CHAPTER

FOURTEEN

How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!

HOW TRUE THE WORDS THE PRINCE OF DENMARK spoke. How sad this morning at the cheap motel in Manchester. I have no tower in which to take refuge, no father’s ghost, no mother’s shoulder to catch my tears.

I struggled to get out of bed. I took a warm shower, hoping to wash away my lethargy. The past day had left me anxious and harboring an uncomfortable feeling of depression—like a brick in my head. I looked in the bathroom mirror: My eyes were dark and my face was as sallow as a drunk after a three-day binge. The man in my dream, Stephen, was pulling me deeper into the vat despite every push and shove against him.

For all my gloom, nature had provided a blazing sun in a spotless blue sky. It was the kind of sun—a ball of white-hot, piercing rays— that would make you blind if you looked at it long enough. The bright clarity of the day was in sharp contrast to my hazy confusion.

I thought of calling John Dresser to get an update on Stephen, but decided against it fearing the phone might be tapped. By now, every cop in New Hampshire knew I was in the Manchester area thanks to Chris, but there was no reason to take chances. John probably wanted nothing to do with me anyway. In my gut, I felt Stephen was alive, a supposition grounded only in intuition. I flipped through the television news channels, but neither Stephen nor I were mentioned. The only other lead I could check out that seemed probable was the Aryan America compound near Warren. Perhaps they might be holding Stephen to the tune of a half a million dollars.

There was another troubling issue for me. Why had Chris Spinetti called Rodney Jessup to tell him of Stephen’s intended “outing?” Why the favor? Those questions ran through my head all night. Chris might have an APB out on me for murder, but he had to know that if I found out that underhanded trick of his, I would be one pissed-as-hell queer with some questions of my own.

The same disinterested gray-haired man who had checked me in, checked me out around 9:45 a.m. “Thank you, Mr. Swerdloe,” he said. “Enjoy your stay in New Hampshire.”

I blinked, but recovered. I’d forgotten my alias—a stupid mistake.

I made one stop at the Mall of New Hampshire. I swigged down a cup of strong black coffee and ate a strawberry jelly donut. Nutrition was not foremost on my mind. I bought a Red Sox baseball cap from a man operating a hat business from a cart. I wanted to look as straight as possible when I got to Warren. I could hide my hair as easily under an “I’ve got balls” cap as I could my GlamourTress wig.

It was risky, but in order to save time, I drove the Cavalier up I-93 until I got to Route 25 near Plymouth. I kept looking over my shoulder. Near Franklin, an olive-colored state patrol car whizzed past me at a high rate of speed, intent on some other business. I froze when I saw the fast-moving vehicle in the rear-view mirror, but the trooper never gave me a look.

The closer I got to Warren, the greener and more mountainous the land became along the spine of the Appalachian Trail, nearly a thousand miles from Rodney Jessup’s conversion. What had I expected from him last night at the church? A clue? A confession? Remorse? Whatever Rodney Jessup knew was of no help to me now.

The shallow, wooded peaks of the White Mountains surrounded me. Warren was as charming as a happy New England postcard. On any other day, I could have been content being a tourist basking in the warm sunshine and cool mountain air. I parked the car at Land’s General Store on the main highway, an establishment straight out of Green Acres, complete with a screened-in porch and a creaky plank floor. The store smelled delicious: A sweet mixture of baked breads, coffee, and chocolate all wrapped in the milky glacial air of an open ice cream freezer. A gray tiger cat swished its tail at me and possessively held its place on the polished oak check-out counter. Behind it, a pretty, trim woman in blue jeans and a white sweatshirt gave me a smile. She was marking items off on an inventory list. She pushed back her brown hair with her hands and deftly placed her pen behind her right ear.

“Hello. What can I do for you?” Her voice was pleasant, unaffected.

I picked up a package of M&Ms. “I’d like these, and, if you have it, a turkey sandwich on light rye with mustard, lettuce and tomato.”

“Sure.” She turned and yelled, “David” to the back of the store.

A man wearing a blood-spotted chef’s apron over his work shirt and jeans, stepped out of the back room and stood behind the meat counter. His eyes were pleasant and eager and his rugged face was set off by a full black beard. The woman repeated my sandwich instructions.

“Anything else?” she asked.

“Maybe a Coke.”

I twirled a quarter on the slick counter.

“Drinks are in the cooler,” she said and pointed across the room.

“A question,” I said. “Can you tell me how to get to Aryan America?”

She stared at me. David stopped slicing the turkey.

“You from the city?” she asked.

I nodded. “Boston. Looking for a friend.”

She smiled, the briefest glimpse of teeth appeared between her lips. “I don’t think any friend of yours would be with Carl Roy. Not many gay men around here, let alone out around here.”

I looked down at my shirt and jeans. “Did I forget to take my gay sign off?” I asked, disgruntled I couldn’t pull off the straight charade. “The Red Sox cap didn’t help?”

The woman laughed and David said, “Ann’s got a sense. Her brother’s gay.”

“We don’t make a big deal of it,” Ann said. “We’re from Hartford. We came to Warren to get away from the city, the crime, all the metro stuff. Our dream was to run a country store. So, we ended up with Carl Roy instead.”

“Guess I should brush up on butch.”

“Carl’s not half bad—at least to us,” Ann said. “He comes in all the time. Acts like any other customer. We say, ‘Hello, Carl. How’s the family?’ and he’ll say ‘Just fine, how’s yours?’ and off he goes. That’s about as deep as it gets. We’re glad we don’t have a pickle barrel, although we’ve been thinking about getting one.”

“We’ve never seen a bad side of Carl,” David said.

“What’s he like?” I asked.

“Squat, like a bulldog,” David explained. “Bulldogs are really gentle, you know.”

“Carl may look like a bulldog,” I said, “but from what I hear he’s more like a pit viper.”

“Thinning red hair,” David continued, ignoring my comment. “Could have been a middle-weight boxer.”

“Sounds formidable.”

Ann rang up my order. “Most people in town tolerate him. ‘Live free or die,’ you know. He keeps his nose clean; never gets into trouble. Most folks don’t care what he does as long as he doesn’t bother them. On the other hand, there are little pockets of Carl’s believers spread throughout the mountains. He gets mail from all over the world. We hear rumors, but we keep out of it. He can believe what he wants.”

“How do I find him?”

Ann narrowed her eyes. David stepped around the counter and handed me my sandwich. He was lumberjack material.

“You sure you want directions?” she asked.

“A close friend of mine may be staying with Carl. I need to find him.”

“Okay,” she said, not hiding her disbelief at my story, “but you didn’t hear it from us. I don’t want Carl to think we’re sending him uninvited guests. What’s your name?”

“Des.”

“Well, Des, good luck. I hope you find your friend.” She extended her hand. I grasped it and she shook mine warmly.

The Lands told me to look for a blockade entrance about six miles north of Warren on Route 118. Mt. Cushman would be clearly visible on my right when I got near the road. They said the property was ringed by a high fence, some of it electrified, and the house, although they had never been there, was a least a half-mile back from the road.

There was little traffic along the way. A few puffy white clouds dotted the sky above the peaks. I slowed the Cavalier when the gentle slope of a higher mountain came into view through the passenger windows. I drove a quarter mile more and stopped near an iron gate with “No Trespassing” and “Private Property” signs posted on it. An intercom box, inscribed “C. Roy” stood to the right of the gate. I’d found Aryan America.

No matter my fondness for drama, I didn’t want to make an entrance through the front gate. I turned the car around and followed the fence until it ended at a lumber road that cut into the woods. The Cavalier rumbled over the potholes and exposed rocks. I parked the car when the road fell away to narrow tracks.

The wind brushed through the tamarack and tall pines, on land studded with quaking aspen, mountain birch and striped maples, all verdant and serene as if locked in place for eternity. The light, quivering and diffuse, transformed the forest into an infinite sea of green.

I opened the trunk and loaded the .357. I had neglected to pack my holster and I dreaded the cold metal between my stomach and jeans. I reconsidered taking the gun. Unarmed, my chances of being taken as an innocent hiker—someone lost in the woods— were better. I really knew nothing about how Aryan America operated. I might discover a fortress or a farmhouse; a militia or a few disgruntled farmers. I closed the trunk, concerned about the safety of my possessions, and hiked into the woods toward Aryan America.

The forest floor was a landmine of noises. Small branches cracked under my feet and every step brought up the crackle of dead leaves. Every crunch gave away my location, but whenever I stopped, I saw nothing but trees and heard nothing but the tremble of the wind.

After about 15 minutes, I came to a wire fence. There was no attempt to hide the electrification. A few white knobs, insulators, were wired on a supporting post. I pitched a downed branch onto one of the wires, but the limb bounced back without a hiss or a puff. A frosting of barbed wire made the fence at least five feet tall, high enough I couldn’t jump it. I walked parallel until I came to a large rock outcropping that split the fence. This is too easy, I thought. I was right. I could climb the outcrop and avoid the fence. The only drawback was the 15-foot deep ravine I would drop into unless I made a clean jump across the chasm. If I executed the jump correctly, I would land between the trunks of two gnarled trees. If not, I would end up in a hole with a broken skull. Or worse.

I stopped to piss.

I sat on the outcropping and felt the cold and mossy damp of the rock sink into my jeans. The woods breathed around me.

“There’s a lot of money to be made here,” I said to the forest. I pulled the Marlboros from my jeans. “Half a million dollars. A nice sum.”

I imagined what I could do with the money. I could retire to Costa Rica and live like a king for years. I could have Costa Rican men day and night. I could live in Mexico and open a leather shop. I could have Mexican men day and night. I could live on a secluded Caribbean island and lie naked in the sun. I could have island men day and night. I could get out of this miserable life I had been stuck in forever.

Or I could forget all this, turn back and return to the stolen car. Maybe start life over.

To proceed further, to make this jump across the chasm to Aryan America would be an admission, a break in the DNA of my life. If I jumped, I might as well admit that Stephen was more to me than a friend. He was the lover I always wanted; a man I respected and admired, and a man who was so devoted to John Dresser that my fantasy was doomed to wallow in the self pity of my heart. Yet, sitting here, I realized that when I came to his aid in the horrifying stillness outside the bar two years ago, I saved more than Stephen’s life.

I saved my own.

I could thank him now by taking the leap. He might thank me for it later.

I crushed the cigarette into the green moss.

The lyrics to People ran through my head. I sang and laughed in the woods.

Then I leaped off the rock.