead of clearing rocks and, um, that was when we kept dunking Chairhesty, and Crowking got all pissy, yelling at us to be more mature.” He smiled. “We still had fun together then. Until Dad got home at least.”

Jake coughed. “I know. I was looking at that picture. We’re in the front on the rocks, and the others are in the water. I must’ve been looking at that picture forever. I forgot about everything else. Forgot about being in Oregon and Dad being downstairs. Felt like it was just like back then and we were all together and—”He looked at his brother. Their eyes glowed with reflected stove-light, brown red embers ready to spark or crack open. “And you and me were together.”

His brother narrowed his eyes, frowned. His lips pressed together tightly.

Jake spoke faster. “And I was just thinking about that and looking at the picture, and we’re all wet and beautiful, and the water and sun was on everyone’s skin. I was just remembering about all of us, and it gets so lonely. Glowie, I wasn’t thinking. I got stupid. I—I starting touching myself. I’m so used to being alone and not having anyone else around.”

His brother stared at him, hard.

“And then I heard Dad. He’d come upstairs, and I hadn’t heard him, but then I did. He was standing right behind me at the top of the stairs, and he saw what I was doing, and he saw what I was looking at and, and—he said, ‘That’s it.’ I turned around, and he was shaking his head, saying, ‘That’s it. That’s it. That’s the end of it.’

“He went back downstairs. I thought he was going to come back up and kill me right there, and I halfway wanted him to. But he just went back to his machines all night.” He turned to his brother. “Don’t you see? ‘That’s the end of it.’ I killed Dad. From seeing what I did. From seeing how I love you. Seeing how I still love you.”

His brother jumped off the couch, blankets falling to the floor. He stormed into the dark kitchen, hitting his head on the hanging rack of pans and skillets. Then silent—Jake knew his brother was watching him from the kitchen’s blackness.

“Fuck!”

“Glow—”

“Fuck you! Fuck this shit and fuck you! I can’t believe I came all the way up here for this shit!” He walked back to the stove, rubbing his head. “This is all just bullshit so you never have to come out or grow up. Damn, what were you thinking? We were always so careful. We even hid it from the rest of us. What happened to you? We used to wait until four in the morning! We used to hike out miles into the woods!”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“So what. So he found out one more of his sons was a fag. He didn’t give a shit when I told him. I thought it might make me special somehow or different at least, but no, no big deal. He probably already knew about me. And you. And us. I’m sure he did. So why should he kill himself over any of us?”

“Because it is us, together—”

“It wasn’t us together. It was you and a picture—”

“But it was enough for him to know. He figured out everything.”

“Bullshit! There’s nothing to figure out because nothing’s going on. That was years ago. We were kids, and it’s over. And he probably already knew. You’ve got to grow up.”

Jake chewed on his thumbnail. He leaned forward on the couch, stood up. “He did know. He knew how we loved each other. He knew it was the only way we could be stronger than him. And he knew what would be the only way to stop us, to destroy us.”

“What?” His brother turned around, arms tight at his sides and fists clenched. Jake got up off the couch and walked toward him as if approaching an animal, palms open and facing out.

“Easy, easy. Remember what he said in the email. ‘Without me you’re nothing. You’ve never appreciated that, but now I will show you.’ He thinks he made us and that we’ll go to pieces without him.”

Jake stood face-to-face with his brother.

“Our love keeps us strong now. And now we know there’s nothing wrong with our love. One of us is obviously not Dad’s son. We’re not brothers—that’s why we’re in love.

“I do not—”

“And we’ll be dead if we don’t watch each other’s back. The others aren’t going to like having a fake. Brett warned me. And they aren’t going to like finding out about us.” Jake leaned forward. “We need each other to survive this all.”

He put his hands on his brother’s shoulders and drew him into a kiss. Their hard cocks crossed each other through layers of thermal cotton.

Jake’s dogs blinked sleepily, raising their heads at the sound of breaking glass. The men’s shouts and swearing ripped across the hissing silence of the night. Some dogs stood up, watching intently, at attention, on the other side of the chain-link fence. They twitched at the sound of furniture overturning, large bodies thudding against the floor of the cabin, wood and glass cracking and breaking.

Some dogs whined at the sound of their master’s voice, raging shouts of accusation and defense. That their master’s voice was duplicated only confused things more. The sounds of fighting were clear. Pain, anger, and love were apparent in the duplicate voices, but who gave and who received? Who was screaming; who was pleading?

The dogs paced nervously when the noise stopped. They howled, whined, and called out. A hand drew the skins back shut over the broken window and light from the cabin died. The dogs cried, whimpered, paced.

They slept fitfully. Morning came and went. Even though there was no sunlight, the dogs’ stomachs told them something was wrong. Their feeding was late. When sounds finally came from the cabin, they bolted to the fence.

Tools and work were supposed to come after feeding. Some howled, singing in unison with the chainsaw’s whine.

When the dogs finally ate, they ate better than they ever had, feasting on fresh meat. Only when sated did they note the kennel’s open gate. It swung freely. The pack left the kennel together.

 

© 2005 D. Travers Scott - Contributor's Bio

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