Excerpt from A Revolutionary Act

I'm working on a new story called A Revolutionary Act- here is a bit--

They had known each other since they were very young, playing together when the families gathered. Gideon was three months older; David looked like his mother, a French beauty. When they were fourteen, David told Gideon he was gay, and he put his fists up like he was prepared to knock the front teeth out of anyone who gave him trouble. With the worldly wisdom of his additional three months of age, Gideon said he knew, and had in fact, always known. He had managed to convince himself that his own interest in other boys was sort of a reflection of David. He was being a friend, because if it wasn’t for David, the thought would have never crossed his mind. They shared first kisses, and then a little more, and by the time they were sixteen, and caught by their fathers asleep, naked, in the same bed at the Admiral’s beach house, Gideon had managed to convince himself that if not for David, he would never have walked down this road.

To their humiliation, being caught in bed together seemed to give the adults great amusement. The mothers discussed the latest scientific theories about how boys ended up gay, and their fathers had taken a bottle and headed out to the beach to sit in lawn chairs and drink together. The Admiral had given them both a talk in his study, something about loyalty and respect, about being men and standing up.

Gideon had been prepared for anything but hilarity and acceptance, and he and David went down to the pier with two beers and proceeded to get into a bitter fight. Gideon didn’t want to be an outsider. He didn’t want to have to stand up for himself against a hostile world every day for the rest of his life. He didn’t want to be looked at with amusement or disgust by people he didn’t even know. And, he was sure, it was all David’s fault.

David called him a coward, said to get used to it because they were both fags whether they liked it or not, and they got into a wrestling match that ended with them covered in sand and with mouths full of salty cold Atlantic Ocean. The Admiral had both of them by the scruffs of the necks and had thrown them into the surf.

David stood up proud, always, and lifted weights in preparation for a hostile world. Gideon tried to bargain with God, had offered an atonement if somehow this curse could be lifted, usually by the accidental amputation of a finger or toe. He mowed a great many lawns in preparation for his sacrifice, sure it would be worth it in the end.

Strangely enough, God hadn’t blown his eardrums out until he’d been twenty-six, and by that time, he no longer thought about being cursed. But when he woke up in the hospital after the IED, the first thing he wondered was if God was running years behind, and had finally taken him up on an offer he’d made at sixteen. Too late, he thought. It was done. He was what he was, and while he wasn’t as out and proud as David, he also never lied, never hid, and never tried to blame anyone else.