Chapter 11 #2
Cash sighed and glanced toward where Wanda was back to sorting through the lunch tickets. “Levi made a pass at somebody he shouldn’t have.”
I puffed out a breath of disbelief. “Yeah, right. That kid is as shy as a noon shadow. If some girl is telling you he made a pass at her, she’s a liar.”
Cash tucked moodily back into his apple pie. “Who said it was a girl?”
I gasped. So, they knew. And by “they,” I had to assume it was the whole town.
I dropped my crossed arms to tap the fingers of my right hand on the table.
“He’s gay. So what? It’s the twenty-first century, for cripe’s sake. You people need to get over it, and I don’t believe Levi did anything like that either. More likely, some guy guessed the truth about him and made up some story just to get the town to bully Levi.”
Cash stared at me hard in a way he’d never looked at me before. “It wasn’t just some guy, Maddy. Levi made a pass at Luca Bishop. All-state quarterback who led the high school team to an eleven-one victory season two years ago. Homecoming king. Class president. Most popular guy in town.”
I opened my mouth to sputter more disbelief at Cash, but Wanda appeared with my plate of food and paused to look at us, no doubt sensing the tension at the table. “Everything okay?”
“It’s fine,” Cash said harshly before softening his tone with an added, “Thanks, Wanda.”
She set down the plate, looked at me as if to get my confirmation, and waited for me to nod before walking away.
“What am I missing here?” I demanded, whispering to make sure no one else could overhear.
Cash pointed to my plate. “Eat.”
I picked up a fry, dunked it into the chocolate shake, and tossed it into my mouth.
The sheriff’s stern expression melted, and he actually chuckled. “You’ve got some weird quirks, I’ll give you that, Maddy.”
I dipped another fry in the shake. “I’ve stopped asking questions after I do something quirky. I figure the closer I get to the,” I paused to form air quotes, “‘real’ me, the sooner I might start remembering who the real me is.”
Cash nodded like he fully understood, then he got on with telling me about Levi. “Two years ago, when Levi and Luca were seniors, Levi cornered Luca in the showers after practice.”
“Levi was on the football team?” I asked, somewhat incredulous. The kid was as skinny as a beanpole. I couldn’t imagine him engaging in anything more physical than cornhole.
“He was. He was a lot bigger back then and blazing fast. He could do forty yards in under six seconds.”
“Whoa.”
Cash nodded. “They were an amazing pair. Luca’s arm and Levi’s speed were unbeatable. And then one night, after practice, Levi made a pass at Luca while they were in the showers. It got ugly fast, and somehow, it turned back on Luca. He couldn’t handle it. And…”
I sucked in a breath when an image floated through my mind’s eye. “You found him in the water,” I said.
Cash’s eyes widened, and he cocked his head. “You read about it?”
“No. No, I…”
“Another one of those psychic feelings?”
I nodded. “He committed suicide, right?”
“Yeah. Threw himself off the highest bluff at the Ashton Reservoir. His parents, Kristy and Mike Bishop, were devastated. That was their only son. They nearly split up after Luca died. It destroyed them, and all because Levi couldn’t keep his…urges to himself.
His story was that it was a mutual attraction, but I mean, come on. Luca was the one with the prom-queen girlfriend. Not a gay bone in his body, but there’d long been rumors about Levi. He never confessed the truth that he was the aggressor, even after Luca died.
He deserves a reminder now and then that he ain’t really welcome in this town.”
I stared at Cash for a long time, trying not to allow the anger forming in the pit of my stomach to color how I felt about the lawman. It was damn hard. “How’s he supposed to get out of here, Sheriff?”
“Whaddya mean?”
“I’m assuming his parents kicked him to the curb after he was outed?”
“His dad’s a Christian, God-fearing man, Maddy. He felt like he had no choice but to throw that sinner out of his house.”
I took a bite of the cheeseburger, dumbfounded by the lack of empathy on display before me. I chewed angrily for a minute, thinking about my next words.
“Levi can no more help who he is—and has always been—than you can. If you and the other people in this town think being gay is a choice, then you’re a town full of fools and bigots.”
Cash held up his hand and closed his eyes, asking me for patience.
“Listen,” he said, after a moment. “I’m not saying that Levi chose his lifestyle, but he has chosen to act on it, and that’s gotten a bright young man with a promising future killed. It’s the consequence of choosing that kind of lifestyle.
Everything that’s happened to Levi since that night is simply God’s way of exacting a price for not following His teachings.”
I stared up at the ceiling, as if the white tiles above me could offer a cooler head.
Taking a few deep breaths, I finally said, “Being gay isn’t a lifestyle, Sheriff. It’s merely a preference for the gender Levi is attracted to. You’re attracted to women. I’m attracted to men. Wanda’s attracted to men. Poor Hank is attracted to women. Levi’s attracted to men.
Nobody’s upset at any of those preferences except for Levi’s, and that’s bullshidirt!”
I was hopping mad. I wanted to grab Cash’s lapels and shake some fucking sense into him, and now that I was worked up, I was finding it damn hard to speak calmly.
Jabbing the air in front of Cash’s face, I spat, “Further, that young man has paid enough of a price. He’s homeless, disrespected, broke, and treated like crap by this town for a supposed minor incident that occurred more than two years ago. It’s time you people got over it,
and as long as I work here, I’m going to make sure he’s treated with some respect! He’s a good kid. Any parent should be proud of his kindness and his work ethic. Any citizen in a small town like this should be happy to have him around. Proud, even.”
Cash stared at me with lips that’d formed a flat line. It was clear he was ticked off, but he was also allowing me to have my say.
Eventually, when I sat back in my seat and simply glared at him, he lowered his gaze back to his pie and polished off the last bite before pushing the plate aside. “Can we not fight about this?” he asked softly.
“Sure. Just as long as you promise to look out for him the next time he’s about to get roughed up. After all, aren’t you the protector for all citizens in this town, Sheriff?”
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Cash looked up at me again, and I finally saw a hint of concern. “Who’s roughing up Levi?”
“I don’t know. He won’t tell me. But he’s nursing bruises just like I am. Somebody’s been knocking him around, and, Sheriff, if they pull that shidirt in front of me, I’m gonna shidirt all over them, if you get my drift.”
The corners of Cash’s mouth quirked. “I shidirt do.”
I rolled my eyes and took another big bite of the burger, tucking back into my lunch with earnest.
I wanted to get over to the church again before the dinner crowd arrived.
There was a lamp I had my eye on, and a pair of jeans and a used pair of sneakers that barely looked worn that were in Levi’s size.
The tip money I’d earned so far was doing wonders to brighten up the apartment above the diner.
It almost felt homey, and in another day or two, I might have enough money for a TV.
There was one at the church for sale for fifty bucks. I had half of that set aside already.
After wiping my mouth with a paper napkin, I got my temper fully under control and said, “You said earlier that you needed to talk to me. What’s up?”
Cash held up a finger, silently telling me to hold that thought, then got up with his mug and headed to the coffee pot behind the counter, poured himself a fresh cup, then came back to me.
As he sat down again, he said, “I wanted to ask you a favor, and you can say no if it’d make you uncomfortable.”
“Sounds ominous.”
He shrugged. “Maybe. It’d be unconventional, at least.”
“What is it?”
Despite my irritation with the sheriff and his antiquated Christian-fundamentalist views, since the day I’d met him, he’d been kind and patient with me.
Maybe I could slowly and methodically plant some seeds of doubt with his preconceived notions about Levi.
In the meantime, I couldn’t help but feel intrigued by what Cash wanted to talk to me about.
“You remember when you looked at that curb down the street?”
I dipped another fry into my shake and nodded while I chewed. “The place where your dad was murdered?”
Cash winced slightly. “Yeah. That one.”
“I remember.”
The sheriff opened his mouth like he was about to say something but caught himself before he asked, “You sure you didn’t read about that somewhere?”
“My man, I’m not sure about anything. But go on and ask me if I want to help you solve your dad’s murder. I’ll wait,” I said smugly.
Again, Cash appeared thunderstruck. “How do you do that?”
I shrugged. “Shidirt just comes to me. I dunno.”
“When you say it comes to you, describe it for me.”
I paused my fry-dunking and munching long enough to consider his question and how I might best explain it. I decided to offer him an example. “Okay, so you know I like guessing drink orders, right?”
“No, but go on.”
“I like guessing drink orders, and my guesses are right maybe eighty-five to ninety percent of the time.”
He nodded like he could believe that.
“So, my method is to approach the table, write down what I think they’ll be ordering in a counterclockwise pattern, then I ask them what they want to drink, and if they order what I think they’ll say, then I give myself one point per person.”
“You make a game of it.”
“Exactly. Anyway, today, during lunch, I waited on fifty-eight people and racked up fifty-four points.”
“Impressive.”