“I usually see him go past the gas station on the way to the liquor store,” she said. “But I ain’t seen him for three days, and I can hear that dog of his barking to go out from my bedroom.”
Cody’s cheeks paled, his eyes sliding to the most distant trailer in the lot. “I haven’t seen him.”
Twenty minutes later, Nate’s dad and another police officer arrived and pounded on the front door of Ted’s trailer. Eventually, they busted in, and then the ambulance arrived, but without lights or a siren. The dog was loaded into the back of a police car. A bit of careful questioning with his dad at dinnertime confirmed that the occupant had been found dead inside, apparently having drunk himself to death sometime earlier that week, and the dog had been taken to the shelter in Rock Springs. Nate stupidly hoped the poor thing didn’t get put down, but he had no way of knowing its fate. Meanwhile, two pregnant girls at Walter Warren High School—one senior and one sophomore—dropped out, more families moved away, and Nate heard Brian bragging in English about the coke he’d managed to score from a friend of his father.
The sooner he and Cody got out of Warren, the better. It was something they talked about often. Whether sequestered in Cody’s room because his mom was home, or cuddling on the couch while she was away, Nate and Cody spent hours talking about what might happen after graduation. Nate knew Cody was studiously saving every penny he could, but Nate also knew that wasn’t adding up nearly as fast as Cody would have liked. Although they never talked about it, Nate suspected Cody was paying a fair share of the bills. He’d cut down to only two or three cigarettes a day, simply because he could no longer stand to part with several dollars a week to support his habit.
They were in agreement that there must be places in the world where homosexuality didn’t seem like such a crime. They’d both heard jokes about San Francisco their whole lives, but huddled together on Cody’s couch, with the lights low and the curtains all drawn tight so nobody could see them from outside, they talked in hushed tones about where else they might go.
They talked about AIDS.
It was impossible not to. It was mentioned every night in the news. It was on multiple magazine covers. Nate bought each one, not only because he wanted to make sure they knew as much as possible about the disease, but because he hoped he’d find little nuggets of info buried in the articles. In places that weren’t Warren, Wyoming, whole communities of men and women in same-sex relationships lived their lives as if it were the most normal thing in the world, and Nate longed to know where those places were.
“You gotta stop buying these, man,” Cody said one afternoon when Nate brought him a U.S. News & World Report with AIDS in bright-red letters across the cover. Cody sat on his couch, eyeing the magazine on the coffee table as if it were a venomous snake that might strike at any time.
“We’ll bury it in the bottom of the trash after we read it,” Nate said, tossing his jacket aside and sitting down next to him.
“That’s not what I mean. Eventually, somebody’s gonna notice that you buy every magazine about fags and AIDS. Somebody’s gonna put it together.”
“I make sure I go to different cashiers every time, and if they ask, I tell them it’s for a school report.” Nate reached out and took Cody’s hand. “And we’re not ‘fags.’ Don’t say it that way. That’s like using the n-word. We’re gay, that’s all. Or homosexual, if you like that better. But don’t use their words against us.”
Cody only shrugged, and Nate tried not to be frustrated. It wasn’t that Cody actually thought they were doing anything wrong, but after hearing the word so many times, he’d somehow grown used to it. It was almost as if by refusing to let something as small as a word bother him, he might prove he was stronger than the town thought. At the very least, he could prove that he was above the rumors.
Nate understood, on some level, but he couldn’t quite subscribe to the same mind-set, no matter how hard he tried. He grew hyperaware of every time the word “fag” was used at school.
It was a lot.
And more and more often, it was directed at him.
The stack of college applications in Nate’s desk drawer remained blank. There wasn’t much he could do about school until he knew where they were going. Maybe he’d be stuck at a community college instead of a university, but he was okay with that. When his dad asked, Nate flat-out lied and told him he’d applied.
He’d have to deal with the truth eventually, but he wanted to have more answers first.
On February fourth, Liberace died. Nate was sure most of the people at school had never even listened to his music, but suddenly, Nate felt the stares of the other students more often. He saw them ducking their heads to whisper as he and Cody passed. A few days later, somebody scrawled the word “fag” across his locker door with a thick, black marker.
“We need to cool it,” Cody told him that afternoon as Nate drove him to the Tomahawk after school.
It was one of those days where the sun was shining and the sky was bluer than it had ever been in Texas, but the steady wind was cold enough to numb any exposed flesh. Nate kept one hand on the steering wheel and held the stiff fingers of his other hand in front of the car’s vent, waiting for the heat to come up to temperature. “Cool what?”
“This. Us. Always being together.”
“What, we’re supposed to stop being friends just because they don’t like it?”
Cody sighed, leaning his head against the passenger window, rubbing the fingers of his right hand together and bouncing his knee in a way that told Nate he was dying for a cigarette but trying to fight it. “We’re more than that, aren’t we?”
“You know we are. Why? Is this your way of breaking up with me?”
Cody’s head jerked Nate’s direction. “Breaking up? You make it sound like we’re going steady or something.”
Nate shrugged and gave up on the heat in order to use both hands on the wheel as they turned onto Main Street. “I don’t know. You have another name for what we’ve been doing?”
Cody almost smiled, turning away to look out the window. “Guess I just hadn’t thought of it that way.”
“So if you’re not breaking up with me, then what? What’re you worried about?”
Cody pulled the pack of cigarettes from his pocket, but didn’t move to shake one loose. “Look, I’m not saying we should actually stop seeing each other. I’m just saying, we stop letting them see it, that’s all.”
“As far as they know, we drive to and from school together, and we sit next to each other in social studies. That’s it. We’re not doing anything wrong.”
Cody didn’t argue. He gave up and lit a cigarette instead.
Valentine’s Day fell on a Saturday. It was also the day of the high school girl-ask-boy dance, and the day before Nate’s birthday. He spent the entire week leading up to the dance trying to avoid any girl who might ask him. Luckily, that list seemed to have decreased significantly since fall. Only Stacy Miller approached him, and Nate lied and said he was grounded for the weekend.
He didn’t tell Cody about his birthday, either, only because he knew Cody would feel bad about not getting him a gift. Besides, what Nate wanted most couldn’t be bought in a store.
Saturday evening, Nate told his dad he was going to the dance with Stacy. Then, he picked up Cody from his shift at the Tomahawk as usual. Cody’s mom was gone for the night. Nate knew Cody would want to shower as soon as he got home. Sometimes, Nate showered with him, but tonight, he had other plans.
Once he could hear the shower running, he got to work. He started by pushing the furniture out of the way, as well as he could on his own. The couch would have to stay, but the coffee table and chair were easy enough to move. He had a bag full of candles he’d bought earlier that day. He set them up around the room, lit them all, then turned out the lights.
The effect wasn’t quite as romantic as he’d hoped in Cody’s dingy trailer, but it’d have to do.
The tape player he’d given Cody was
already in the living room, and Nate was pleased to find the tape he’d made in it. He spent a while rewinding and fast-forwarding, trying to decide exactly which song to start with.
Which song should be playing when they danced together for the very first time?
Maybe it was silly. He had a feeling Cody would think so, at any rate. But after staring at Cody across the dance floor at homecoming, and seeing the buzz of excitement in the school leading up to the dance, Nate had found himself feeling uncharacteristically angry. He wanted to put on a dress shirt and pick Cody up at his house, like any other date. He wanted to walk into the school gym hand in hand, to stand in line for pictures, and—more than anything—to take Cody onto the dance floor when a slow song came on.
Of course, none of that was possible. Not here in Warren, Wyoming, at any rate. So Nate decided to settle for the next best thing.
“I knew you were up to something,” Cody said when he finally emerged, scrubbing a towel over his still-wet hair. He’d put on jeans, socks, and a clean T-shirt, but no shoes. “You were acting kind of goofy.”
Nate hit Play on the tape deck. He’d ended up on Madonna’s “Crazy for You,” more because he’d run out of time than because he’d actually chosen it. He held his hand out to Cody, his cheeks beginning to burn.
“Can I have this dance?”
Cody froze, the towel held to the side of his head, his eyes wide. “You’re kidding, right?”
At least he’d accurately anticipated Cody’s reaction. “It’s Valentine’s Day, and we can’t go to the dance.” He smiled. “Oh. And did I mention that tomorrow’s my birthday?”
“Shit.”
“And I know you didn’t buy me anything, and that’s fine. But I really want this. Please.”
Cody shook his head, grinning, and tossed the towel aside. “Not afraid to play dirty, are you?” Still, he hesitated, staring at Nate’s outstretched hand. “Never really done this before.”
“I know.”
Cody sighed. “This is stupid, Nate.” But he took Nate’s hand. He let Nate pull him close.
It was a pretty well-established fact that when dancing, boys put their arms around the girl’s waist, and girls put their arms around the guy’s neck. Nate had unwittingly taken the “guy” role. He wondered if he should have mentioned that first, maybe asked Cody his preference, but if Cody noticed or cared, he chose not to mention it. He simply put his arms around Nate’s neck.
And they danced.
It was perfect, as far as Nate was concerned. Far better than it would have been at the school, because there were no prying eyes. No chaperones to tell them they were dancing too close. There was just the two of them, and the candlelight, and the music. Nate held Cody tight, smelling the clean, shampoo scent of his freshly washed hair, letting his hands wander slowly over Cody’s slender body as one song became two, and two became three.
And the best part of all was the way Cody reacted.
They’d fooled around enough since Christmas for Nate to recognize Cody’s arousal, and not just because of his erection brushing against Nate’s as they moved. Cody’s breathing became shallow and ragged. He shivered as Nate’s hand moved up the curve of his spine. He whimpered when Nate lowered his mouth to Cody’s throat, letting lips and tongue play over his pounding pulse. And when Nate pulled back enough to see Cody’s face in the flickering light, he could see the need he’d kindled in Cody, as much by accident as by design.
“Still think this is stupid?” Nate asked.
Cody moaned in frustration, practically melting against him, guiding Nate’s lips to his own. “God, yes.”
One little kiss, and Cody was clutching at him, struggling toward the couch, his desperation making him clumsy and impatient. Nate barely had time to lower him onto the couch, to unzip Cody’s pants and slip his hand inside before Cody was gasping, arching into him, crying out as he came.
“Jesus,” Cody gasped at last. “That was—”
“Seriously hot?”
Cody laughed. “I was going to say it was pretty shitty of me, considering you’re the one with the birthday.”
Nate chuckled, adjusting his jeans over his own erection. They still had plenty of time before curfew, and Cody had never left him hanging for long. “How about this for my present: next time I ask you to dance—”
“Yes!” Cody laughed, pulling him into a kiss. “I promise I’ll say yes.”
Despite Nate’s nonchalance about their relationship, Cody knew they were playing with fire.
He’d already gone more than half the school year without anybody starting a fight with him. That was a record. He figured he’d skated through the first half of the year because of Logan’s friendship, but that wouldn’t save him now.
Still, Cody was used to the adversity. He’d been pushed around for most of his life. He knew when to put his head down and keep his mouth shut. Just a few more months and he’d be done with Walter Warren High School forever.
But Nate . . .
Nate changed everything. He may have thought he was being subtle, but he gave too much away. He stood too close. He touched Cody too often. His smile said just a bit too much.
For himself, Cody didn’t mind. He was used to the rumors, and immune to the word “fag,” even though it made Nate grit his teeth. But he had a sneaking suspicion Nate had never been in an actual fight in his life.
It’d be a miracle if that was still true by graduation.
Nate continued buying magazines, even though most of them regurgitated the same bullshit every time. Yes, even straight people could get AIDS. It seemed ridiculous that this simple truth still counted as news, but it did. The U.S. News & World Report from January and a Newsweek in February both sold the same tired advice: be more careful who you sleep with, and use a condom. The most helpful bit of information arrived a few days after their makeshift dance, when Nate brought him a New York Times dated February fifteenth.
“Not quite fresh off the presses, but fresh off the truck that brings the New York newspaper into the back reaches of Wyoming, I guess,” Nate said.
There, beginning on the lower half of the front page and continuing for more than a page afterward was what they’d been searching for—“Fact, Theory, and Myth on the Spread of AIDS.” For the first time, there were real-world questions with real-world answers. “Can the virus spread through oral sex? Federal epidemiologists suspect it can because the virus is present in semen and vaginal secretions and thus might enter the cells of the body through cuts or mucous membranes in the mouth or throat. However, they have not documented any cases.”
Cody read the article start to finish three times.
But while poring through magazines and newspapers, Nate and Cody had been looking for one other thing: a place to go. They kept hoping to find a casual mention of homosexual communities in places other than San Francisco or New York, but they never did. If the articles were to be believed, one might actually think gay men only existed in two cities in all of America, but Cody knew that couldn’t be true.
“Forget the magazines!” Nate finally said one day in early March, throwing one across Cody’s living room. “We just need to pick a place and hope for the best.”
The next day, he brought a giant atlas of the United States to Cody’s house, and they sat at the kitchen table and began flipping through its pages.
“What’s between Chicago and Wyoming?” Cody asked.
“South Dakota, Nebraska, and Iowa.”
“Not Nebraska,” Cody said. “Only difference between Nebraska and Wyoming is they got more corn.”
“South Dakota doesn’t sound much better.”
“Okay. So what’s Iowa like?”
Nate shrugged, smiling at him. “I have no idea.”
The very next day, Cody ditched PE and spent the hour in the school library.
A quick run through the card catalog turned up several books with entries about Iowa. Two in particular seemed promising, and Cody waded into the aisles,
trailing his fingers over the spines of the books as he searched. Once he had a stack in his arms, he settled at one of the desks along the wall and flipped to the pertinent pages.
What he saw took his breath away. Some pictures showed only fields, and some showed rolling hills, and some showed towns and small cities, but in every single case, he saw nothing but green. Miles and miles and miles of green grass and green fields and towering, deciduous trees. He’d never seen so much green in one place in his life. After growing up in the barren, wind-swept plains of Wyoming, where the only green around was dusty sagebrush and a few wind-beaten pine trees with their branches all growing on the leeward side of the trunk, the sight of so much lush vegetation was mind-boggling. Almost miraculous. It looked cozy and rural, and yet Chicago was only a few hours away. Based on the pictures, Iowa winters could be harsh, but that didn’t scare him a bit. Not after living in Wyoming. Just the promise of all that green come springtime was enough to make him want to pack up and move the very next day.
One other bit of information caught his attention. The state’s law criminalizing same-sex sexual activity and been repealed in June 1976. It wasn’t quite the same as “Hey, gay people, we want you here!” but at least they wouldn’t have to worry about actually being arrested for what happened in their bedroom.
Iowa. He’d never given the place much thought before, but suddenly, it was the only place he wanted to be.
He dropped the books in the return bin just as the bell rang and headed for Nate’s locker, wanting to tell him what he’d found.
But as he rounded the corner, he discovered a circle of people around Nate’s locker, and his heart sank. He pushed through the gathering crowd to find Nate backed against the bank of lockers by Brian Anderson. Brad Williams stood only a step or two behind Brian, obviously working as Brian’s backup.