By Example

“You cannot teach a man anything. You can only help him discover it within himself” 
— Galileo Galilei

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Jasper Evan McKinley died on Wednesday, December 12, 2023, the exact time unknown for he lived alone, a confirmed bachelor of Dupree, Alabama, population 321. He was found on the back porch, coffee cup on the floor and the Dothan Eagle scattered across the rear yard, released into the wind by his own release from this mortal world. He was ninety-four.

He lived a lot of his life in the old farmhouse on Buchanan Road, two-stories, plain and overly square, a stoic house much like the McKinley family that built and occupied it since the early 1900s. The house had fallen into disrepair, paint peeling, shingles breaking loose, two windows with cracked panes, and an interior dated and worn. But it had been Jasper’s home, a place he never wanted to leave.

His nearest living relative was Jason McKinley, his brother’s grandson. Jason had his own place with his wife and two sons. A ranch house built in the early eighties that he bought for his growing family after Noah was born, the oldest, now 18.

It was a cold February morning, the temperature staying in the low thirties, that a Lexus pulled into the drive and a man in a suit and tie came to the front door, something no one the family knew would ever do. It was an attorney, the one that represented the estate of Jasper who came to deliver the news Jason had inherited everything Jasper had left behind.

Jason had been surprised but knew he and Emily, his wife, had been the only family to visit Jasper, the only ones to invite him to dinner, to have over on holidays, the only ones to take him to appointments to the doctor or trips to the grocery store up in Ashford. The attorney spelled out what was involved: a modest amount in a checking account, a couple of Treasury bonds, and the property on Buchanan Road and all the contents of the house and barn.

The next Saturday, Jason, Noah, and Zach, the youngest at fifteen, rode over to Jasper’s place to refresh their memories of what was on the property. Jason pulled around to the back of the house where he parked near the back porch, the place the widow Evelyn Bradberry found Jasper, and for a minute the three of them sat just staring at the house then the barn still not sure they believed Jasper was gone.

“Okay, let’s do this. Zach, come with me to the barn, Noah, go through the house and get an idea of what is inside. Remember, we want to keep photos and personal items such as a Bible with names of relatives, or anything like that. The furniture and things in the kitchen will probably all go to the charity shop in Ashford except the cast iron skillets and that old wood rolling pin. Your mother said not to let anyone get those. Jump out and let’s get an inventory of everything first,” said Jason as the three of them climbed out of the Chevy truck.

 

Jason and Zach swung open the large double doors of the barn to let light in and began to take stock. Jason wasn’t sure, but he thought the old grey tractor was a 1946 Ford 2N and the blue and white was a 4000 Series, but he wasn’t sure of the year, early 1960s he thought. Behind them was a 1964 Ford truck, F100 in green with a white grille and bumper. It was rusted through in the bed and the front was damaged, and Jason knew it had not run in his lifetime. In the next bay implements for the tractors were haphazardly arranged, and behind them near the rear, Jasper’s last automobile, a 1980 Mercedes Benz 450 SEL. It was silver with a black interior and Jason looked at the car that had not been on the road in 7 or 8 years. It had developed a mechanical issue and Jasper parked it, from then on relying on Emily or Jason to take him around until Noah got his driver’s license. Jason and Zach went around photographing everything, making notes of their condition. Once the farm equipment was surveyed, they would tackle the two storage rooms along the other side of the barn and whatever was in the hayloft.

 

Noah entered the house sensing the emptiness of it. He pictured Jasper standing at the kitchen sink prepping some vegetables or sitting at the old table reading a newspaper or some novel. Or the day, when he had been thirteen and had ridden over on his bike for the first time by himself to mow the lawn, Jasper told him to stop calling him Uncle Jasper, to just call him Jasper. He remembered how Jasper would stoke up the wood heater in the kitchen getting it too hot, or how Jasper would make breakfast for him when he was over to mow grass, relishing the greasy fried eggs cooked in the bacon grease and the soupy grits loaded in butter. But it was the stories Jasper told that he would miss the most. Stories of growing up poor during the depression for Jasper was born in the year of the great crash. Jasper had been too young for WWII, but at twenty-one, he found himself in the Navy for the Korean War that President Truman ordered forces for on June 27, 1950.

Noah reflected on those stories, of being on the aircraft carrier USS Sicily, of his antics during shore leave and during their time at sea. Then there were the years when Jasper returned home, a young man living in the deep south, but one who traveled with friends, visiting Europe, the Far East, Australia, South and Central America, and Africa. It seemed an unbelievable life to Noah, one that was hard to square with the man he knew, one in his eighties and early nineties who lived alone. A man who could spend hours on the back porch reading or down at the fishpond at the back of the property sitting in a lawn chair for hours on end whether he was catching fish or not.  He wondered why no woman ever captured Jasper’s heart, for Noah had seen photos of him in his twenties and thirties, an attractive man by any measure.

Then he considered his own predicament. A gay man who had never dated, never even met another gay man, who had deflected the advances of the girls at school, desperate for graduation to arrive so he could get to college and experience life he had only read about. It was all the more painful by his loneliness, a personal isolation created by his fear of coming out to this family. He liked to think it would be no big deal, that they would support and love him no matter what. He knew his mother was progressive, a teacher at Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine in Dothan, and his father was a farmer, a man who sought a life on the land, someone who admonished Zach and him if they ever judged someone unfairly. The fact Zach found out only made him more anxious despite assurances from Zach he would never tell, saying that was for him to do.

There had been a time when he almost told Jasper. It was one afternoon after he mowed the lawn, sitting on the back porch shirtless and sweating, while Jasper brought out iced tea and cookies. He had admitted to avoiding some of his friends at school, trying not to get caught up in their plans for double dating, pushing him to ask Vicky Holmes out.

If you’re not interested in Vicky, then it would be wrong to ask her out, for you would only be playing with her feelings.

I know.

Noah, you have to live honestly, find the one that makes your heart race in your chest, the one that scares the shit out of you with longing.

But what if no one around here does it for me?

Then you must leave and find your place wherever it may be. You should find yourself a life of contentment.

Did you ever find that?

Oh, yes, but there were hardships. If only I were younger, lived in this time instead…

The silence had stretched out so long Noah felt the opportunity was there to confess. He remembered how Jasper looked, features softening with the smile of someone keeping a secret.

Jasper, what if no one likes who I am?

What do you mean?

“What if…

He never finished the sentence. At first because the words wouldn’t come, then because his mom pulled up to invite Jasper to dinner since she had his favorite. Pot roast with potatoes and carrots. That had been the weekend before Jasper passed away.

 

He looked through the kitchen, at the mixed-up utensils, the odd collection for prepping and cooking, and the old mixer and coffee pot. He looked in the drawers with handmade potholders, old dish towels faded from too many washings, and two junk drawers.

He circled through the living room, with the old television, a coffee table covered in books and magazines, and on the side table next to Jasper’s favorite chair, the one by the window, an empty glass and candy wrapper. Tears welled up in Noah’s eyes and he quickly wiped them and headed for the stairs to check out Jasper’s bedroom, a room he rarely had entered.

The bed was made, an old quilt made by someone long ago and patched over the years, each patch visible with stitching too uneven compared to the original. At the nightstand on the left, Jasper pulled out the top drawer. There were pill bottles, a box of tissues and a couple of novels. He had never really paid attention to the titles of the books Jasper was reading assuming they would be something he wasn’t interested in, but he took out the two books and flipped them over revealing their covers. Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin and The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal. He didn’t recognize them, but they were well read, the covers worn along the edges, obviously Jasper read them more than once. He laid them on the bed because he wanted to take them home to read. It would be something to reconnect with Jasper, a way to build on his memory.

He opened the bottom drawer and was shocked to see a magazine with a nearly naked man, only the smallest of cloth covering the groin, leaning against a wood plank wall. The Male Figure, Volume Thirty-Two. 60 cents. Beneath it, two more issues, one with a cowboy hat on his head and pistol in the right hand wearing the same small cloth pouch, and the other a man in a bikini standing by a tree. Below those were three Physique Pictorial, the top one showing a naked guy standing next to a motorcycle. The next one was a drawing, a naked man standing to one side with another sitting in front of him staring at his cock, The third one showed a naked guy lounging on a chair. Volume 21, One Dollar.

Only a dollar for porn, gay porn. With hand shaking, Noah not sure if it was from excitement or nervousness, he lifted each magazine out until he saw below them a Lumber Jack! Magazine. Noah picked it up and thumbed through the pages of naked men, naked men sucking cock, wrestling around on a bed, rimming, and just posing for the camera.

Looking back into the bottom drawer, he saw the next one on top was a Hot Rods magazine showing a guy fucking another in the ass over the back of a car.

Jasper was gay.

It explained so much and Noah felt foolish for not seeing it before. But Jasper had done nothing to give him the idea and he had been too young until recently to recognize what now seemed so obvious.

Noah went to the other nightstand and found more magazines and a few photos of guys posing nude, one inside a hotel room, one in the back seat of a convertible, others in secluded places with palm trees and lush vegetation. On the back of each is a brief note. Jack – Honolulu – 1953; Richard – 53 Ford – San Deigo – 1953; Bill – Waimanalo – 1952; Jesse – Waimanalo – 1952; Jack – Taiwan – 1952.

He stared at the photos. Men, naked, cocks flaccid, cocks partially erect, all smiling casually. Were they boyfriends, or just friends who messed around. The implication was clear. Jasper had been gay and enjoyed life far more than anyone in the community could ever guess.

In the top drawer he found a small photo album, its cover exotic, foreign. A Japanese temple in a stylized landscape on a black background. He opened it to pictures of Jasper, a young man, maybe in his thirties, standing on the steps leading up to a Pagoda, with a waterfall to the right. Then another photo in the same place of Jasper and three other men. Below in pencil a description:  Jasper – Nachi Falls and Pagoda, Japan – 1965; Jasper, Jack, Richard, & Stanley – Nachi Falls and Pagoda, Japan – 1965. Thumbing through the album there are more photos in various locales in Japan all dated 1965. Then he came to Egypt dated 1966, Rome in 1967, then Santorini and Athens also in 1967. Cape Kennedy in 1968 for the launch of Apollo 11 followed by photographs taken in Miami Beach and Key West.

Jasper and the other men looked happy, joyful with their lives, and he wondered what it had been like, a group of gay men living as openly as possible. He wondered what happened to the other men, knowing they were probably all passed.

Going to the closet he found Jasper’s clothes, garments he had seen over the years all neatly arranged across the round wood rod. On a shelf above, there were several boxes, and on the floor shoes and one small trunk tucked into the left corner. He looked at the trunk then back up at the boxes wondering what secrets lay within, knowing he had to find out. But regardless of what else he would find; he had found enough to feel like Jasper’s passing had been a greater loss than he first realized. If only…what? If only he came out to Jasper and got him to tell how to live being gay? If seemed such a lost moment, then pure folly on his part. What could Jasper understand about being gay in 2023, but then again, what did he really know about it.

He heard the back door open, and he closed the closet and rushed to meet whoever had come in. At the bottom of the stairs stood his dad looking at the side table in the hall. A cap, a bowl with loose change and keys, and a Chinese figurine of a courtesan. Above the table on the wall, a wood framed mirror, the wood inlaid with ivory and darker wood. It was items that had always been there for as long as Noah could remember but they took on a new life, and he wondered if his dad knew anything of their story. He would have known Jasper for much longer, maybe when other men had still been Jasper’s life.

“He lived an interesting life,” said Jason looking up at Noah. “I don’t know how we’ll get through everything.”

“I’ve been looking in his bedroom and was wondering if I could come back and go through it more slowly,” said Noah.

Jason stared up at his son, then nodded. “Let’s go so I can call Steve Miller about the stuff in the barn, and you can come back tomorrow morning and spend as much time as you need to get through it.”

It made Noah smile, and he came down to follow his dad out of the house with plans to be back early the next morning.

 

Noah headed east, then circled around Dothan to the north side of town. He had told his parents he was meeting friends for dinner, but there were no such plans. Instead, he wanted to be alone to think, to consider what he had found so far about Jasper, and he wanted to be somewhere the chances were slim someone from his high school would show up. Most would go to Ashford, the small town where their high school was located, to hang out in a restaurant, usually the pizza place along the main street through town.

On the north side of Dothan was Eva’s Grill, a place that he would not be out of place eating alone for travelers and truckers frequented the restaurant. Noah entered and took a table along the right wall, a small two-top where he could face the front and people watch, none more so than the young guys who came in.

The waiter took his drink order and rushed back to the kitchen to turn in a table’s order and get Noah’s drink. He looked around at the waiter heading back, then around the restaurant. When he looked back up front, he saw a guy come in wearing a college T-shirt, one for where he would be in the fall. It made him think about leaving at the end of summer and how he would be living in a dorm with other guys, some who had to be gay. The odds were too great for there not to be at least a few in the dorm. With eyes focused on the dark blue T-shirt with the white and orange school name, he pictured himself wearing such a shirt, strolling across the campus going to class, meeting some guy, and going out on an actual date. Then he scanned up the chest to the face and saw the guy was staring back, a questioningly look. Quickly diverting his eyes, he felt his face flush hot at being caught staring.

But he had looked long enough to take measure of the guy. Tall and lanky, with brown hair cut short on the sides but slightly long on top. A smooth heart shaped face with thin lips and a nose just prominent enough to anchor it. The eyes looked light in color, light blue or hazel. The guy was too far away to see the exact color.

Keeping his head down, looking at his cellphone, Noah saw movement to his right, and saw the waiter had seated the guy just across the aisle from his table.

“Hey, how’s it going?” said the guy.

“Good, I guess.”

“I’ve never seen you here before. Are you traveling through or new to the area?”

“Neither. I drove over from Dupree just to get away and grab dinner.”

“Dupree? The small community below Ashford. I’m from here, but once I graduate, I’m not coming back except to visit family.”

“I start in the fall,” said Noah, pointing sheepishly at guy’s T-shirt.”

“Really? You’ll love it there. I start my sophomore year this fall.”

“So, you only have three years to go.”

“Four. I’m in Architecture.”

“It takes five years?”

“Yep. I’m Brody, Brody Nelson.”

“Noah McKinley.”

The waiter arrived at Brody’s table to take his order and Noah wondered whether their conversation was over or if it would continue after the waiter left. He fidgeted with his cellphone, then glanced over when the waiter left.

“What are you majoring in?” asked Brody.

So, their conversation would continue.

“Computer science.”

“Computer geek?” said Brody, laughing to show he was joking.

“I guess,” Noah replied, smiling for the first time.

“Hey, why don’t I sit with you and let someone else have this table,” said Brody.

“Sure, come on over.”

 

Noah couldn’t believe they had sat for nearly two hours talking about college then their own lives. He had asked Brody what it was like on campus, in a dorm or around campus. He admitted to how he viewed college as an escape, surprised Brody said it was the same for him. A way to a different life, each vague on what that entailed. But there was a sense of what it could be. A feeling there was something they shared, something neither dared to broach.

In the parking lot, standing by his old 4Runner, there was an awkward silence, like they each had something else to say, but neither knew how.

“Hey, the summer has been pretty boring for me. Would you like to hang out sometime?” asked Brody.

“Yes, I’d like that.”

“Are you working at a job during the summer?”

“Just helping dad around the farm, but right now I’m helping clean out a relative’s place. He passed away last year, and we are getting his property ready to sell.”

“That sounds like a tough thing to do.”

“It is but I’m finding out things about Jasper I didn’t know. Jasper was my great-grandmother’s brother. He was ninety-four.”

“Wow. What have you found out?”

“That…he…” Noah stuttered; not sure he should admit the truth. But he wanted to test Brody, see how he reacted. “I found out he was gay and had this life I knew very little about it.”

“Really? Can’t imagine what it would have been like to be gay decades ago, especially in the south.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Noah replied as he considered what it was like in 2024.

“What did you find?”

Brody looked serious, like he really wanted to know.

“The first thing I found were all these gay magazines from the late fifties up until the early eighties, then I found photos of Jasper and his friends.”

“I see,” Brody uttered.

Do you? Noah wanted to ask.

“I need to go but there is a movie I want to see and it’s playing in town. You want to drive over on Friday? We can grab dinner then go see it,” said Brody.

“Yes, that sounds like fun. What time?”

“Be at my house at six. Give me your phone and I’ll give you my address and number.”

 

Early the next morning, Noah was at Jasper’s place ready to tackle the interior in earnest. So anxious about what he would find and having met Brody the day before, he hadn’t slept. He set a stack of boxes on the old dining table ready to be folded into shaped, filled, and taped shut. He planned to do three groups: one for charity, one for his family, and one just for himself, the latter to have all the items that spoke to Jasper’s life as a gay man.

He started in the kitchen, knowing it would fill a lot of boxes, most destined for charity. That morning his mother asked him to also set aside the silverware Jasper bought in London, a set of china from Kyoto, Japan with a hand painted nature scene, and a few utensils that are unique, no longer available. He put those items into boxes, noted the contents and taped them up. Then he boxed up the dishes, utensils, small appliances, and the miscellaneous items in the kitchen. He opened the junk drawer and smiled at the items within. The small flashlight, the box of matches, an address book with telephone numbers, and assorted items. The address book went into a box for the family and all the other items into a box for charity. Then he tackled the other junk drawer, taking out tools, rolls of tape, a small box containing old coins, and assorted pens, small flashlights, and old keys to cars long gone.

In the dining room, he put the trinkets, pottery, porcelain bowls, and figurines from the China cabinet into a box marked “family”, pulled down small paintings that framed the cabinet and doorways, and tossed out the two dead plants. In the living room, he tossed the magazines, put the books and side table trinkets into a box marked “family”, finding he couldn’t let any of it go to charity. In three more boxes, he put the framed photographs that sat on the mantel, side tables, and hung on the wall over the sofa, marking it “family”. He continued downstairs, going from the hall to the small den where Jasper watched television or read each night, then to the small mudroom.

Upstairs he went to the two secondary bedrooms first, boxing up photographs, paintings, trinkets, and the handmade quilts purchased locally and overseas over the years. He emptied their closets, mostly old clothes, jackets, shoes, and in the back of one closet an old shotgun, a Browning pump-action, something Noah had no idea Jasper had owned. He looked at the old wood and knew it was old and wondered if it belonged to Jasper’s father.

It was nearly two o’clock before Noah stopped for lunch, and he sat on the back porch eating a sandwich, chips, and a few of his mom’s chocolate chip cookies while watching Zach and his dad come out of the barn carrying an old trunk. He wondered if it contained personal effects, fearing that it did, but hoped not. He saw them open it, taking out old clothes, all garments of a woman, and knew it was probably Jasper’s mother’s belongings, trying to calculate how long they would have been in the trunk and up in the barn.

Noah rushed back inside and up to Jasper’s bedroom, the one he was most anxious to go through but also the one he knew would take him the longest. He folded open a few boxes, marking them “Noah” and “family”, knowing he would not let anything but clothes go to charity, then went to the nightstands, packing his boxes with the magazines and photos from each one.

Finally, he stood at the closet, the doors swung all the way back revealing its contents. He put the clothes in a box marked “charity” except for the old black leather and dark green waxed jackets, the latter one Jasper had worn often during cold winter days. He slid the trunk out and opened it to find it full of letters, post cards, brochures for different places around the world, and three albums of photographs, all of Jasper and other men in some foreign city or jungle or ancient site Noah had only seen in history books. He closed the trunk, knowing he wanted everything in it, and slid it to one side. He took down the boxes, setting them on the bed. He sat down, stretched his back, then opened the nearest box. A brown fedora hat that looked new. He took it out and held it up trying to imagine a younger Jasper wearing it out on the town in some city. He put it back and closed the box, setting it in the larger box marked “Noah”.

The next box was personal papers, medical records, service records, newspaper articles and obituaries and he closed it and set it next to the family marked boxes. The next box was books, and he pulled a few from within to check them out. Maurice, by E. M. Forster; Orlando, by Virginia Woolf; A Single Man, by Christopher Isherwood; City of Night, by John Rechy; Faggots, by Larry Kramer; The Loom of Youth, by Alec Waugh; Revelation, by Andre Birabeau; The Pious Dance, by Klaus Mann; The Gallery, by John Horne Burns; Finistere, by Fritz Peters. The number of books seemed almost endless, titles he had never heard of and most from a time that surprised him. He closed the box, wondering if he really dared take the books home. Despite his fears, there was no way he would let the books go, and he set the box with the others marked “Noah”.

The last two boxes seemed like a gold strike, for each contained photograph albums. Various sizes, different covers, some plain others ornate. All filled with photographs of Jasper and the men in his life. He wanted to go through them, each one, but he needed to finish the room and go up into the attic before calling it a day. He closed the boxes and put them with those marked “Noah”.

He made quick work of emptying the chest of drawers, putting the clothing in a box marked “charity”, except for a wool turtleneck sweater and a brown Japanese Kimono, which he put in one of his boxes. There were a few personal items, a pocket watch and two wrist watches, several pairs of glasses that spoke to the styles over the years, a fountain pen set, cuff links, a bow tie in its original box, and a box of rings, necklaces, and bracelets. Most he put in the box marked “family” but he kept the pocket watch for himself. The dresser was mostly linens, blankets, and undergarments, all except the undergarments would go to charity. The latter would be discarded. In the bottom drawer, he found a small fire safe with the keys attached to the handle by a string. He took it out and opened it. A birth certificate, a social security card, old driver’s licenses, discharge papers from the military, and a few heavily used passports. He returned everything to the safe, locked it, and set it aside for his parents to go through.

He looked under the bed finding just dust motes, then went around the room, taking down framed photographs and the 2023 calendar hanging on the back of the door. When everything was stacked up ready to take down, he stood in the door and felt saddened by how much he missed Jasper. He thought of the stories Jasper told, the antics he and his friends got into realizing there were hints, subtle references to a life of a gay man, if only he had paid closer attention.

“What are you thinking about?” said his mother coming up next to him.

“That I miss Jasper and realize there were aspects of his life I didn’t know about.”

Emily stepped past Noah, and as if she already knew what she would find, opened the box with the photographs. She looked down in it but took nothing out.

“He was a character. I guess you’ve figured out he was gay.”

She knew, which meant his dad knew as well. Noah stood frozen, not sure how to respond.

“I remember the dinner parties Jasper and Jack threw all the time. They were something else, and the stories they told,” said Emily laughing at the memory.

“You and dad knew he was gay?”

“Of course. The whole family knew, and that is why most of them wouldn’t have anything to do with him. They missed so much, for Jasper, and Jim, were lovely, entertaining, and good cooks!”

“Why…why didn’t I know this?”

“Jack died a few years after you were born, back in 2009. Cancer. He smoked way too much. Jasper had quit back in the 1970s, but Jack couldn’t shake the habit. By the time you were old enough to understand, Jasper was settled into a life as a widower.”

“They were married?”

“Not legally, but…what did it matter if the state didn’t recognize it.”

“I feel as if I didn’t really know him.”

“Is it really such a shock? I guess we should have talked about it, but after a while, it was just something we assumed everyone knew and it was no big deal.”

Noah stood in the door, with eyes locked on the box opened to the photograph albums.

“Noah, is there something wrong?”

“Can we talk?”

 

Noah drove up to Brody’s house, pulling into the drive behind Brody’s Miata. Before he got to the front door, it swung open, and Brody told him to come in, his parents were waiting to meet him.

It was a house like so many others he had been in. Middle class, walls covered with reproductions and photographs, and led to the family room, there was the large sectional sofa and a lounger to one side, all facing a large flat screen mounted on the wall.

“You must be Noah. Brody says you’ll be joining him at the university this fall,” said Brody’s father coming to shake his hand.

“Yes, sir.”

“Come on in and tell us about yourself.”

Noah wondered what to tell them. He was the son of a farmer and an instructor of a college, that he was eighteen, going to college in the fall, and he was gay, and had desires for their son, Brody.

 

Noah followed Brody out the front door, down the curving strip of concrete to the drive where the Miata and 4Runner sat.

“You want me to drive,” said Brody.

Noah nearly bumped into Brody who had stopped, looking back for an answer.

“What?”

“Do you want me to drive?”

“Before we go, I need to tell you something.”

“Okay. What is it?”

Noah didn’t know how to say it. No idea how to confess to someone he was gay. Was there some lead up that lessened the surprise, some turn of phrase he was supposed to utilize. In the end, he only knew how to just blurt it out.

“I’m gay.”

Brody stared at him, then slowly smiled. “I hope so. Now, who’s driving?”

 

Noah had never been in a convertible or a car as small as the Miata. The intimacy of it, how they fit comfortably but without a lot of extra space. And it was the intimacy that made his heart race. To sense Brody so close, right next to him. He watched Brody’s hand on the shifter, then once or twice felt the hand touching his leg. Then there was the slight lean toward each other that allowed them to talk over the radio and wind. A closeness that made Noah imagine them kissing instead of talking.

But they talked. About Noah confessing to his mother, then to his dad with Zach admitting he already knew. How he wondered why he waited so long to do it. Then Brody told of coming out to his parents when he was fifteen and how for about two weeks things had been tense. Brody had come out, then dated another boy from his high school, going to dances and their senior prom before breaking up. It had been mutual, each with plans that didn’t accommodate the other. Brody admitted he never considered Nathan someone he wanted to spend his life with for they were too different, something Nathan had admitted to feeling the same.

“So, you date guys at college?” said Noah.

“More like just mess around if I’m honest. No one I’ve met wants anything serious.”

“What about you? Do you want something serious?”

“If the right guy comes along, yeah, I think I’m ready for a serious relationship. And you?”

“I think so. I mean, I’m not one…I don’t think I could just…I…I don’t know.”

Brody laughed, then placed the hand on Noah’s thigh to get his attention. “You’re introverted.”

“Yes.”

At dinner, they talked in hushed tones telling secrets and Brody flirted with Noah. They played footsies, smiled knowingly across the table, and touched fingers with every pass of salt or ketchup or an extra napkin. At the cinema, they bumped knees, Brody rested a hand on Noah’s thigh, then got him to hold hands. They pretended to whisper to each other only to kiss a cheek or quickly nip at an earlobe. After the movie, Brody led Noah around the cinema across the grass area to the cheap hotel that was next door on the adjacent lot facing the main highway. There were phone calls to parents to prevent them from worrying, then an awkward moment where they stood at the foot of the bed facing each other.

“We don’t have to do anything if you don’t-“

Noah cut Brody off. “But I do.”

Noah moved first, heart racing in his chest as he stepped up close to Brody and he kissed him.

They soon were tugging and pulling at the other’s clothes, tossing each garment carelessly on the floor. Brody playfully pushed Noah on the bed and moved over him, touching and kissing and at times dragging his tongue over smooth skin. Noah grew erect, his cock hovering over his abdomen as tongue moved nuts around in their sac and lips touched his abdomen, soft kisses, barely touching the skin. He clutched at the bed and watched Brody manipulate him, increase his arousal until he was gasping for breath. Then he gasped even harder when lips closed over the head of his cock and moved down it.

Noah watched the head move up and down while feeling the lips and tongue work his cock. He moaned and pushed upward and spread his legs wider apart. Fingers toyed with his nuts then slid down below until touching his opening. They raked over it then rubbed it with a circular motion.

“Do it,” Noah uttered. He moaned when a finger penetrated him. It moved inside him, worked through his tightness, then withdrew only to be replaced by two fingers. Then three, each time stretching the tightness until he loosened to the penetration.

“Can I?” asked Brody.

“Yes,” Noah replied in a breathless whisper.

Brody shifted to his knees and Noah held up his legs for him to take in hand. Brody spread them wide apart and scooted closer until cock touched Noah’s opening.

Noah laid back, eyes closed, focused on the feel of the cock touching him, then pushed against his tightness. Slowly, Brody penetrated him, inch by inch. Then there was Brody’s slow fuck. The rhythmic movement of cock inside him, pushing deeper and deeper.

“Noah,” Brody uttered breathlessly as he increased his pace, unable to hold back.

Noah gripped each flexing thigh as Brody fucked. He rocked to the rhythm of it, feeling the cock bore into his depths. He took his own in hand and stroked. His hand was quickly slick, and he stroked faster, desperately. The sound of flesh smacking flesh echoed in the room as Brody thrust with such force, such lust, that it made Noah feel his own building need for release.

“Roll over,” Brody exclaimed.

Noah realized he felt the emptiness from Brody pulling out and he looked at the flush face, the sweaty torso down to the rock-hard cock sticking straight out. He rolled to his hands and knees feeling a hand come down on his lower back and slide along his spine until holding his neck. Cock raked across his ass, slipped between his cheeks, and plunged into his depths in one slow push. He cried out, then held his head down as Brody began to fuck. His own cock flopped heavily between his thighs and the sound of Brody banging against his ass echoed in the room.

Moans and grunts, Brody’s, and Noah’s mixed with the sounds of their fuck. Primitive, physical, carnal, but neither considered it consumed by the act itself. Brody lay on Noah’s back rubbing slickly together, hot skin against hot skin, as he ground his cock into Noah’s depths.

“I’m going to cum.”

Brody pushed into Noah, all the way and kept jamming his hips against Noah’s ass, over and over with every ejaculation until finally spent.

 

Noah rolled to his back and watched Brody climb over him. He clutched at the bed as Brody held his cock up and eased down on it. Soon he watched the ass move up and down on his cock. He moaned with the feel of it, how the tight ass gripped it while moving on it. He reached out and took Brody in hand, moving his fingers along the slimy cock. Brody would drop down on his cock then rock at the hips trying to push it through his fingers. It pushed Noah’s arousal, made him want to cum, and he began to shove upward, thrusting into Brody’s depths. Brody held himself over Noah, taking his fuck, every thrust upward until Noah’s torso glistened wetly with the effort and he was gasping for breath.

Noah wanted a different position, one with greater control, and he rolled Brody to his back. Keeping his cock buried in the ass, he moved over Brody and began to fuck. He fucked hard, fucked to cum, slamming into Brody’s depths. Then he threw his head up and cried out as his cock exploded inside him. He shoved inward with each ejaculation, jamming hips against ass. Over and over until spent and exhausted.

 

“We should clean up and go,” whispered Brody after some time had passed.

“Yes,” Noah replied, but they just laid there until they fell asleep.

 

Noah was packing for college, picking through his closet on what he would take and what would be left behind. He was leaving in two days, and he was excited beyond words. For the rest of the summer since that night at the hotel, Brody and he had been dating, each one better than the one before. Even their disagreements were nonevents where they just learned more about each other; the likes and dislikes. His parents had said very little about that first date, not coming home until late the next morning. It was obvious to them that it was important to him, a time for being himself for the first time in a long time.

He looked out the window seeing his dad servicing his 4Runner and Zach was helping, his legs sticking out from underneath it. He could hear his mom in the kitchen stirring around making dinner and from the smells drifting into his room, his favorite pie, blackberry and blueberry mixed together. He turned to the stack of boxes along the wall, picturing what was in each. Jasper’s photograph albums, journals, letters, and some keep sakes from travels around the world. He was taking them with him for he had not gotten through everything and was determined to do so. He wanted to know Jasper in the ways denied him by the differences in their age, and the boxes held the promise of this knowledge, as if Jasper knew it would be needed someday.

Over the last weeks of summer, Brody and he had sat in his room for hours going through one journal or some photograph album. They had read what it was like for Jasper in the 1950s up to the time Jack had moved to Dupree to live with him. The letters switched to just their friends and the traveling lessened, but Noah and Brody could still sense what a good life the two men had had despite the political and social climate.

It showed Noah what was possible despite the odds. He looked at the photograph of Brody on his nightstand, sitting in front of the coffee shop in downtown Dothan. He knew his parents worried about him, worried about what kind of life he would have when the country seemed hell bent on taking away his rights as a citizen. He had four years of college ahead of him and knew from Brody life on campus would not be like in Dupree or Dothan or almost anywhere else in the state or the south. A tolerant atmosphere that would let him explore what it met to be gay.

He placed a T-shirt with his high school mascot on it to the side, something he would not take with him, then lifted a blue polo, a birthday gift for his eighteenth, and placed it in the suitcase that would be going.