Sarah Black's Blog: Book Report, page 10

Fire and Rain Free Story

So the story I wrote for the LHNB event had to be pulled. Jen was concerned that I would be unhappy with the reception the story received, since it strayed from the prompt rather too far, and the editors felt there was a liability issue with my use of song lyrics. I couldn't rewrite the story without the songs. These inarticulate boys sang songs to each others, when they couldn't talk. It would have been like taking the peanut butter out of a pbj. Still a sandwich but not the same thing! So rather than make people unhappy or rewrite, I pulled the story from the event. I'll post it here if anyone wants to read.

It's a little over 6,000 words, contemp romance.

FIRE AND RAIN
Sarah Black

Micah Brand opened the door of his Jeep and stepped onto the gravel and pine-needle covered parking lot at Picnic Junction. Picnic Junction wasn’t a real town, but a tiny combination general store and motel, with 12 self-contained log cabins in the middle of the Gunnison National Forest. The general store was stocked with the essentials for a Colorado mountain vacation: fishing poles and bait, hats, beer and hot dogs. The store had both packages of hot dogs you could cook yourself over a campfire, or ready-made weinies rotating slowly next to the cash register if you couldn’t get your fire started.

The air was hot and windy, unusual this far into the mountains, and the brittle pine needles crunched under his boots. Usually you could feel the air getting cooler and greener and sweeter the higher you drove. It was one of the best parts of driving up a mountain for vacation, keeping the window down and your elbow in the sun, feeling the cool change in the air. But the drought and the heat wave was rolling on into the fifth year, and the mountain was dry as kindling.

“Back again?” The old man behind the counter looked like he hadn’t changed clothes since last year. His hair was a little thinner, the brown-gray color of old tree bark. “You didn’t see the Highway Patrol signs when you were driving in? If that fire down south gets any closer, they’re going to close the roads into the forest.”

“I saw the signs,” Micah said. “But that fire’s over a hundred miles south, heading west. We should be good up here, right?”

“Now it’s seventy miles south,” the old man said, gesturing toward the little emergency weather radio on his counter. “It’s been moving since this morning. You got the gear you need? I’m going to close up early, go home and check my insurance. If you have to evacuate, how about spraying some water on the roof before you leave?”

“Sure. Happy to.” Micah pocketed the key to number 12. Every year the old man had some reason he should get back into his car and drive away, back to the city. Once there was a man-eating grizzly loose in the woods; one year Red Tide was threatening the fish in the lake. Then a gang of dangerous felons had escaped from the federal pen and left tracks in the Gunnison. How did he make a living off Picnic Junction? Did he run off everybody, or just his oldest and best customers?

Micah had been coming into the Gunnison to go camping since he was a kid. His dad had liked this old man. He’d wait until Micah was asleep in their little cabin, always number 12, then he’d grab a six pack of beer and go drink on the old man’s porch, swapping fish stories. Micah usually wasn’t asleep, though. He was snuggled deep into a sleeping bag, his cheek pressed into soft plaid flannel, listening with delight and terror to the sounds of the forest at night.

The year he was nine, his best friend Joe Phoenix came camping with Micah and his dad. That was the camping trip Micah remembered better than any other. After Micah’s dad went off to drink beer with the old man, Joe raised his head carefully from the pillow, held up a hand for silence. “Quiet. I need to listen.” He waited a moment, then, “Is that…I think I hear something. Is that a bear? You know a bear can reach right up and open a cabin door with their claws. You better get in the top bunk with me. I’ll protect you.”

***

Micah was celebrating his graduation with this camping trip. Four years of college, and then four more years to become a veterinarian. He had, at this moment, more debt than many small African nations. But he was happy. A door he’d been staring at for a long time was open now, waiting for him to step through. He’d wanted to come back to the old cabin one more time, say goodbye before he stepped through and shut the door on his childhood forever.

He unloaded a bag of groceries, some bananas and plums, a plastic container of homemade white bean chili and some stone-ground cornbread. He shuddered a little thinking of the packaged hot dogs in the old man’s store. How old were they? The plastic was curling on the edges. In what god-awful slaughterhouse factory had they been made? How much salt? How much nitrate?

He reached into the bottom of the bag, pulled out a plastic bag of marshmallows. Marshmallows were okay, not the healthiest of foods, but still. They were not as bad as those hot dogs. With the state of the woods, though, he didn’t need the fire restrictions posted everywhere to tell him outdoor fires were prohibited. He’d have to cook his marshmallows over a small campstove. It really wasn’t the same. He studied the bag. Maybe he should wait.

He opened the windows of number 12 and threw his sleeping bag over the clothesline out back to air out, then he went for a walk in the forest. It looked even drier than last year, the bark on the alligator pines rough and cracking, oozing sap that dripped onto the pine needles. The air was thick with the heady pine resin, the wind dry and hot. It was strange, a different feel. Micah didn’t know much about fire, but he suspected that pitch dripping down the trees would be a sign a wildland firefighter would notice. He found himself singing the lyrics to a Tim McGraw song, “He’s my kind of rain, like love from a drunken sky….” It was a small thing, singing songs about rain in the middle of a drought, but you never knew what might help.

There was an old fire lookout tower about a half mile from Picnic Junction. It had been part of a string of lookouts built down the spine of the Rockies by the CCC back in the thirties. Micah hiked through the woods to the lookout, intending to climb up and take some pictures from the top, but when he got to the tower, the old ladder had been removed, the gray boards warped and twisted. He turned around and walked back to the cabin, his throat dry, wondered if he ought to check in with the old man’s weather radio.

The store was closed, though, so he walked back to number 12, pulled his sleeping bag off the clothesline and laid it out on the bunk. He pulled the new Repairman Jack out of his backpack, set the table with his cornbread and chili, and pulled a beer out of the cooler. Life didn’t get much better than this. He wouldn’t have minded having his dad along, or a friend, but if he could write a script for his most perfect day, it would be this day, in this place. If his childhood friend Joe Phoenix wasn’t along to tell him ghost stories and scare him out of his wits, Repairman Jack could do that duty. He was happy. Very very happy. Then he wondered, who was he trying to convince? Enough thinking, Jesus. A person could drive themselves crazy with too much thinking. He opened the book.

He was deep into ‘The Tomb’ when he heard a noise outside. The tiny battery-operated book light clipped to the cover of the book was getting dim. It was late, but he hadn’t heard the coyotes. Maybe they’d been singing, but he was too far gone into the book. He heard the noise again and realized someone was knocking softly on the door to his cabin.

He looked at his watch. It was just after midnight. He pulled open the cabin door. He’d seen the man earlier, tousled brown hair and scruffy beard, flannel shirt and jeans. He was staying down in cabin number 4, and had a heavy duty bike rack on the back of his dark green Subaru. Micah looked out the door. The Subaru was packed and running, headlights on, his wife in the passenger seat, bikes neatly stowed.

“Hey. I don’t know if you’ve got a radio.”

“Is it the fire?” Micah asked. “Is it moving this way?”

“Looks like it. They haven’t issued an evacuation order yet, but there are firemen at the store and I’m starting to smell smoke. It’s making me a little nervous, you know? We’re gonna head out. You have a radio?”

Micah shook his head. He could smell the smoke now, bitterness staining the cool night air. “Yeah, I think you’re right. No need to play chicken with a forest fire, not after the last few years. Thanks for letting me know.”

“No problem, man.”

Micah watched him get behind the wheel, and he waved to the pretty wife as they pulled out. He went back into the cabin and started stuffing his gear back into his backpack.

Picnic Junction seemed to be deserted. There had been no other vehicles in evidence other than his Jeep and the Subaru belonging to scruffy beard and his wife. The old man had to be around here somewhere, though. Micah heard the sound of a door slam shut, walked around back of the store.

The old man was hooking a horse trailer to his pickup, and there were a couple of firefighters standing around drinking coffee, their gear and helmets piled on a picnic table. They looked tired and dusty, like they’d been on duty for a couple of days and had taken a quick nap on some handy porch. The only light was from the dim bulb in the fixture next to the old man’s back door. Micah walked over to him. “You need some help loading the horses?”

He shook his head. “I’m going up the road, help that riding stables get some of their stock down the mountain. You need to get into that Jeep and get on down out of the Gunnison. These firefighters are gonna start digging the firebreaks with their backhoe. Might knock some trees down.”

“How many horses they got up there? They have enough trailers?”

He shook his head. “We got trailers for six horses.”

“You could rope the rest together, lead them down the mountain in a string.”

The old man sighed, turned to Micah. He looked tired, irritated, dusty. “Thanks for the offer of help. You’re a nice kid. Sorry your weekend got screwed up. But I don’t need anything from you but to let me get this done, and for you to carry your citified butt down off this mountain so I don’t have to worry about you setting yourself on fire trying to roast your marshmallows.”

The fireman all looked over at this. “I didn’t roast the marshmallows!” Why did he suddenly feel eight years old? “I’m a veterinarian. I know how to handle horses. Why don’t you let me help?”

“You’re a vet? Don’t you have to go to school for that? How old are you, nineteen?”

One of the firemen stepped closer, tossed his cup of coffee into the trash barrel. “He’s twenty-six,” Joe Phoenix said. “You might as well let him help because if you don’t he’ll argue with you until morning and by then we might very well be trapped on this mountain. And I am not going up in flames tonight.”

***

“I’m not stalking you.”

Joe turned around. “We’re not going to have this conversation right now, Micah.” He was moving ahead on long legs, and Micah was struggling to keep up. Nothing changed, Micah thought, with a touch of bitterness. A hundred years from now, Joe would be walking away from him as fast as he possibly could, and Micah would be trailing along after him, having to run to keep up. It was just a bit humiliating.

What had he been expecting? Okay, so he knew Joe had come back from the Army and taken a job as a wildland firefighter. He had, in fact, had lunch with Joe’s mom just last week and she had let out that Joe was with the crew up in the Gunnison. But that was not why Micah had come camping to celebrate his graduation. Would it have been unreasonable, given their history together, to expect a hug? A handshake, at least. But what he got was a barely civil, ‘let’s go,’ and Joe turned and walked off, expecting him to follow. Which he did. Like always.

Joe stopped next to his Jeep. “You got your gear packed and stowed?” Micah nodded. “How about some extra water?”

“Um, no.”

“Pack some extra water.”

Joe had let his hair grown out a little from his Army days, and it was a tangled dark mess from sweating under his helmet, then drying in the wind. He had about twenty-four hours’ worth of lethal dark whiskers on his face. A person would do themselves an injury trying to kiss this guy. He could take the skin right off you. Those whiskers could tear a strip of skin off the inside of a thigh without any problem. Micah stumbled in the dark.

“Watch where you’re going.” Joe turned to look at the old cabin. “Good old number 12.” He reached a hand out, snagged Micah by the front of his shirt, pulled him into a hug. Not an old friend hug, either, but a hot boyfriend hug, with hard, roaming hands. When he pulled away, Micah thought he looked tired, his dark eyes shadowed. Joe looked at Micah a long time before he kissed him. It was a gentle kiss, no whiskers. He smelled like sweat and wood smoke, with a faint trace of fabric softener from his tee shirt. “Micah, you idiot. When are you going to let it go?”

He was immediately back in high school, his stomach roiling with anxiety and insecurity and confusion and the sure knowledge that whatever he said next would be the wrong thing. The last time Joe had kissed him had been just after he’d signed the papers to go into the Army. He’d been saying goodbye, planning what Micah had been sure was attempted suicide by Taliban. It had been his fault, of course, or so he assumed, because he didn’t really know what had happened to cause Joe to run. Suicide by Taliban didn’t work, so now Joe had moved on to wildfire.

“I wasn’t trying to…I’m not…” This was useless. What could he say? “I had lunch with your mom last week.”

“I know. I heard all about it.”

He couldn’t stare at the gravel for the rest of the night. “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t even know what I’m sorry about but I am. I just wanted to see you were okay.”

“Not the right time for a discussion.” Joe looked exhausted suddenly. “Let’s get those horses down the mountain and get you out of the danger zone. We can talk later.”

“Sure. Okay, Joe. I’ll wait for you.” He said it again, frowning down into Joe’s shadowed blue eyes. “If you don’t have time to talk, I’ll wait for you.” Like I’ve been waiting for you for years, already.

“Fucking hell. You are such a pain in the ass.”

“Yeah, you said. Idiot. Pain in the ass. What else?”

Joe grabbed him again, with the inarticulate sounds coming from his throat of a man who is close to his limit. His hands were hard on Micah’s shoulders, and he gave him a rough shake before he pulled him in, and his kiss this time wasn’t gentle at all.

***

“Heavy rain falling, seems I hear your voice calling , ‘it’s all right’….” Joe Phoenix was channeling Brook Benton.

“I taught you how to do that,” Micah said. “Sing songs about rain to stop a forest fire.”

“No, it was my idea,” Joe said.

Micah wasn’t prepared to argue, not with whisker burns on his chin and his bottom lip throbbing and Joe Phoenix in the passenger seat of his Jeep, hanging on to the grab bar with exaggerated care, knuckles white. Joe hated the passenger seat, but Micah was not going to turn over the keys. He had won so few victories in their relationship. This was a tiny one, but it was his.

“I’m sorry I called you an idiot. Dr. Idiot, I meant to say.” Joe was studying the trees out of the Jeep window. “Dr. Pain in the Ass. Oooh, Dr. Pain, my kitten has a thorn in his paw! Can you help me? You are a cat vet, right? Sweet little cats and dogs? Turtles and birds?”

“Kiss my butt. Cats and dogs need doctors, too.”

He was still staring out the window. “I’m proud of you. You’re gonna be a good vet.”

“Thanks.”

They were on a rough dirt track, climbing up the mountain. The old man was ahead of them, his empty horse trailer slewing a little on the gravel road.

“What about you? Why did you decide to become a wildland firefighter?”

“Just trying to keep good old number 12 safe for my boyhood friend Micah, the cat vet, and his bag of marshmallows.”

Joe Phoenix could really be a snide bastard. The brake lights on the trailer in front of them glowed red, and Micah pulled the Jeep into the parking area of the riding stables. The lights were on in the barn.

“You know this lady?”

Micah nodded. Sally Holiday had let him work his student vet chops on her trail horses. “She’s easy going. Patient. And she keeps her horses’ hooves and teeth in excellent shape.”

Sally came out of the barn, leading a couple of old horses. Her blond ponytail was a little frazzled, and she looked tired, the cuffs of her jeans and boots muddy. Micah climbed out of his Jeep and waved.

“Hey, Micah!”

He took the leads out of her hand and kissed her cheek. “Hey, Sally. I thought I could put one of your old trailers onto my Jeep, drive a couple of these guys down the mountain.” He turned around, pointed at Joe. “This is Joe Phoenix. He’s one of the firefighters. They’re making a base at Picnic Junction.”

Joe looked at her muddy boots, reached out and shook hands. “Has it been raining up here?”

She shook her head. “Just a few thunder-boomers. I was spraying water on the roof of the hay barn. We’ve got all the summer alfalfa put up.”

The wind was kicking up in little fits, swirling leaves into tiny dust devils. It was still too dark to see the sky. Micah looked over at Joe. “Thunder-boomers?” He reached out, patted one of the horses on the muzzle. They were sturdy, calm old horses, with years of riding excitable rookies on their backs, but even they seemed a bit skittish. “That’s not good, is it?”

“Nope.” He unfolded a map onto the hood of the Jeep, pulled out his radio for an update. “Let me check our roads out of here are still clear. Better load up quick as we can, okay? I’m getting a bad feeling.” He looked over at Sally. “Ma’am, the evacuation order is still voluntary, but I don’t know when that’s gonna change.”

“I thought I would stay and try to hose everything down. Save what I could.” She studied his grim face. “Does that do any good?”

“Not with this kind of fire. They’re bulldozing a couple of breaks down off one of the old logging roads. I think that’s the only thing that’ll help. Best get on off the mountain, Ms. Holiday.” She looked back at her stables and big hay barn, such loss and yearning on her face that Micah felt tears spring into his eyes. He put an arm around her, and one of the horses leaned in, nuzzled into her neck. She reached up and stroked the rough mane.

She took a deep breath. “Micah, let me see about getting a trailer hooked onto your Jeep. You ever towed a horse trailer before?”

“I drove the school truck with a horse trailer attached. I should be fine.”

They heard the thunder then, a dull, muffled boom, and Micah felt the electricity in the air, a harsh, metallic taste that had the hair on the back of his neck standing up. Joe was singing under his breath. “Let it rain, let it rain, let your love rain down on me….” Clapton. It figured. Joe Phoenix could play Clapton air guitar better than anyone in their entire senior class.

When Sally was out of ear shot, Micah sailed another volley toward Joe. “Where have you been, my blue eyed son? Where have you been, my darling young one?”

Joe’s face was blank for a moment, concentrating. Then he looked up and grinned. “Dylan, right? I’ve stumbled on the sides of twelve misty mountains….”

“A hard rain’s gonna fall….” The old man from Picnic Junction came around the back of his truck. “Aren’t you boys a little young to be singing Dylan?”

“He must have been stoned when he wrote that song.” Joe folded up his map. “What the fuck does it even mean?”

“Who cares?” said the old man. “He’s still a genius, stoned or not.” He climbed into his pickup, slammed the door.

“That is a very opaque rain song, Micah.”

“No, it’s not. I love that song. Even the old man knows that song.”

“Fine. I know better than to argue with you.” Joe shoved the radio back in his pocket. “Let’s hit the road.”

***

The Jeep was logy, the full horse trailer dragging at the back end until it felt like the front wheels were spinning in the air. Joe was leaning forward, trying to see into the forest on either side of the road. “Be careful, Micah.”

“I know. You said already.” Several times.

Joe turned around, stared at him. His face was dirty, so dark and tired Micah was immediately sorry he’d sounded so bitchy. “Don’t look at me like that. Please. Just give it a rest.”

Hopelessness rolled down his chest, lodged in his stomach. What was he doing? Was there anything more pathetic in this world than chasing after somebody who’d moved on? Joe had left him, and had spent the last eight years running as far as he could to get away from him. And here he was, tracking the poor man down in the middle of a forest fire when he was trying to work. And Joe was doing everything he could not to have to slap Micah down. They had been friends once. And Joe was remembering their friendship, and trying not to hurt him.

It was time to let it go. Time to let him go. Grow up and step through the door, start the rest of his life. Look for a man who could love him, someone who would look forward to spending time with him. Not run away from him. Not make him feel stupid and small. He knew there was someone who could love him. He just didn’t know how to tell Joe Phoenix goodbye. But it was time. Long past time.

“I’m sorry, Joe. Look, it was all so long ago, wasn’t it? Eight years. I was just thinking it was time to let it go. Time to let you go, I mean. I just want you to know….”

The lightning stuck just to the left of the Jeep, and the thunder was so loud and deep and close Micah nearly stood on the brake. A huge buck elk bolted out of the trees just in front of them, ran into the front quarter of the Jeep. The Jeep lurched, and Micah jerked the wheel around, then tried to turn back. The heavy horse trailer rocked, started to twist, and the Jeep flipped over onto the passenger side, skidded across the dirt road and slammed into a lodgepole pine.

***

“Micah. Micah. Open your eyes, brother.”

Something was tickling his face, and Micah wiped across his forehead irritably. “Shit. What the…?”

“Micah. You with me?”

He was hanging from the shoulder harness, bits of shattered glass raining down his shoulders and across the front of his jeans. Joe was lying against the ground, curled on his side. “Joe? You okay?”

“I might have a problem. I think I broke my wrist. You’ve got blood on your face.”

Micah wiped at his forehead again. “I just need a bandaid. I’ve got my vet kit in the back if we can get to it. I can find something to make a splint. Sorry, Joe. I don’t know what happened.”

“A big-ass elk got scared by the thunder and ran into your Jeep. Not your fault. If you cut your shoulder harness, you’re gonna fall on top of me. I can’t move out of the way.”

Micah had been reaching for the button that would release the harness. He braced his feet against the dash, reached out and wrapped one of his arms around the belt. “Okay, here we go.”

He managed to mostly break his fall before he landed on Joe, then he reached down, released Joe’s belt. He was lying on his right side, arm braced against his chest. “Can you climb out?”

“Yeah, I think so. You first.”

The driver’s side door had a broken window, but Micah was able to push the door open and crawl through. He lay against the side, reached a hand down for Joe. By the time they were standing next to the wrecked Jeep, they were both breathing hard and bleeding, pieces of broken glass falling around them. The heavy old horse trailer was standing in the middle of the road. It hadn’t moved. Micah stared at it. Fucking hell. The thing was forty years old, more rust than paint. The back bumper and hitch from his Jeep was still dangling from the trailer, twisted and pathetic, hanging by a little broken piece of metal. “This is unbelievable.” Joe was cradling his arm against his chest, leaning against the trailer, his eyes closed. “Let me get the first aid kit. I’ll wrap up your arm.”

Micah grabbed the kit, opened it and dug around until he found a four inch Ace wrap. Joe had landed on his hand, and the wrist had bent backward until it snapped. It was already purple and swollen, the size of a melon. “Joe, give me your hand. It’s gonna hurt, okay?”

Joe didn’t say anything, just leaned over and let Micah grab his hand. Micah moved his fingers down, wrapped them around Joe’s wrist. He looked deep into tired blue eyes, and Joe smiled up at him just before Micah jerked the hand hard until the bones were straight. Then Joe closed his eyes and fell forward into his arms.

Micah managed to wrap the elastic bandage around Joe’s body, securing his arm against his chest so it wouldn’t move, before he came out of what was clearly a faint. He was going to take that knowledge to the grave, though. Never would a word cross his lips about Joe Phoenix fainting from pain. Especially since he’d nearly thrown up when he’d felt the bones move under his fingers. Wait a minute. Joe Phoenix in a faint? Was he hurt worse than Micah realized? Concussion? Traumatic Brain Injury? He bent down, stared into Joe’s pupils, then held up two fingers. “What do you see?”

Joe stared up into his eyes and smiled, his face white under the grime. “Oh, Dr. Feelgood. I think I need to sit down.”

“You are sitting down.”

“Okay, then.”

Micah sat down against the trailer next to Joe and took stock. A big jackrabbit bolted across the road, zigzagged hysterically when he saw them. One of the horses in the trailer behind them nickered. This was nice, he thought. Just a midnight outing with his old friend, Joe Phoenix. The wind was hot and getting smoky.

Joe stirred after about ten minutes. “Are you going to say anything?”

“I can’t think of a thing to say.”

“You know where we are?”

“About half a mile from Picnic Junction. You know where the fire is?”

Joe reached for his pocket, felt around for the fire radio. “Can you look into the Jeep?”

It was in pieces against the far door. “Okay, that’s not going to help.”

“So no, I don’t know where the fire is.”

“What should we do, Joe? Could we take the horses back up to Sally’s place? Maybe she hasn’t left yet.”

“I’m not sure I can ride with one arm. Why don’t you try and go, and I’ll wait for you here.”

“Not going to happen.” Micah thought again. “We could go to number 12.”

“We ought to try and get higher, if we can. It won’t protect us from the fire, but at least we can see what’s happening.”

“We could climb to the top of that old fire watch tower. We could signal or something once it gets light, see if we can find some of your fire fighter buddies.”

“I thought that thing was in pieces,” Joe said.

“I walked out to it when I got to the cabin yesterday. The ladder’s gone but we could climb the side. I’ll help you.”

“Micah, grab those containers of emergency water that we packed, then let the horses loose. They’ll find their way back to their home stables. We can’t leave them in the trailer. They’ll do better on their own.”

When he pulled them out of the trailer, the horses stared at him like he’d gone insane, then they turned and placidly started walking back up the road to the stables. Then he slung his backpack and first aid kit over his shoulder and hefted two gallon jugs of water. Joe was still a little unsteady on his feet.

“I never meant to cause you any sorrow, I never meant to cause you any pain, I only wanted one time to see you laughing, laughing in the purple rain….”

Micah stopped in the middle of the road. “Holy shit! Are you singing Prince? You must have a concussion.”

“I like Prince,” Joe said, and he kept on walking.

You do not.”

“Okay, how about this? Two points if you get it on the first guess, Micah. Here comes the rain again, falling on my head like memories….”

“Oh, give me a tough one, Annie Lennox.”

“Someone told me long ago there’s a calm before the storm, I know it’s been coming for some time….” Micah joined in, and they sang together. “It’ll rain a sunny day, I know, shining down like water. I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain, coming down on a sunny day?”

“Oh, man. John Fogerty,” Micah said. “I had a crush on him since forever. My dad used to play those CCR records. Spinning vinyl, he called it. I still have them somewhere. I saved all those records after he died.”

Joe reached out, put a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t call you when your dad died. My mom told me what happened.”

“I know.” Micah twisted the cap off one of the bottles of water, held it up so Joe could take a drink.

“I’ve got one. You’ll never get this. But I’ll give you a hint. It was two singers, one man and one woman, and the song came out on the woman’s album. Ready? Life isn’t easy, love never lasts, I pulled off the highway and rolled into town….”

Micah shook his head. “Sing some more.”

“Where can I run to, how have I sinned? When you cry like a rainstorm and you howl like the wind?”

“Okay, you’ve got me. Who is it?”

“Linda Rondstadt.”

“And Aaron Neville! Oh, man, how did I not know that one? Okay, here’s another Aaron Neville. What has happened down here is the wind have changed, clouds rolled in from the north and it started to rain. It rained real hard, and it rained for a real long time, six feet of water in the streets of Evangeline.”

“I’ve missed you, Micah. More than I can say.”

Micah felt his heart lodge in his throat. “I’ve missed you, too.”

They were on the path to the lookout tower, and when they got to the base, Joe sat down suddenly, like his legs couldn’t hold him. “Are you okay? Joe?”

“I’m…yeah, just… Micah, get the water up the tower. Make sure it’s safe. Then come down and help me up.”

Micah climbed up the side of the tower, the weathered boards leaving sharp gray splinters in his palms. He stowed the jugs of water and the first aid kit, then climbed back down. It was still too dark for him to get a good look at Joe, but when he helped him stand up, his hand came back sticky with blood. “You’re bleeding, Joe.”

“I think I’ve got a cut on the back of my head.”

Micah pulled the neck of his tee shirt back, saw the blood matting his hair and flowing down his shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I needed to get you someplace safe. Come on.”

He wasn’t steady, but with Micah behind him, one arm around his waist, he was able to climb up the old tower. When they got to the top, Joe sat down on the platform, then fell over on his side.

“No, Joe. Sit up. Let me get you cleaned up.” The night was so black, the only faint light from star shine and the bloody red glow of the fire on the horizon. “Drink some water. Do you want a marshmallow?”

“You brought the marshmallows?”

“Of course I did.”

Micah pulled the tee shirt over Joe’s head, used one edge to mop up the blood coming from the scalp wound. It seemed to be slowing, but he got a thick gauze pad out of his bag and held it against the cut. Joe had his eyes closed. Micah gave him more water to drink, then he pulled his shirt off and rolled it around his backpack to make a pillow for Joe’s head.

“Here. Lay down here, Joe.” He wrapped himself around Joe Phoenix as best he could. Joe was shivering. Maybe it was shock. “I’ll keep you warm. You’re okay, Joe. Just…stay with me. I’ll protect you, I promise. You used to say that to me, remember?” Joe closed his eyes. Micah held him against his chest, wrapped his legs around Joe’s legs, willed the strong heart in his arms to keep beating. It was a long time before the shivering stopped.

“You knew, didn’t you?” He was whispering. He wasn’t sure Joe could hear him. “When did you find out about my dad?”

“You mean when did I find out about your dad and my mom?” Joe’s voice was sleepy. “I walked in on them kissing in the kitchen. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want you to know. Mom had already left my dad by then. I didn’t realize until I saw them together what was going on.”

“Is that why you left?”

“I was a kid, Micah. I thought they’d be sorry for what they did if I left. How was it so right with me and you, and so wrong with the two of them? I couldn’t figure it out.”

“I think they were sorry. They stopped seeing each other after you left. My dad was pretty miserable.”

“You knew all along?”

Micah sighed. There didn’t seem to be any place he could kiss Joe that wasn’t covered in blood or dirt. He tightened his arms, felt Joe ease back against him. “That was all so long ago. You’re not in shock, are you?”

“I don’t think so. Listen to this. This is my favorite song about rain. I’ve seen fire and I’ve seen rain. I’ve seen sunny days that I thought would never end. I’ve seen lonely times when I could not find a friend, but I always thought that I’d see you again. I love that song. Close your eyes, Micah. Let me sing to you. It’ll be morning soon.”


End





Songs about Rain to Prevent Forest Fires
Tim McGraw ‘She’s My Kind of Rain’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbUs7u...
Brook Benton ‘Rainy Night in Georgia’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDRbF8...
Eric Clapton ‘Let it Rain’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LeSx5...
Bob Dylan ‘A Hard Rain’s Gonna Fall’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffv2wd...
The Eurythmics ‘Here Comes the Rain Again’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzFnYc...
CCR ‘Have You Ever Seen the Rain’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TzFnYc...
Linda Ronstadt and Aaron Neville ‘Cry Like a Rainstorm Howl Like the Wind’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NowHC8...
Aaron Neville ‘Louisiana 1927’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJWKBh...
James Taylor ‘Fire and Rain’ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txj9Y-...

Fire and Rain--new story for LHNB!

I just finished the story I wrote for Anna B's prompt for the LHNB project on the M/M romance group. I love the new story! I can always tell when a story is coming together because I can't stand to leave it and go to bed. I was still petting it and stroking it at 0100 like it was a skittish kitten.

I tried something different, and used songs throughout the story to strengthen the theme. The title song, of course, but a couple of other songs about rain. Since we're in the middle of fire season again, and it is going to get to 97 in Portland today (97??! wtf?), we need some songs about rain.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwugjy...

Why I’m drinking vodka at 0700 local time, Portland, Oregon

I admit I have been brutally homesick since moving to Portland in January. Looking though pictures the other day of the mountains in the desert southwest, Tsegi Canyon out in Navajo country, I burst into tears. The red rocks and blue sky and the few dusty sage bushes struggling to keep their hold on the rocks! My heart turned over in my chest and I had to lie down. My heart has started skipping beats since I left the four sacred mountains.

Portland is beautiful, wet and green, roses blooming everywhere you look, huge pines nearly touching the sky that the locals call Dougies. I look around at the lush beauty and think, where did the fucking sky go? Do I even remember the color blue?

But I am determined to make the best of all the blessings of this beautiful new country. And Portland is foodie central. Thinking of the winter to come, I’ve started experimenting with cordials. Cordials, also known as booze infused.

Recipe one is local fruit with vodka and tequila. I moved aside my soap making gear and set up two workstations to compare and contrast. One pint of blackberries, one pint of blueberries, 2 of strawberries each, and a fifth of vodka and same of tequila in their respective jars. Tasted. Added quarter cup of sugar. I’ve let that sit for a couple of weeks. Pulled them down this morning and tasted. Not bad!

The vodka beats the tequila for summer berries. But it still needs something. Lemon? How about an herb? The garden box is growing wild, lavender and rosemary and thyme and mint, chocolate and grapefruit. So I set up another experiment station and portioned the vodka berry cordial into cups of herbs.

Oddly enough, the one that smells the best is the English thyme. The mints are sweet smelling but too strong for the berries. Rosemary- not. The lavender is not bad. But the thyme takes the cake, hands down.

Now, I’m not drinking the samples as much as tasting them from a spoon, so somehow I lose track of how much I have actually sampled. I only wonder what’s going on when I go back to the garden to pick some more herbs and I seem to be listing. I was going to walk up to the kitchen store and buy a funnel but I better wait a few hours. Who cares? It’s summer in Portland and the berries are getting ripe.

The perfect horoscope for a writer

"Your subconscious is quite active today, which means that you're both having all sorts of great brainstorms, and that you may start seeing things that aren't there by the end of the day."

This is a good sign for a weekend writing!

The General and the Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari going to Dreamspinner!

I just got a contract for the new book! The General and the Elephant Clock of Al-Jazari is coming out from Dreamspinner Oct to Nov. It's an awesome story; I like it so much. And it's long for me, over 80,000 words! I can't wait to share it.

Welcome to Dongmakgol

My film fest continues! This is the sweetest and funniest movie I've seen in some time- it really says something about Korea, that this movie is so popular there. Here's the blurb:

Korean with English subtitles) The #9 all-time box office hit of Korea. Set during the Korean War in a small village, fate brings a U.S. fighter pilot, 3 retreating North Korean soldiers, and 2 South Korean soldiers who are lost together. After spending time they slowly begin to let go ... of their hatred for one another. Meanwhile, U.S. commanders plan an air strike in the area.


http://www.amazon.com/Welcome-to-Dong...

Frozen Chosin

I’ve been having a mini-film fest at my house the last couple of weeks. This week I’ve been watching some of the films from the GI Film Fest. This documentary tells the story of the fighting at Chosin Reservoir in Korea. I grew up hearing about Chosin, Frozen Chosin it was always called, but the men talked about it quietly, when the women and kids weren’t around.

Blurb: During the Korean War, in the winter of 1950, 15,000 U.S. troops were surrounded and trapped by 120,000 Chinese soldiers in the frozen mountains of North Korea. Refusing surrender, the men fought 78 miles to freedom and saved the lives of 98,000 civilian refugees. After 60 years of silence, the survivors of the Chosin Reservoir Campaign take viewers on an emotional and heart-pounding journey through one of the most savage battles in American history. (86 minutes, SD&HD, Stereo & Dolby 5.1)

Chosin

I loved this documentary. It was beautifully structured and filmed. Won the Best Documentary Feature at the GI Film Fest 2011. The filmmaker, Brian Iglesias, is both a combat vet and has a film degree, and I think the quality of the film is a result of that experience with a good education.

It Looks Like We're in a Shooting War! Review of Rear Window and Dr. Strangelove

Review of Rear Window and Dr. Strangelove

I’ve started on a study of classic films I’ve missed, or wanted to see again, and this week I watched Dr.Strangelove and Rear Window.

1. The acting: my word! Rear Window--Jimmy Stewart is really a brilliant actor. Grace Kelly is beyond beautiful but does not seem to know how to kiss like she means it. Raymond Burr is chilling, standing so still, just those psychotic blue eyes. Anthony Hopkins must have been channeling him in that scene in the prison from Silence of the Lambs. Dr. Strangelove--Peter Sellars says more with a tiny moan that many actors do with a soliloquy. I have a hard time deciding which character of his I liked the most. George C. Scott is screamingly funny, really knows how to do satire, and Sterling Hayden is now, and shall always be, General Jack D. Ripper. “I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist indoctrination, Communist subversion and the international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.” Here in Portland, this argument rages today, with the water still being kept free of the commie plot of fluoridation. “Fluoridation is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.” And of course, “Group Captain, please make me a drink of rainwater and grain alcohol.”

2. The writing: Rear Window—I didn’t read the original short story, by Cornell Woolrich, but I felt like much of this movie script was a showcase for the actors- Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly were playing themselves in the movie. Which is okay, since they were both worth watching. Otherwise the writing was just okay. Dr. Strangelove—I can’t remember when I first saw this, but I am still laughing out loud at the dialogue- Colonel Bat Guano and General Jack D. Ripper and the rest of the crew. I want to go find everything Terry Southern ever wrote. I read some of his short stories when I was younger, and remember feeling quite shocked that his characters, even the good guys, smoked dope and got into fights.

3. The story: Rear Window—was only okay, really very little suspense. I didn’t feel much threat. No danger. Too desensitized to the violence? The two really creepy bits were Raymond Burr smoking in his dark apartment, his ciggie glowing bright orange, and those psychotic blue eyes. Otherwise it almost seemed like a comedy of manners, with a little forced suspense. Dr. Strangelove—just about perfect, great suspense, great character development, great dialogue.

4. The Directors: Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock, and Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick I really noticed with Dr. Strangelove how far filmmaking has progressed- the techie parts. There was one scene with a little helicopter that almost looked like you could see the wires, it was bouncing around in front of a static sky so awkwardly.

Both worth seeing, for different reasons—but I think Dr. Strangelove is close to perfect.

Mari Moto's Magical Dragon- A Portland Story!

Mari Moto’s Magical Dragon

Styx Maguire blamed his mother for the entire Mari Moto mess.

Gertrude Stein Maguire believed that gender was a fluid thing. She named her only son Stevie Nicks Maguire. This name, she thought, would allow for adaptation, without the unfortunate school-yard consequences of a boy named Sue. Unfortunately, most of Styx’s teachers had been Fleetwood Mac fans. Eventually Stevie Nicks became shortened to Styx.

Gertrude Stein would put young Styx in her lap, and he would rest his head against a bosom which smelled like Shalimar and estrogen. She would tell him stories of her grandmother, a radical feminist who took to the Oregon City bars with an axe and a gallon of kerosene. Her mother had run a boarding house for loggers down on the Oregon Redwood Coast, and Gertrude Stein Maguire had grown up in a house full of tired men who cut down trees all day, came home covered in flecks of sticky bark, and who took their hats off and stood up when she walked into the room.

The women in the Maguire clan seemed to have more strength than they knew what to do with, and they suffered all sorts of identity confusion as a result. Gertrude Stein passed this confusion on to her son. She assured her gentle Styx that she would love and support him through any decision he might make regarding lifestyle and gender. She told him this so many times, over so many years, that Styx started to wonder why.

“Mom, I’m not getting a sex change operation,” he said, when he was twenty-four, “and that’s my final word. I’m a man for life, okay? I’m very happy with who I turned out to be.”

“Of course, darling,” she replied. “And I’m very happy with the person you turned out to be, as well. I just want you to have the freedom to experiment with gender and identity as you age. Life changes a person.” She knew this better than most. Crisis was in the air she breathed. Gertrude Stein was a social worker, and she ran a shelter for homeless teens. “Did I tell you? I’m engaged in a gender identity experiment myself.”

Oh, God, what now? “Mom? What have you done?”

“I’ve written a book! A gay romance. I assumed the identity of a young gay man engaged on a quest of sorts, like a hero’s journey, a sexual quest, actually.” She gazed at him earnestly. Gertrude Stein dressed like Styx’s namesake Stevie Nicks, with vests and full skirts and usually long strands of crystals that tinkled and winked in the light. “Styx, you don’t think it’s creepy, do you? I mean, to have a middle-aged woman assume the identity of a young gay man? I assure you, darling, I had no, what would you call it, no prurient….”

Styx held both hands over his ears until she had finished speaking. “Mom, please. I beg of you. Say no more. Of course I don’t think it’s creepy.” Maybe a little.

“But the best part of the experience is I’m able to assume a new identity! That’s what I’m trying to describe to you. My book is going to be published under my pen name, Cielolo Blue Feather.”


Brian was the Portland firefighter who shared Styx’s bed and fridge and rent. He told everyone they were just roommates. In retaliation, Styx called him Bristlecone, and would not explain why.

Brian agreed they should avoid a romance written by Cielolo Blue Feather at all cost, but he did not agree with Styx’s assessment that it was creepy to have middle-aged women writing gay sex scenes. “Everybody gets off on people getting off, Styx. What’s the big deal?”
Styx had to take some Pepto Bismol and lie down. It was after this that Brian started calling Gertrude Stein ‘Batwing Blue Feather.’

Styx put the notion of his mother writing gay sex scenes into a very small, very dark hole in his mind. Then he considered the other part of their conversation, the notion of assuming a new identity through writing. He had been playing around with a comic, a manga-comic deal, just for fun, and he’d developed this character who’d started to come alive and take over his apartment. Mari Moto.

Mari Moto was fourteen, Japanese, a girl, and on a hero’s quest to protect the victims of the world. Mari Moto had a rough-cut pageboy colored like Easter Eggs, pastel blue or green or pale yellow. No pink, though. Mari Moto did not do pink. She wore a plaid skirt, part of her former school uniform, but when she fled through the sewers into the Tokyo underground, with a hoard of Yakuza bullyboys on her tail, she’d hacked about six inches off the bottom of her skirt. Now the jagged edge danced just south of trouble. She wrote on the inside of her slender adolescent thigh, BITE ME, in black Sharpie. The bad guys could not take their eyes off the short skirt and BITE ME, which allowed her to bring into play her weapon, the Elemental Sword. The Elemental Sword could change into Fire, Ice, Wind, or Obsidian, depending on the situation. Mari Moto was a rescue-hero for the dark times.

The only problem, as the publisher had explained to Styx, was Mari Moto could not possibly be written by a man. Credibility, plausibility, exploitation, were all brought up, and Styx was gradually convinced that it would not do for him to be Mari Moto’s author. He agreed to the plan to publish her kick-ass adventures under the pen name Yuki Suzuki.

Styx was astonished that his manga was actually published. His astonishment increased with the legions of fans who followed Mari Moto’s every move, discussed her motivations, her family history, her fashion sense, her weapon the Elemental Sword. Most of these fans were girls, of the twelve to fourteen year old age group. He started to become alarmed when his alter-ego Yuki Suzuki began receiving petitions. The fans wanted Mari Moto to attend Comic-Con! With the Elemental Sword! If Mari Moto could not come herself, at least Yuki Suzuki needed to make an appearance.

The publisher was also receiving pressure, and a junior editor forwarded a mail dump of requests to Styx one Saturday afternoon, about a year and a half after Mari Moto had sprung to life on his drawing board, the Elemental Sword in her hand. He read through the fan mail, becoming gloomier by the minute. It was becoming clear to him that kicking the asses of Asian street scum was not enough. The fans were girls. He had not anticipated that they would want purses like Mari Moto’s school satchel, or that they would start wearing their socks pushed down like hers and share pictures of themselves on the internet with their school uniform skirts chopped off and BITE ME inked on the inside of their young thighs. He had not anticipated the number who would chop off their hair into ragged pageboys and dye it until it was the color of spring grass, or lemon curd. The girls wanted to meet Mari Moto, or at least Yuki Suzuki. Also, they wanted her to have a dragon.

Chapter Ni

Comic-Con was in six months. The publisher had two thoughts. They could, a) find a Japanese-American girl of the proper age and outfit her as Mari Moto, and let her show up at Comic-Con. Just like Harry Potter, though, when he’d assumed Daniel Radcliffe’s face, their Mari Moto would have to remain Mari Moto, and that meant the beautiful fourteen year old heroine he’d imagined into life would have to get older with this pretender. Styx had every intention of keeping Mari Moto fourteen for at least twenty years. Plan b) Give Mari Moto a dragon to assist her in her work of destroying scum-sucking creeps, and debut the dragon at Comic-Con!

Styx was hard at work on Plan b.


Bristlecone had the b-ball game on the flat screen, feet on the coffee table and a cold beer in his hand. He appeared to ignore Styx’s head on his lap, but he managed to drink his beer without putting the bottle down on anyone’s face. Styx took this as a good sign and told him about the dragon research during the commercials.

“Okay, so say you have a griffin, a dragon, and a phoenix. Which would you say is more likely to be the sidekick of a kick ass warrior princess? A griffin, right? Because dragons are creepy. They live in caves and guard treasure and usually have more than one head. They have poisonous breath. I mean, Thor was actually killed by the poisonous breath of a dragon.”

Brian lifted the beer to his mouth and didn’t speak. He had muted the commercial, though, a definite sign of interest.

“A phoenix would work but it’s really a cheat, because even if the bad guys killed it, which they would have to do all the time, next story, pop! And here comes the phoenix again, reborn from the ashes. There would be no real risk with a phoenix.”

Bristlecone reached down for Styx’s hair, ran his fingers across the lines of his face.

“A griffin, now, that is one cool magical creature. The body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle! Golden fur and golden brown feathers! Noble, right? A noble, wise voice to counsel Mari Moto and see her safe. Like, he could negotiate if she was taken hostage, or she could climb on his back and he could ride her to safety.”

“Sounds like a grandfather in magical creature form. You want to introduce the wise-elder element?” Brian’s head jerked back up, and he hit the unmute button on the remote. The game was back on.

No, the griffin wouldn’t work. Maybe as an occasional character, but Mari Moto did not need Grandfather by her side. Apollonius, now, he wrote a badass dragon. Styx shivered just a bit, picturing teeth sown like seed to grow an army. There was a cool Chinese dragon, Yu, with scales of gold and five toes on each foot. Styx loved the idea of the morning sun just coming up after a night of fighting the tides of evil, and as the warm sun spread across the horizon, the scales of gold lit up like thousands of tiny candles.

No way was Styx drawing a dragon with multiple heads. That was creepy. Okay, so Mari Moto’s dragon would have one head, no poison breath, and no treasure-guarding behavior. This dragon needed to not care about treasure. That was the point of the bad guys, right? They cared about treasure more than people.

Styx thought he could draw a feminine curve to this dragon, maybe a tail that was rounded and full. He flashed on his mother’s copy of Fat-Bottomed Girls, an old Queen album. The picture on the cover showed a girl with a round butt riding a bike. He could give his dragon a curvy tail like a fat-bottomed girl. Was the dragon going to be a female? Male? Some gender-bending hybrid? And what about sexuality? L? G? B? T? Q? Why had his mother forced all these possibilities into his mind? Why was she so open?

Bristlecone hit the mute button again and took a long pull of beer. “The guys are coming over for poker tomorrow. Can you make some of those sausage balls?”

“Sure.”


Styx and Bristlecone lived in the Asa Flats and Lofts, a high rise in the Pearl district of Portland. Their tiny apartment had a corner of windows that brought light into the space on even the gloomiest day. Styx had his computers and drawing boards in this corner. He stared out the window, watched a produce truck navigate the brick-paved street outside trying to bring Walla-Walla onions to the Safeway on the corner. The truck was painted spring green, and had pictures of happy, dancing produce- sweet onions holding hands with carrots, and a bunch of celery in the back loomed over their heads. A couple of peas rolled across the side of the truck. Styx sat up. That was it! Walla-Walla! Perfect name for a dragon.

He drew the fat, rounded tail he’d imagined last night, gave her a small shoulder, scales down her back like a friendly stegosaurus. She was called Walla-Walla because she liked to eat sweet onions! She was shy, and pink, and giggled a little behind her hand! She painted her nails the color of Mari Moto’s latest hair. Good, okay.

He drew Walla-Walla for a while, each rounded scale implying curves and softness, a fat-bottomed girl of a dragon. He gave her a bowl full of sweet onions, then peeled them when she turned her nose up at eating them with the skins still on. When Walla-Walla had eaten twelve peeled onions, she giggled and hid her face in her hands, lifted her fat tail and farted. A line of pink hearts shot out of her ass.

Styx nearly screamed, pushed his chair away from the desk until he went skittering across the wooden floor, his toes scrabbling for purchase. He went into the bathroom and locked the door, rummaged through the medicine cabinet for some mind altering drugs. Nothing, not even Tylenol. He’d have to go out for a run to clear his mind.


Chapter San


Styx forgot all about Bristlecone’s firefighting buddies coming by for poker until the apartment was full of ripped muscles in tight, sweaty blue tee shirts, cartons of beer on every surface and the rich tang of testosterone filling the room. Brian gave him a look, like wtf? There were discarded pictures of cartoon dragons all over the floor. Styx grabbed them up, wadded the paper into the trash, then he raced into the kitchen to put on the sausage balls.

It was a simple recipe, Jimmy Dean pork sausage and grated cheddar cheese mixed with enough Bisquick to hold them together. Styx called them Bypass Balls for the obvious reason, but the firefighters ate fistfuls of them and never cracked two hundred on their cholesterol levels.

George Ishikawa was making serious inroads into the Widmer’s, and they all soon heard the reason for his gloom. “Nothing is the way it used to be,” he said, to the blank faces of his team. Ishi was the fire station chief. Unlike most of the guys, he was married and had kids, including a fourteen year old daughter named Riko. Riko’s pretty Japanese face had inspired Mari Moto’s original look. “I just don’t get it,” he said. “People are going under the knife left and right. What’s that about? I mean, Jesus, just pick one, you know? Boy or girl, and then you stick with it. You want to change it up, buy a new pair of shoes.”

Brian had told him the latest gossip about a fire fighter who was undergoing a sex change operation. The issue for everyone seemed to be the time off work for elective surgery, and they had to cover extra shifts.

The firefighters had clearly heard Ishi on this subject before. They never looked up from their cards. “I mean, I get some guys are going to turn out gay. Take Styx here.” Bristlecone looked up, smiled across the room at Styx. His warm brown eyes seemed to say, you can yell at me later, baby. “Styx is gay, right? But he’s a guy! There’s no question he’s a guy. He even has a straight roommate! It’s no big deal.”

The rest of the table looked at each other and grinned. Brian was biting down on his bottom lip to keep from laughing. Ishi wasn’t done. “Okay, but the thing is, now lines are being crossed. Borders compromised. Some girl firefighter doesn’t want to be a girl anymore, she can just go have surgery and now we got to call her Gary? It used to be that straight people got married, and women stayed at home with the kids. Gay guys got jobs in hotel management or decorating wedding cakes, and lesbians joined the Navy! I mean, how hard was that? Everybody understood where they had to go. Now gay guys are decorating their own frigging wedding cakes! Now my wife is reading some gay romance written by Cielolo Blue Feather, who the fuck knows if that’s a guy or a girl. And my wife, she’s reading this sex scene between two gay guys out loud and looking at me to see if I’m getting a boner! I’m not getting a boner,” he said, sadly. “I’m just getting confused.”

“And with that, I think we’ll take the car keys,” Styx said. “Ishi, you want some more sausage balls?”

“You got some more? Thanks.” He looked across the room, seemed to focus his bleary eyes on something on Styx’s desk. “That looks like that girl Riko keeps reading about. What’s her name? Some fake Japanese name. Girl’s got yellow hair or something. Styx, please tell me you don’t read Mari Moto. She’s for fourteen year old girls, Styx.” Ishi gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder. “You’re a gay guy. Don’t you think we should all just stick with our own kind?”


Styx wasn’t mad at Ishi, though he allowed Bristlecone to make it up to him by walking around the apartment in his boxers, showing off his ripped pecs. Styx liked Ishi. And, after all, he had appropriated Ishi’s daughter’s pretty face and turned her into a demon-fighting underworld hellion with BITE ME written on her thigh. Who could blame a man for drinking too much after his wife had read aloud a sex scene from one of Cielolo Blue Feather’s books?

Bristlecone was a very good-looking man, and he took care to keep his chin shaved and his teeth brushed and his belly ripped. He told Styx he only worked out so much to keep his roommate happy and bubbling over with lust. It worked, but Styx was not letting him get too complacent. Warm brown eyes, short brown hair, an easy smile and a smoothly shaved chin, so what? Bristlecone was very pleased with himself. He leaned back against the headboard, flexed his arms and put his hands behind his head. “Styx, why don’t you come on
over here and tell me about the dragon.”

Well, no one in their right mind could refuse that invitation! Styx climbed onto the bed and curled up against Bristlecone’s warm chest. “Oh, God, it’s a nightmare!” Brian’s heart beat strong and true. Styx described Walla-Walla and the unfortunate business with the onions. His heroine was busy, anyway, chasing after a container load of Thai girls who were destined for sexual slavery in Seattle, and she had no interest in the dragon.

“I saw a girl today, about the age of Mari Moto, wearing one of those little skirts, and she was riding on the back of a big-ass black Harley.”

“Yeah?”

“One of those Soft Tails. I thought, Mari Moto would ride a bike like that. It was shiny and black, with these spiky things. I don’t know what they’re called. Something about that bike made me think of your dragon.” Brian reached down, pulled Styx closer and nuzzled into his neck. “Dragons are supposed to be dangerous, right? Ever wonder what goes on in those scary dark caves, when the hero and the dragon go in and only one of them comes out? Like Passage to India, with dragon.”

The dragon formed in his mind, then, like he was made out of smoke, turned his scaly black head and looked at Styx. He was huge, covered in dull black scales made out of some metal that seemed to absorb the light, with a long snout and ivory fangs and smoke drifting from his nose. His black eyes had a red gleam, and on the crest of his head, and down the line of his spine, wicked scarlet spikes grew. “I’m nobody’s pet,” the dragon said. “But I like pretty little girls to climb on my back and go for a ride.” He was practically licking his chops. “Mari Moto’s in trouble in Thailand,” he said, and his five-toed claws scraped and sparked at the concrete sidewalk beneath the windows of Asa Flats and Lofts.

“Styx! Come back! What do you mean, teeth like seeds? Apollonius who?”

“Bristle, I need a raincheck.”

“Sure, sure,” Brian said, and he rolled onto his side, ready to sleep.


Chapter Yon


Even exhausted from four nights on the run, and in pain from the brutal laser burn across her shoulder, Mari Moto approached the motorcycle with caution. It was too good to be true, transportation in the very place, and at the very time, she needed it most. The bike was made out of some black metal that seemed to absorb the light, and the glints of ivory on the handlebars looked disturbingly like teeth.

She shook her head. No, better to keep to her feet. She had the Elemental Sword strapped tightly across her back. She’s lost her shoes two days before, running along the water’s edge, trying to outwit the dogs the Yakuza had tracking her. The stones cut her feet to ribbons. The dogs were still out there, and now they could easily follow the scent of her blood. She moved away from the bike. Maybe she could steal a plane, or a helicopter. Then the headlights cut across her like a knife, round and bright as lasers from the old Cadillac convertible. The car was full of grinning fools with automatic weapons and bad teeth. She ran back to the bike, threw a leg over the seat and hit the kill switch with her thumb.

The bike seemed to subtly conform to the shape of her bottom, and scarlet spikes rose in front of her and behind on the seat. She reved the motor, spun the bike around until she was facing them. She couldn’t outrun the Yakuza forever. A suicide charge. She’d take as many with her as she could.

The motorcycle bucked, the front tire rising from the ground. Then wings unfolded behind her, huge leathery black wings, and they were flying, circling the Caddy below. The dragon’s tail lashed out, split through the metal of the old car like it was butter. The tail was black, with scarlet tipped spikes.
Mari didn’t know what was going on, but she knew a dragon when she found herself straddling one. She turned the handlebars, pointed the monster toward the cargo ship that was rounding the bay. One more chance to save the girls. Whatever this rescue was going to cost her, she would gladly pay the price.


Bristlecone wrapped his arms around Styx, nuzzled into the back of his neck. “That is one badass dragon, Styx. You nailed it. He looks like he’s got a cock the size of a Louisville Slugger.” There was a large printed poster on the wall showing Toge-kuro, the dragon, with Mari Moto riding on his back. Styx had been working flat out for three weeks to get it ready. The publisher had managed to print a poster the size of a city bus for Comic-Con. “I need you to take a break. I’m getting lonely.”

Styx turned his head, studied Brian’s handsome face. “Have I been working too much?”

Brian kissed him, a warm, sweet, and hungry mouth, and Styx reached up, felt his smooth cheeks. He’d just shaved, and he smelled like Old Spice and cinnamon buns. “I believe I’m holding a raincheck with your name on it.”

Styx was ready for a break. Toge-kuro was kicking his ass, and Mari Moto was never an easy girl to follow on her adventures. At least the young Thai girls had been rescued from a life of sexual slavery in Seattle. But something was developing that had him worried.
“What is it?” Brian asked, when he’d cashed in his raincheck.

Styx thought his body was starting to melt. “Nothing. Go to sleep. Or you can start over again if you want.”

“I think I’m down a few quarts of oil,” Bristlecone said. “You’re worried about something. What did Toge-kuro do?”

“Okay,” he said, rolling over until his head was centered on Bristlecone’s chest. “So they’ve got this weird thing going that they’re not telling me about. And tonight I sort of forced the issue and now I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“Styx, you do know these are fictional characters, right? I mean, they don’t do anything unless your hand writes the words.”

“I wish it was that simple, Brian. You have no idea how much they push me around!”

“So when you forced the issue, what did they say?”

“Toge-kuro said that his price for allowing Mari Moto to ride him was that she belonged to him for one day of the year, and during that day he could do anything he wanted to her. And Mari Moto agreed to this price! Well, she hardly had a choice, since she had already climbed on. She was wearing this chain around her waist, a black metal chain that meant that she belonged to the dragon. I mean, I think we’re getting into a gray area here.”

“Huh.” Bristlecone was rubbing his chin. “I see what you mean. You’ve got a bad-boy shape shifting motorcycle dragon, and she’s got to wait for an entire year? The girls are going to be screaming for a ride on Toge-kuro’s spiked back.”

Bristlecone was missing the point.


Chapter Go


The chain around Mari Moto’s waist was giving him fits. It needed to be out of the same metal as Toge-kuro’s scales, obviously, but on the smaller scale of a waist-chain nothing seemed to get that matte glow. If it was large enough to show the light-stealing qualities of the metal, it would have to drag against her waist, otherwise that would imply the metal was lightweight. And the dragon’s metal chain was not lightweight. Maybe, Styx thought, he could make a waist-chain out of scales! Overlapping scales, that might work. He was carefully avoiding thinking about the meaning of Toge-kuro’s chain, and the consequences for Mari Moto, who was certainly a virgin. How had he managed to write himself into this corner?

Brian called home at noon, asked him if he’d talked to his mother recently. “Not for a couple of weeks,” he said. “Why? What’s up?”

“Batwing Blue Feather just had a new book come out, and along with it she wrote this op-ed piece on how we’re all more alike than we are different, and identity is fluid and gender is all part of some continuum or something, and we should embrace each other as brothers and sisters and then she came out in big, rainbow colors.”

“Came out as what? Are you saying my mother is gay? Bullshit.”

“No, not gay. She came out as not gay and not a man, but a fifty-two year old woman. She admitted that Cielolo Blue Feather was a pen name. Right, like who thought that was her real name? Anyway, it sparked something of a furor and now there’s a boycott. A petition online to boycott her books! Can you believe that shit?”

“She was always talking to me about gender and identity and all this other new-age crystal-speak. I never took it seriously.”

“What’s her deal, anyway?” Brian sounded really concerned. Styx was touched. Bristlecone had the biggest heart.

“She comes from a line of really strong women, like, kick-ass strong. But she never thought it was a good thing. She was always trying to explain it away. She thinks if she’s too strong she must be moving on down the line toward the boys.”

“Sounds like Mari Moto gets her genes from her grandmother!”

Styx hung up the phone and started scrolling through the comments and reviews on his mom’s new book. The Duke and the Dandy was getting soundly trashed, but most of the comments centered around the coming out of the book’s author. Still, Styx had to wince at comments on the stilted dialogue and the paper-thin characters and the unbelievability of the plot. Mom must be suffering. She sounded good when he called her on the phone, though.

“Darling!”

“Mom? Are you okay? Brian told me something about a boycott.”

“Oh, I’m not paying attention to that. I feel quite free and happy to be finally telling the truth. I think it was weighing on me, the implied deception. I thought I was engaging in the fluidity of identity, but some people take such matters very seriously!”

“What matters? What do you mean?”

“The whole gender thing. As if men and women can never know each other at all. Apparently writing a first person narration from the point of view of a person with whom you do not share a penis is even worse than pretending to have a Native American name, not that any Native tribe actually uses the name Blue Feather.”

Uh oh. She did sound upset. “I liked your name,” he said. “It sounded just like you.”

“So did I, darling. But from this point on, I will write under my own name, or not at all.”

“Are you still going to write gay romances?”

“It seems unlikely. No one likes Regencies anymore. Does anyone even remember Victoria Holt? Oh, the Mistress of Mellyn! I can’t tell you how much that book meant to me. I suppose I’m just a relic of a lost time.”

“I’m sorry, Mom.”

“Oh, darling, you are such a wonderful son. I am so very very lucky.”


Styx considered carefully his mother’s experience, but he came to the conclusion that her situation was not a mirror image of his own. Very few people knew he was actually Yuki Suzuki. Brian knew, of course, and several key players at the publishing company, but Styx thought the actual number of people who could blow his cover was still in single digits. He wanted to keep it that way. Especially with the newly controversial issue of Toge-kuro owning Mari Moto for one day of the year. It was a bad time to admit to being a man. And being gay would not save him from the consequences of pretending to be a fourteen year old Japanese American girl, or handing over that girl to a sexually aggressive black dragon.

Brian was on the couch, a b-ball game on the flat screen and a plateful of Bypass Balls on his lap. Styx was waiting for him to finish his snacks so he could take his usual place on Bristlecone’s lap and discuss the latest conundrum. When Brian popped the last sausage ball into his mouth, Styx whipped the plate out of his hand and brought back a Wet One so he could wipe the grease off his fingers. Then he crawled into Brian’s lap with a sigh. Brian hit the mute button and put his beer down, held his icy damp fingers against Styx’s face. “Hey, baby. How goes the dragon wars?”

“It’s been hell,” Styx admitted. “Toge-kuro is a much more sexual being than I anticipated. I’m having to constantly tone him down. It’s like, every separate part of him can become erect at the drop of a hat.”

“Mari Moto is growing up.” Brian reached for the beer again. From his position on Brian’s lap, Styx could lay his cheek against a soft cotton tee shirt and a flat stomach. He closed his eyes, sank into the feeling. Brian put his beer back down and cupped Styx’s face against him. “I love you.”

Styx opened his eyes in surprise, a little jolt of excitement zinging down his stomach. “You do?”

“Sure. Of course I do.”

“It’s just you’ve never said it before.”

“Styx, I’m a man of action, not a man of words. Using that criteria, I’ve said it a hundred times. You would have heard it if you were paying attention.”

Styx felt his heart turn over in his chest. For a moment, it felt like the mid-day sun had filled the Portland sky with sunshine. “Yeah, you have. Thanks, Bristlecone. I love you, too.”

“I saw Riko today. She rode by the fire station on her bike to torture her dad. She was in her Mari Moto gear.”

“Yeah? What was she wearing?”

“The plaid skirt deal, hacked off short. And her hair was blue. Like the color of an Easter Egg. But get this, she had her bike chain over her shoulder and across her chest like it was a bandolier, and the lock was attached to one of the belt loops on the skirt. The weight of the lock pulled the waistband of the skirt down so her belly button was showing. Which was the whole point of the visit. Once her dad saw her belly button was showing, he turned purple and started shouting and she just laughed and rode off on her bike to whatever hellish teenaged torture chamber she’d come from.”

“I love that girl,” Styx admitted. His mind was rapidly processing the bike chain as a bandolier and the lock at the waistband. That would work so much better than the chain made of dragon scales he had been drawing around Mari Moto’s waist. Of course with the weight of a chain he needed to throw it over her shoulder. He glanced over at the TV. “Were you going to watch the game?”

“No,” Bristlecone said. “I turned the game off so we could make out. Kissing me is as close as you’re going to get to actually eating a sausage ball, so I thought you might like a taste.”

Just for a moment, Styx felt the pull of his drawing board, and when he looked up into Brian’s warm and smiling brown eyes, he knew Brain could see it, too. Sausage balls or Toge-kuro’s chain? The dragon could wait. “Let’s make out.”


Chapter Roku


Comic-Con was inching closer, and Styx was working flat out, getting piles of books signed and ready, finishing the drawings for Toge-kuro’s appearances as both motorcycle and dragon, writing new short adventures to be used for marketing. The bike chain as bandolier, with a lock at the waistband idea worked like a charm. He did notice as he was drawing the bandolier chain that Mari Moto was filling out a bit. Was he going to have to learn how to draw a bra? He didn’t like to think she was growing up, but once again, he appeared to have no control over events.

The posters arrived from the printers, and he taped them up on the wall to study the effect. On one, Mari Moto was riding Toge-kuro in his motorcycle form, only the wicked black tail and scarlet spikes curling between her legs suggesting the dragon within. In the other poster, Toge-kuro was standing erect, his wings spread, smoke coming from his nostrils, red eyes gleaming, and he appeared to be moments away from ravishing Mari Moto, who looked tough with BITE ME on her thigh, but not tough enough to deal with this bad boy.

Oh, God. What was he going to do? It was too late to back off now, and he had grown fond of Toge-kuro. Inhabiting the mind and body of this dragon was like looking into the cone of a volcano, so vivid and real and brutal Styx could not imagine giving him up. He understood exactly how Mari Moto felt, the terror and delight when she stared up into his red eyes, waited for him to bend down low so she could climb on his back and go for a ride.

The doorbell rang, followed by a fist pounding on the wood. Styx knew the concierge downstairs had been busy hauling boxes of books up to his apartment, so he didn’t even look out the spyhole before he pulled open the door. Riko Ishikawa was standing there, dressed in Mari Moto’s clothes, hair still Easter Egg blue, with the bike chain bandolier and the lock at her waistband and a sneer on her pretty face. She handed him a rolled up paper and pushed into the apartment.

She walked to the wall, studied the posters. Then she turned around, her arms crossed over her chest. He unrolled the paper she had handed him. It was printed off the computer, and showed Mari Moto with her new bike chain bandolier and lock. They stared at each other for a long moment, then she walked over and flopped down on the couch. He couldn’t help but notice the inside of her thigh did not say BITE ME, but was drawn with an elaborate Japanese character. “What’s it say?” He gestured toward her thigh.

“Duh. It says ‘bite me.’ Brian’s your roommate, right?”

“Yes. No. We’re lovers, not just roommates.”

Riko’s eyes bugged out a bit, but she managed to maintain her cool. “Huh. Brian’s gay? I wouldn’t have guessed that.”

“I don’t believe I’m forcing him into a sexual relationship, so, yes, I would say he’s gay.”

She got her tough girl face back on. “Okay, this is how it’s going to go. Brian told you about the lock and the chain, didn’t he? He always checks me out when I come by the station. It took me a bit to figure out why.”

“Yes, he told me.”

“So I want a motorcycle like Toge-kuro. You give me a bike and let me read the stories before they come out, and I won’t tell anyone you’re really Yuki Suzuki.”

“I’ll agree to letting you read the stories if you promise not to post anything about them online. Aren’t you too young to ride a motorcycle?”

She sneered at him. God, she looked so much like his heroine Styx felt the hair on the back of his neck rise into the air. He was trying not to look at the young chest in front of him, a pair of breasts that appeared to be developing just like Mari Moto’s, and the way she sat, with her knees spread, her feet in clunky black motorcycle boots that she propped on the edge of the coffee table. “How old are you now?”

“Sixteen. Well, sixteen in two weeks.”

“Are you going to Comic-Con?”

“If I can get the money together and my mom says okay.”

“How would you like to ride Toge-kuro right through the middle of Comic-Con? Cause a little dragon-riot?”


Chapter Nana


“It’s a risk, a big risk,” Bristlecone said. “Teenagers think differently than normal people. I don’t know if you can count on her to not set the twitterverse on fire and spoil the surprise.”

Styx was in his favorite position, his head centered on Bristle’s big chest, a steady heart beating under his cheek. “I was thinking about Mom,” he said. “Her identity experiments.”

“Yeah?”

“I’m feeling my way toward something. Maybe I’ll lose control over the entire deal, but it seems like people have a stake in this character and what happens to her. More than I realized. Maybe I should…share. And not just the story, but myself as well.”

Brian thought about this. “That sort of complicatedness would keep the publisher’s lawyers busy, but people would love it. Real people, I mean. Sort of like crowdsourcing. I mean, Gene Roddenberry would love the current state of the Trekkie Universe. Do you want to let Riko become Mari Moto?”

“Oh, yeah,” Styx said. “I think that ship has sailed. Because it was such a Mari Moto move, to try and blackmail me into it. If she had asked nicely I would have booted her butt out the door.”

“She’s not going to stay fourteen, though.”

“Neither is Mari Moto. I’ll just have to roll with it.”

“I had lunch with Batwing Blue Feather today. She seems to be holding up, despite the boycott.”

“You had lunch with my mom?” Styx lifted his head and looked at Brian. “How come?”

“Just getting to know my future mother in law.”

Styx took a moment to enjoy the electrical shock that zipped down his belly. “Yeah?”

“Definitely.”


Brian had been giving Riko motorcycle lessons, and by the time Comic-Con rolled around, she could slide the bike around with one booted foot planted on the ground and jerk the front wheel six inches off the ground. A chop shop had done the necessary painting and modifications to the frame of a smallish off-road bike with big tires that Riko could manage.

Styx had redrawn several Mari Moto stories to include the new ideogram on her thigh. It wasn’t Riko’s ideogram, though. This one said Toge-kuro. The publisher had paid for the tee shirts that said, I AM YUKI SUZUKI, with a line drawing of Mari Moto holding the Elemental Sword and Toge-kuro in the background, and the dragon’s ideogram was stamped in shiny red. Styx had a hundred tee shirts to give away, plus the tightly fitted bunch he’d made up for the firefighters. Ishi had just looked confused when Styx had explained that he had drawn Mari Moto from Riko’s face, but his wife, Riko’s mom, looked very sharp and Styx had the feeling she would be negotiating any further contracts for Mari Moto’s personal appearances. Ishi had agreed to let his fire fighters wear the special tee shirts during Comic-Con.

Bristlecone and Styx arrived at the venue early and set up a table with books and posters and tee shirts and temporary tattoos. They were both wearing tee shirts with I AM YUKI SUZUKI across the front. The kids came in waves, and not just kids, adults, too, chattering, phones to their ears, everyone carrying bags of bright colors, everyone having fun under the yellow lights of the hall. The new tee shirts were gone in an hour. Styx saw the shirts in the crowd, popped over regular clothes, and more girls with Easter Egg blue hair and chopped off plaid skirts than he could count. The posters of Toge-kuro were free standing, hanging from the ceiling, so a person coming around the corner would be suddenly in the wide-winged embrace of the bad boy of the motorcycle/dragon world.

They heard the screams first, then the sound of a motorcycle’s engine at high rev, police whistles, then Mari Moto came screaming through the crowds, spinning on the tight corners, smoke and the smell of burning rubber coming from Toge-kuro. People were jumping out of the way, pointing and standing on their toes to get a better look, cell phones held above their heads. Mari Moto suddenly jumped the stairs to the stage on the bike, scattered the members of a panel discussion. She stayed on her bike, straddling the black seat, scarlet spikes caressing her butt, booted feet planted on the floor, then she grabbed a microphone and started speaking in Japanese. The crowd was screaming, girls with pastel heads pushing forward, laughing and yelling and pointing, and the tiny lights of cell phone cameras came from every direction.

Styx and Brian were at the back of the room. Bristlecone tugged him over with an arm around his shoulder. “I didn’t know you spoke Japanese.”

“I don’t.”

“So what’s she saying?”

Styx was shaking his head. He could feel the heat of a dragon’s breath against the back of his neck. “I have no idea. We’ll find out tomorrow.”

Not Talking About Bad Reviews

I’m not going to talk about bad reviews. Every writer has had this experience, I expect. It’s nothing unique, to read the sort of cruel, mean-spirited review designed to destroy the little pleasure a writer has in her writing—that is, sharing it with a reader. Bullies are everywhere. It’s not like they’re all hanging around the teeter-totter on the school playground. I mean, they must grow up, right?

I’m not going to talk about bullies, either, or try to describe what it feels like to have a stranger attack you—sort of like that Gary Larson Far Side Cartoon, a deer hiding behind a tree, and a hunter’s raising his rifle, and the deer’s thinking, “What’s going on? Do I know this guy? Think!” I need to find a copy of that cartoon and tape it to the wall next to my computer.

It is weird, like you’re walking in the grocery story, and you pass a stranger loading spaghetti sauce into his basket, and all of the sudden he turns around and punches you in the stomach. That’s what it feels like. Naturally you are going to avoid the spaghetti aisle after that! I was starting to feel like I wanted to avoid Goodreads, so I wouldn’t accidently read something so ugly and mean it made me want to quit writing all together, and not even hang around talking about books. Because I didn’t want to put myself into the path of a bully who might mistake me for an easy target. But I’m not going to talk about that, either.

The reason why I’m not going to talk about any of this is I was just downstairs in my apartment building, and I had my Nissan Cube stuffed to the gills with boxes of books. I was unloading them from the car to take into my new apartment. And a neighbor walked by, and saw me, and started picking up boxes of books and helping me put them into the elevator. And then another neighbor came by and pitched in, without a word. Just a smile. And by the time I got the books unloaded into my new place, and opened a few boxes and played with my lovely books, I remembered that most people are the ‘pitch in and help without a word’ sort of people, and there are a lot more of them out in the beautiful world.

So that means I can start on my new story, without feeling more than the usual amount of dread in my stomach that I’m about to be punched out in the spaghetti aisle. I just drove fourteen hours in the last two days to fetch my lovely books, and fourteen hours is good for at least a novella: something new and fun and unusual for me, Mari Moto’s Magical Dragon. And when it’s done, I’ll put it up on my Goodreads blog in case any of my neighbors might like to read a good story.