Chapter Ten

Seth looked at Dane, feeling a little surprised at her abrupt departure.

“Do you think she’s okay?” he asked.

“Of course she’s not okay,” Dane said softly, voice pitched just above a whisper. “Her son just tried to kill himself.”

Dane’s face looked anguished, and Seth’s heart went out to him. The way he cared for these kids was beyond admirable, not something Seth had seen a lot in his short career as an educator.

“I know. Stupid question.”

“C’mon.” Dane grabbed Seth’s arm and led him away from the room. Seth figured he didn’t want Patsy to hear them talking. They were silent in the elevator, through the hospital lobby, and on into the parking lot. During that whole time, Dane never removed his hand, gently clutching, from Seth’s arm.

Seth liked it.

Outside, the wind was no less bitter, although the sun was higher in the sky. A light snow had begun to fall, and the sky was a mix of puffy dark-gray clouds and blue sky, making shadows come and go on the pavement.

Dane took his hand away from Seth’s arm and looked down at his hand, as though surprised. Seth wondered if he even realized he’d been holding on to Seth. Dane smiled and then glanced down at his watch.

“Wow.”

“What?”

“It’s only eleven o’clock. It seems like a whole day has already passed.”

“I know.”

Dane cocked his head. “Maybe you and I could go grab a burger before we head back? Talk about helping Truman, if you’re on board for that.”

“Of course I’m on board! The poor guy. I’d love to be able to help him. And lunch sounds like a very good idea. I didn’t have any breakfast this morning, and I’m feeling a little depleted.”

“You been to the Elite?”

“That’s the diner where Truman’s mom works, right?”

Dane nodded.

“Nah. Haven’t had the chance yet.”

Dane cuffed him gently on the back of the head. “Kid, you don’t know what you’re missing.”

*

The Elite Diner was a throwback, but not in some ironic, retro way. It had all the things a “retro” diner in Chicago would include, Seth thought, yet he could tell immediately that the diner had stood here in Summitville’s downtown for many decades. It was housed in a building made to look like an old railway car. Inside, the walls were quilted aluminum, and the floors were a scuffed and chipped checkerboard of red and gray linoleum. Unlike a “nostalgic” diner in Chicago, though, nothing here seemed new. Everything about it had the patina of years of use. The soda fountain spouts were tarnished. The wall above the big grill was stained from years of grease spatters. The counter, gray Formica, still looked good, but the glass cases, one with doughnuts and the other with what looked like a pumpkin pie, were dull, probably from all the grease in the air. The stools lined up at the counter were outfitted in sparkling red vinyl, but they too had seen better days. Many were patched with duct tape. Seth smiled. The smells—French fries, burgers—were comforting. “Great place,” he said and meant it.

“You guys can sit wherever you like.” A tired waitress, with hips that strained the polyester of her pink uniform and an upsweep of dyed-red hair, gestured to the narrow confines.

“I see a booth open at the back. Let’s take that. We’ll have privacy.” He grinned at Seth over his shoulder as he headed back to the booth. “Small town, but big ears.”

Once they were settled in and had ordered—cheeseburger and fries for Seth and a hot meat loaf sandwich with a side of “wet” fries for Dane—they looked at each other, and Seth could feel the weight of the morning beginning to seep in. This was no first date.

Endora, no kidding, was their waitress’s name. Before they could even start talking, she came back to the table.

“You guys want drinks with your meals? A shake, maybe? Pop?”

Dane said, “We gotta have cherry Cokes. They’re awesome. They still make them with fountain Coke and syrup. You’ll die.”

Or at least get early onset diabetes, Seth thought, from all that sugar! “Sounds delicious.” He smiled at Endora and said, “Conjure us up a couple of those!” and snickered.

Endora didn’t get the magical reference. She walked away.

Even though the diner was bustling with the lunchtime crowd, it felt to Seth like there was a bubble of silence around Dane and him. He realized that they didn’t really even know each other; they were just a couple of men thrown together by circumstance. He blurted out, “You were very brave today.”

“Ah.” Dane waved the compliment away. “You said that already. I just did my job. Tried to help a kid in need. You were the one. You could have both gone over that ledge.” Dane shivered. “I get chills when I think about it.”

Seth wanted Dane to know about their so-far-unspoken common ground. “Yeah, Truman. We worked together to help him, didn’t we? We did a good thing, but I expect we still need to do a lot of work to make sure that kid doesn’t pull something like that again.” Seth was quiet for a moment. “But when I said you were brave, I meant something else.”

He watched Dane go a little pale. A sickly smile spread across his face, which, oddly enough, didn’t detract at all from the guy’s magnetism.

“What? I don’t understand.”

Seth felt like he was putting a foot out to test the surface of an iced-over pond. Would it hold him? He swallowed and licked his lips. He kept his mouth shut as Endora brought their sodas, an honest-to-goodness red-and-white-striped paper straw sticking out of each fountain glass. Seth took a sip and had to admit the cold sweet was a revelation, no comparison to the stuff Coke put readymade into a can or two-liter bottle. He leaned forward. “Is that the first time you admitted to the school you were gay?”

Dane looked flustered. His eyebrows scrunched together. His gaze moved frantically all around the narrow confines of the diner, lighting restlessly on everything and nothing all at once. He, too, took a sip of the wondrous elixir they’d ordered, but he choked on his, his face reddening.

Finally, his choking slowed to a few sputters. A couple of other diners turned to stare. Seth had gotten halfway up, ready to do the Heimlich if necessary.

But Dane composed himself. He laughed briefly. “Honest to God, today’s the first day I ever told anybody, ’cept for my two kids.” Dane grinned, but the sheepishness won out. “And that was only last night.”

“Really?”

“Man, didn’t you know? I was married for a long time—to a woman. And even that didn’t end because of my being gay. It ended because she died, in a car wreck.” Dane looked away for a moment. Wistful? Sad?

Dane chuckled again, but there was little mirth in it. “Hell, even I didn’t know until after Katy—that was my wife’s name—died.” He paused, appearing to think. “I take that back. I knew. How can you not, right? You see a nice ass on a guy and your libido doesn’t lie. But the difference, I guess, is you can refuse to accept what your eyes and your body—and sometimes your dreams—tell you. And that’s where I’ve been my whole life, refusing to accept who I was.” He sighed. “I guess I thought I could change.”

“You can’t change who you are,” Seth said softly. “But you can change how you deal with it.”

“I know that. Now. I just kept thinking that, if I played the part long enough and hard enough, I could become the man I was supposed to be.” Dane stared down at the table.

Seth suddenly didn’t know who needed his pity, his love, and his support more, Truman or Dane. He’d known closeted guys before, especially when he was first coming out and sought sexual experience in places like Chicago’s lakefront parks and forest preserves. Many of the guys who showed up there were married men, coupled, he guessed, with unsuspecting women. Seth avoided them and held them in a certain amount of contempt.

Now, seeing Dane and how much he hurt, coming to grips with who he was, made Seth feel ashamed of his disdain for the married men he’d encountered in his past. He reached his hand out and covered Dane’s with it.

Dane snatched his hand away and looked at him oddly. “What are you doing?” He seemed a little desperate.

“I just wanted to offer you some comfort. Coming out is hard. I didn’t know today was your coming-out day.” Seth decided now would be a good time to share with Dane, to let him know he was not alone. “I remember my own coming out. I was a senior in high school. I got Mom and Dad together in our living room and told them I had an announcement. I told them I’d just found out I had brain cancer and had three months to live.”

“What?”

Seth laughed. “And then I told them I was kidding. I was just gay.” He grinned. “They were so relieved. We never went through any of the angst some of my friends experienced. I never had to endure their horror stories. My folks were loving, accepting.”

“So?” Dane wondered. “Your life has been—what? Easy?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Is life easy for any of us? Really? But at least I never had the burden of carrying around a secret like you did. Man, that had to have been hard. Did you ever…act on your feelings?”

Dane’s eyes glistened for a second, and he drew in a breath. “No,” he whispered, his voice hoarse. Then he pulled himself together. Seth was surprised at how quickly Dane’s mood changed, like a cloud moving over the sun, then away again. “Hard doesn’t begin to describe it. So you’re gay, huh? I would never have guessed.” Dane scratched the back of his head.

Just then Endora arrived with their food. They grew quiet as she set down the plates and bottles of ketchup and mustard. She ripped off their checks and set them beside the food.

“No rush, sweeties. Just pay up front when you’re done. Holler if you need anything.”

She walked away. Seth returned his gaze to Dane. “You’re surprised? Why?” he asked, biting into his cheeseburger.

“You just don’t seem the type.”

“What’s the type?”

Dane wasn’t touching his food. “Oh, c’mon. Like Truman,” he said softly. “That kid couldn’t hide it if he tried. I would imagine a young Truman Capote was very much like our Truman. It’s kind of ironic that’s his name.” Dane smiled sadly.

Seth stuffed a couple of fries in his mouth. They were hand cut, skin on, and delicious. “You’re not like Truman. At least not in the obvious way. So…why would you be surprised that I’m gay?”

Dane appeared to ponder the question for a while. “I guess, uh, I just kind of thought gay men were obvious. The only one I really know of, besides Truman and now you”—he grinned—“is Jimmy Dale, who has his own beauty parlor a couple doors down from here and who’s been doing the ladies’ hair here since my own mother was a girl. He has rings on every finger, a big dyed pompadour, and wears mascara and rouge. Sort of a poor man’s Liberace.” Dane burst out laughing. “I guess it was Jimmy Dale who allowed me to hold on to the belief that I couldn’t be gay because I was nothing like him.”

“You thought all gay men were effeminate? And you were the odd exception to the rule?”

Dane nodded.

Seth felt taken aback. Here was a rare creature in front of him—a twenty-first-century gay male with no real exposure to the gay community. Seth had come up and out in Chicago, with Pride marches and rallies, dozens of gay bars, sports leagues, gay newspapers. Hell, even the main street of the gayborhood—Halsted—was lined with rainbow pylons. “You haven’t known many gay people, have you? Or let me rephrase that. You haven’t known many people you knew were gay? I mean, you probably think you, me, Truman, and that Jimmy Dale fella are the only ones in town.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Dane cut a forkful of meat loaf and popped it in his mouth.

“The truth is, Dane, even in a small town like Summitville, there are probably dozens of gay people all around you. They just don’t announce it, because here is maybe a little bit more backward than the big cities.”

“A little bit?” Dane snorted.

“My point is this. I’ve known a ton of gay people, and the vast majority of them—by and large—are not people like Jimmy Dale. Not that there’s anything wrong with being a little soft, veering a little more to the feminine side. Those guys, the ones I’ve known anyway, are actually tough sons of bitches, because they have such a hard lot and get beat up on, both literally and metaphorically, most of their lives.” Seth grinned. “Try messing with any drag queen. You’ll see.” Seth grabbed a couple of fries and made them disappear. “But yeah, most of us are pretty everyday, pretty ordinary, just leading our lives. I know you think, right now, being gay is awful special, freakish even, but I’m here to tell you it’s just a variation on the human theme. And that’s what we all are—human.” He touched Dane’s hand again and again was met with the same response. Seth frowned. He assumed Dane didn’t want anyone in the diner to see the two men touching.

He’d have to work on that, because he most assuredly wanted to touch Dane some more. He took a sip of his Coke and decided to move on. “You said maybe we could help Truman? What would that look like to you?” Seth wondered if any attempt the two of them made to help Truman would also be helping Dane. He felt a small rush of pleasure and was suddenly glad fate—and a cheating lover—had brought him to this small town.

“I don’t know,” Dane said. “I guess it crossed my mind that we could maybe informally counsel the kid.” He grinned, but the rapid shifting of his gaze told Seth that Dane was nervous. “I know I mentioned clinics with sliding scales that Patsy could take Truman to, and they do exist. But not here in Summitville. They’re a good drive away. And I just worry that, because they’re impractical, not to mention probably overloaded, it might be hard for Truman and Patsy to follow through.”

“And that’s where we’d come in?” Seth asked. “I don’t have any training at all in counseling.”

“Neither do I,” said Dane. “But I think we both have one quality that any good therapist would have, should have—compassion.”

“And we both know what’s it’s like to be gay.” Seth put a hand on his chest. “An old, tired veteran of the homo wars.” Then he pointed to Dane. “And a new recruit.”

“I don’t know if I’ve exactly been ‘recruited,’” Dane said. “I mean, it’s not a choice.”

Seth burst out laughing. “You’ve learned the first lesson in Gay 101.” He looked into Dane’s eyes, noticing how icy and pale blue they were. It nearly took his breath away. “Anyway, it was just a figure of speech. How about if we call you a newbie instead?”

“I don’t know if I’m ‘new’ to anything.”

Seth rolled his eyes. “C’mon, man!” He slapped the table, grinning. “Lighten up. Can’t I catch a break?”

Dane smiled back, thankfully. He shoved his plate away from him. It almost looked as though it had been licked clean. “I can talk to Patsy. How would you wanna do this?”

“I don’t think it should be done on campus. Let’s keep things casual, maybe see if we could drop by the house once a week or something. Just to talk and let him know that he’s okay, because we are.” Seth started to reach out to touch Dane’s hand once more, then thought better of it and pulled back.

“Good thinking. Of course this all depends on Patsy and, naturally, Truman. They have to be on board.”

“Oh, I think they will be.” Seth smiled at Dane. “You know, this has been an awful morning, but in a perverse way, I’m kind of glad of it.”

Dane cocked his head, but he was smiling. “Oh?”

“Yeah, because I got to know you better. And it looks like there’s a bit of an opportunity to get even better acquainted.” Seth could do this thing—raise one eyebrow independently of the other. He did it now. “I like you, Dane.”

Dane looked around nervously. Seth thought he was probably checking to see if anyone had heard. In Summitville it was a dangerous thing, Seth guessed, for one man to say he liked another. God, what would happen if one said he loved him? Would a lightning bolt streak from the sky?

Love, Seth thought. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here.

Dane asked, “Are you sure you have time for this? I mean, it might go nowhere, but it might also go somewhere, and that could mean a real time commitment outside school.”

“Dude, I just moved here from Chicago. I don’t know anyone. Other than the obvious benefit of maybe doing some good in the world and helping a kid in need, I’m also hungry for something to do. Do you have the time? You’re the one with two kids.” Seth started to add “that you’re raising alone” and decided against it.

“I’ll make the time.” Dane glanced down at his watch. “Shit. It’s after noon. We need to hightail it back. I’ll talk to Patsy after school.” He leaned forward to grope in his back pocket.

Seth grabbed both checks off the table. “No. It’s on me today.”

Dane looked puzzled. “Why?”

“Because next time, buddy, you buy. This is my way of making sure there is a next time. I know you’re a man of honor.” Seth got up without waiting for Dane to argue.