Hoyt #2
“Oh, good, good. That’s a good call, Hoyt. I’ll go get your nurse. Bet she’ll have to wash you up then shave you. Nothing like a bath from a hot nurse.”
I grunted at the comment.
Off he ran as if Lucifer himself were clawing at his balls. Not that I blamed him. I’d run as fast as I could from a sobbing man who’d just realized he had nothing left and nowhere to go.
Pathetic.
“Yep, Dad, that’s me.”
Man knew me well.
Once, when I was eighteen and still trying to deny how gay my ass was, I made a pass at an older woman.
Classy lady, wife of some big beer company executive.
When she turned me down I got belligerent—might have had a few too many beers in me—and reached out to touch her hair.
I recall it was gold and looked like spun silk.
She kicked me in the balls so hard with her pink pointy-toed cowboy boots I’d like to die.
Thought I might. I threw up all over myself as I lay on the floor of that two-bit honkytonk gasping for breath.
Never felt a pain like that in all my life until I woke up from having my collarbone screwed back together.
There was a lot of talk about pain control and how pain relief would come quickly once the bones were in the right position.
Bullshit. And I know a thing or two about bull shit as I have landed in it more times than I care to count.
That first night in the hospital after surgery was brutal.
I slept sitting up, and by sleep I mean dozing when the pain meds kicked in then before coming awake when they wore off.
When breakfast arrived I was miserable. Plain old pissy.
Cranky as a wet cat. The eggs were watery, the toast soggy, and the milk warm.
And I had yet to make the call to Snow Creek since my pride was suffering a loss of biblical proportions.
What kind of man cries when his friend says he’s retiring?
What the hell was that anyway? As if that fucking pony show of emotional softness wasn’t enough I then backtracked on allowing Dr. Frankenstein to carve me up then screw me back together with his Black & Decker rechargeable.
My health insurance might cover some of the cost if I would have remembered to sign up by the cutoff date.
Which I hadn’t but maybe they’d not see that expiration date when the bills came rolling in from the surgeon and hospital.
We’d cross the bridge when it fell out from under us.
Right now I was sitting on a bed wearing a gown, a sling, and a frown.
My cell rested in my hand courtesy of the morning nurse who was much prettier than the night nurse but just as tightfisted with the pain meds. At least he was cute.
I needed to call my brother. I hated the thought of crawling back into his life.
The coward who had bagged it in the night after his father had found gay poetry in his backpack.
I should have stayed. Not for me but for Jesse.
God only knows the shit Abel put that kid through in my absence.
The guilt ate at me like one of those flesh-eating microbes.
One kid, one hateful broken bigot. No mother, his had died just like mine had, leaving us with a man who turned to drink to hide his pain.
Poor kid was just two the night everything had exploded.
Sound sleeper that he was he slept through the beating that took place in the front yard.
Which was good because he didn’t need to witness that at such a young age.
That night was burned into my psyche. Sixteen, coming back in from doing evening chores, met at the door with fists.
Foul language, horrid accusations of corrupting my little brother.
Abel threw a beaten, bleeding, and broken teen right beside my stepmother’s little wooden wishing well.
After his hatred had dwindled he spat at me lying in the grass, called me a deviate, and told me to never come near him nor Jesse ever again.
Left with just a bag of clothes. No money, no wrap for the bruised ribs or ice for the broken nose.
Just some underwear, a pair of jeans, and a coat.
Guess I was lucky he gave me those things.
He’d burned the poetry book I’d had hidden away he’d informed me.
My poems mostly, a few others I’d found in old books then had cut and pasted into my secret cache of verses, had been tossed in the wood stove.
So Jesse wouldn’t find them and turn fag. His stupid words not mine.
So, I’d limped away and only ever returned once.
When my little brother was ten. Things had gone about the same that time as they had when I’d been booted to the curb like an unwanted cat.
The big difference on this trip home was that Jesse was now older and present for the confrontation.
He’d jumped between my father and me. If not for my little brother yelling at me to stop hurting Dad I would have killed Abel.
No doubt in my mind. But I lowered my fists, stepped away, and honored my baby brother’s request. I left them alone.
I’d not wanted to make the boy choose between a father he knew and a brother who was a stranger.
And now here I was, the failure Abel had predicted I would be, holding a fucking dented Android, wondering if I could go home again.
The thought of doing so made me queasy. When I glanced at the website, Abel Knox was still listed as foreman.
Just seeing my father’s name made my chest hurt.
The man had been hate-filled, bitter, and always looking for someone to belittle to make himself feel bigger, and I doubt he’s changed since.
The thought of having to speak to him made me wish Satan’s Cyclone had stomped on my head.
Numerous times. But unless I slept in a trailer parked alongside the road, I had nowhere else to go.
For the life of me I should not be contemplating going back to Snow Creek.
I’d sworn to never return there unless I was in a pine box.
Surely I had friends, right? People who would put me up, right?
The longer I thought on it I realized that aside from Clay my friends were just rodeo acquaintances who drank with me on occasion.
There was also this yearning deep down inside me where I hid the tender parts of Hoyt Knox that were pushing me to see my brother.
I wanted to see Jesse. Even if just for a few days, or a couple of weeks, until Abel found out I was sneaking about spreading the gay wherever I went.
I’d missed so much of his life. So many milestones lost in the haze of the past. I’d face Abel if it meant I got some time with Jesse.
Maybe he could forgive me. Maybe I could be a brother again. A real brother.
Yeah, I wanted that connection with my little brother. Needed it. A poem I’d read by John Keats came to me. Celebrating a birthday by the fire and how spending time with your brother was one of the world’s true joys. That was what I longed for…
Sure, Abel wouldn’t want me back at Snow Creek—never wanted me there after he found out I was queer, but maybe someone else will answer the phone?
Or, maybe sleeping beneath an underpass wouldn’t be that bad…
The hospital had been pretty adamant about having a responsible adult to take care of me when I went home. Sedation or something like that. I was kind of loopy when the doctor had been strongly encouraging me to reach out to my family or a loved one.