Chapter Eleven

A COUPLE OF weeks passed. If what happened wouldn’t have happened, would I have called Marin and asked to go horseback riding? Would I have finished the letter I started to Charity a hundred times? I will never know because again nothing made sense in the sleepy town of Bend anymore. My whole world changed again with just a phone call.

One o’clock in the morning the phone rings. Dad got there first. If it had been a normal time of day, he wouldn’t have answered the contraption. He hated the phone, but his good sense told him only extraordinary news came if the phone rang between the hours of midnight and six in the morning.

“Who’s calling? God damn it. What are you talking about?” Dad yelled into the phone.

“Who was that?” I asked Dad after he hung up the phone.

He struggled with pulling on his boots and totally missed the fact he hadn’t yet put on his pants. He stood in the kitchen in undershorts and a dingy T-shirt. The dogs jumped at his feet, caught up in the panic. “I don’t know. I guess I just had what you’d call an anonymous tip. Somebody—sounded like a man—said Ricky needs help some place by the County line. I’ll go check on Ricky. You stay here.”

Like that’s going to happen.

Dad said he didn’t want to wake Momma. I told him I would scream for her right that minute unless he’d let me go with him to find Ricky. Dad remedied his wardrobe—put on his standard blue chambray work shirt, dark green Dickey work pants, tube socks, and Red Wing boots. I got dressed too. We took Dad’s truck and searched for Ricky.

The County line skirted the opposite side of our farm, Kenny’s folks’ old farm and Gerry Narrow’s land. Gerry had been the one who harbored Becky and first told us that Becky was sick. It wasn’t at all far as the crow flies, but it measured a few miles if you needed to drive to catch it. The moon was plump in the sky. Dad weaved the truck down the road searching on both sides for signs of Ricky. Dad’s headlights reflected off the eyes of raccoons in the ditches and deer in the fields. Trees swayed in the wind that had come up since dark. Over the hill past the Czech place we came upon an approach. Ricky’s car, a silver well-used Honda Civic, was parked there. Everything went into muted slow motion.

The red taillights of Ricky’s car reflected off the gravel. The lighting made the world blurry and obscure, like how I imagined a movie set during a nighttime shoot. Once we pulled up flush to Ricky’s car it was clear if this country view was a movie shoot, it was a horror film. The engine wasn’t running, but the car doors were open. The dome light illuminated what appeared to be an empty car. The headlights splashed light on a wooden gate where someone stood awkwardly.

Dad parked on the roadside behind Ricky’s car. He put on his flashers and left the headlights on. I got out of the truck and tried to make sense of the scene.

My eyes adjusted. Ricky. He wasn’t standing. He hung there, strapped to the fence with rope or cord. He resembled the gory picture of Jesus in the Sunday school room at church.

His good white shirt with the little stand-up collar was torn and bloodstained. There was so much blood on his shirt and down his legs that I worried he couldn’t have had any left in him. Where are his pants? Where is his other shoe?

Blood obscured his face. His chocolate, almond-shaped eyes were hidden under darkening, swollen lids, his perfect nose—smashed flat, his mouth hung open, his lips torn, his teeth were pink with blood and maybe some were chipped or missing. I couldn’t tell. His head fell to the side and his chin rested on his collarbone. He’s broken. Oh God, don’t let him die too!

“Ricky, Ricky, Ricky!” I couldn’t stop saying his name. Maybe it could hold him to earth. I took his head in my hands and then tried to hold his body up. His head fell to my shoulder. His hair was slick with blood. His breath was shallow and raspy. Dad cut him loose from the fence. He dropped into my arms, heavier than his actual mass because of the burden put on him. Dad and I wrapped him in a blanket from the truck. Dad carried him to the truck. I didn’t bother to search for his missing shoes and pants. I only wanted him—like he belonged to our family and I had to get him away from whatever else might be lurking to get him.

“Ricky, Ricky, I am so sorry,” I cried.

I didn’t know how long he’d been strapped to that fence line; some blood had dried. His hands were icy cold and discolored. He wasn’t conscious to answer any questions.

“Let’s get him home.” Dad propped him between us on the truck seat.

“We’ve got to get him to a doctor,” I said. “Drive to the hospital.”

“We’ll wake up your momma and get Twitch on the phone. Maybe your momma has a number for that new doctor, Doctor Jacks.” Dad drove down the middle of the road. He kept one hand on the steering wheel and with the other hand he helped me hold Ricky upright between us. The drive to our farm only took minutes but seemed an eternity at the same time. My bare hands were covered in blood and my clothes were soaked in blood.

“He might have internal injuries,” I said.

“He probably does. That’s why we’re going to stabilize him at home instead of bouncing him around in this truck for two hours.”

I didn’t agree with Dad’s decision, but I let him lead me. Let Momma chew his butt if she thought he was wrong.

 

DAD CARRIED RICKY in his arms like a baby while I held the door to the house open. Dad placed Ricky on the couch. “Now, go get your momma and call Twitch!” He shooed me from the room.

Momma’s snoring stopped the moment I opened her bedroom door. She bolted upright from beneath her floral comforter. Her C-Pap mask was askew like a drunken scuba diver. She skinned off the ineffectual mask without turning off the machine. The mask and hose skittered along the floor blowing hair and dust into the air. Momma stomped on the hose like she was killing a snake. Her hair was wrapped around a half dozen pink sponge rollers.

“What is it?” she said.

“Momma, you have to get dressed and help Dad. It’s Ricky. I think he is dying.”

“Ricky?” She bounded out of the bed, pulled on gray sweatpants, and tucked her pink nightie into the elastic waistband. “Where is he?”

“In the living room.”

Momma grabbed her medical bag as she forced her swollen feet into pink fuzzy bunny slippers. Her fuchsia toenails poked out the open toes of her slippers. I knew Ricky had painted those toenails earlier in the week. They looked good. He’s an artist.

Dad had covered Ricky with a heavy quilt Momma’s mom had stitched together with used potholders knitted by BOCK—the Brides of Christ’s Kingdom—a group at church. That thing must have felt like a lead vest on his broken body. Dad stroked Ricky’s hair and told him he’d be all right.

A low moan left Momma’s mouth when she saw Ricky. Her eyes clouded with tears, but she didn’t give herself the luxury of sentimentality. She went into nurse mode. She examined the extent of his injuries. I left her to it and called Twitch from the kitchen.

No answer on his house or cell phone, but he picked up when I called the emergency number for his vet service.

“What are you doing at the clinic so late?” I asked.

“It’s a big, unflattering story, daughter,” he said. “Why’re you up so late?” He slurred his words. He called me daughter for the first time I’d ever heard.

Crap. “Are you drunk?”

“Not as drunk as I’m going to be. Are you checking up on me?”

“No, that’s not my job. I don’t suppose you’re safe to drive?”

“Safer to drive than to walk in this condition.” He laughed at his own joke.

“Somebody hurt Ricky, bad. Would you get some bandages together, some antiseptics, IV fluids, and injection painkiller—whatever you think a bad beating might require.”

Silence.

“Did you hear what I said?”

Then he asked, “Did he say who did it?”

“Not yet. He’s unconscious. Just please get that stuff together and I’ll come pick you up.”

“I’ll drive,” he said. “That’s faster.”

“Yeah, that’s stupid! You aren’t driving. We lost Becky. It doesn’t look good for Ricky. I’m tired of losing people over stupid ideas. Stay where you are until I get there.”

I told Momma and Dad I’d pick up Twitch. I didn’t share the details of his intoxicated condition.

 

ON THE WAY to Twitch’s clinic I thought about Ricky, of course. Who hurt him? Why? I had worried he would get hurt at the Lake Tavern. Who would have the hate to strip, beat, and tie him to a fence to bleed to death? I couldn’t believe anything so cruel could happen in my hometown. Maybe I deluded myself. It had happened other places.

The vet clinic was a store front on Main Street sandwiched between the library and Implement Shop. Its oversized front window read, Bend Veterinary Clinic, with some paintings of our three dogs and some cats and sheep I didn’t recognize. Charity had done the lettering and paintings for Twitch the first year we were together. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Now it seemed like she was away from Bend more and more. Just seeing the painting tugged my heart and gave me sensations other places I didn’t have time to think about. I was ashamed for thinking of myself when Ricky suffered.

When I entered the vet clinic a bell tinkled above my head. The security lights Twitch installed bathed the room in a sickly yellow light. The odor of recent beer and strong perfume wafted into my face. I flipped on the big overhead light.

Twitch cussed and covered his eyes. He sat in his desk chair. He grumbled a little more. Then he rummaged through the drawers of his desk. Dressed in only an undershirt and his jeans with the Superman emblem on the belt buckle, he pulled a clean sweatshirt over his head. A dirty blood-stained shirt lay balled up on top of the desk. He grabbed it and threw it to the floor at his feet.

“What happened to you?” I didn’t wait for his answer. He’d need to take a number for my sympathies right then. I snatched the bag of supplies he had gathered and packed in a box by his feet. I headed back to my truck. Twitch must’ve been satisfied with his clothes and supply packing. He followed me to my truck and sat slumped back against the passenger seat.

“I’m sorry, Lorraine,” Twitch said. Burp. “I’m sorry you had to come get me and see me like this.”

“Are you going to throw up?”

“Not yet. How’s Ricky?” Twitch didn’t look at me. “Is he talking yet?”

“I don’t know. He’s unconscious. His face is a mess. Some of his clothes were gone.” I concentrated on the road, but snuck glances at Twitch.

“You think he found a boyfriend? Christ.” Twitch sort of laughed and shifted in his seat.

“What I saw wasn’t about dating. He took a beating.”

“It’s no surprise. He’s been asking for something like this to happen.”

“What do you mean?” I nearly swerved off the road.

“He’s been at the Lake Tavern every weekend for weeks now and God knows what other beer joints. Kenny and that Russ thought it was funny to bring that goof along. Not everybody thought it so amusing.”

Twitch being my biological dad was the result of an ill-advised one-night stand between him and Momma. I’d never been ashamed of the fact until that moment. Right then, I wished I didn’t know Twitch was my blood.

“What are you saying? He deserved a beating because he’s gay and went to a beer joint?”

“Well, no. I mean, you had to have seen him prance around, Lorraine. Guys aren’t comfortable with that sort of behavior.” Twitch gave a limp wrist gesture. He was digging himself a big hole, but too drunk to give up the digging.

“What behavior? Drinking? Dancing?”

“Not just that, but you know, looking at guys and being friendly.”

“Oh, so he deserved a beating because he looked at guys and was friendly?”

“You’re twisting my words, Lorraine. I’m too drunk to explain myself very well.”

“I think you being drunk keeps you from hiding what you really think. It’s good to know. By your logic I’d deserve the same beating if I was at a beer joint, danced, or seemed friendly to women.”

“No. You don’t deserve no beating. That’s a different thing. You don’t flaunt yourself.”

“You’re right, Twitch. Charity and I don’t flaunt ourselves. We try not to be noticed. God forbid anybody feeling uncomfortable around the queers.”

“Don’t talk like that.” Twitch stroked his hair back roughly like he wanted to pull it from his head.

I could see his suffering, but I didn’t let him off the hook. “Does the word queer hurt your feelings or is it that you can’t imagine two women or two men can fuck? Is that what makes you all squirmy and uncomfortable?”

“Stop, Lorraine.”

“Charity and I do our fucking in secret. Guess it’s something we have in common, don’t we, Dad?”

“Stop, Lorraine! Just stop, God damn you!”

“I’m told God probably will damn me.” I drove the truck up our long drive and flattened the edge of Little Man’s plastic sandbox.

“I’ll quit talking about it for right now, but if you and I are going to have any type of real relationship we’re going to need to talk this through.” In for a penny, in for a pound, so I kept going. “You can’t stop me or Ricky from being who we are, and neither can the sick bastard who beat him. You can ignore us, tolerate us, hate us, legislate us to your heart’s content, but you can’t stop us. My dad once told me, ‘Nobody controls who we love.’”

I took the bag of supplies from the truck. I didn’t wait to make sure Twitch staggered to the house. I heard him retch in the grass as I opened the screen door.