He set the weights down and shook his head. "Not with a bunch of high school kids."
"No, just me and you," I pleaded.
"Okay, okay," he agreed.
After a day of hiking, we pitched the tent and fixed a dinner of beans and cornbread. We settled down by the fire and talked about college and football; I absorbed every word he said. Mark stood and stretched, then pulled off his shirt. I watched. He unbuttoned his cutoff jeans and they fell to the ground. His white briefs seemed to glow in the firelight. I looked for the familiar bulge that mesmerized me, then he pulled down his underwear. My heart about stopped; his dick looked twice as big as mine, thick and long. While he neatly folded his clothes, I followed his lead, believing older, college men always slept in the nude. When I pulled off my underwear, the warm July breeze hit my cock; that and the sight of Mark produced an erection. I tried to cover it, but I wasn't fast enough.
"Damn, Derek. What's up with the woody? A woody in the woods," Mark teased, standing on the other side of the fire buck-naked with his own cock twitching.
Embarrassed, I didn't know what to do except punch him like I always did when he teased me. He caught my fist in his hand and wrestled me to the ground. Wrestling turned into more, and for four years we were lovers.
After college, Mark decided he needed to find a woman to settle down with. I was devastated, and in my depression, I told my father I was in love with a man. I didn't say who; I knew the family edict on privacy. He and my mother decided it was best that I go away for college. They sent me to Jerry Falwell's prison in Lynchburg. I stayed a month. My sister, Valerie, came to get me. She gave me $10,000 and told me to go wherever I wanted.
I lived in Richmond for a few months, then DC; finally some friends I knew moved to San Francisco, and I followed. The past six years had swept by so fast, I'd almost forgotten why I'd moved west.
"NO. EMMA, I was never much of a bar person. I always felt I was better than bar trash. Funny, how being treated like trash makes you want to rise above it all."
Emma's large blue eyes pried into me. "You haven't been back in years."
"A couple of times, but the family doesn't want me around. That's clear. My parents never invited me to stay with them. I stayed with Valerie or Aunt Ruby and Walterene." The thought of Aunt Walt swirled around my brain, her smiles and laughter, her encouragement and interest in my life. Tears threatened to spill from my eyes, but I sniffed them back. If only she had been my mother, instead of the bitch named Gladys.
"Do any of them know about your new job?" Emma asked.
"Internet development means nothing to them. If it doesn't have anything to do with bricks and mortar, it's a hobby." I knew Walterene and Ruby would be proud of the business I had started with friends. Walt. She's dead.
The phone rang again. I let it ring. Emma answered, then handed it to me and left the room.
"Have you heard?" My sister Valerie, another old maid in the Harris family, asked.
"About Walterene?"
She sighed. "Yes, I wanted to tell you, but Mother just said she had notified everyone."
"Thank God, at least I'm part of everyone in her eyes."
"Derek, she loves you, like I do-"
"Oh, right." Mother never showed love to anyone.
"Listen to me." Valerie's voice grabbed me. "Mother is old, doesn't understand anything that isn't part of her world. Come home. If not for me, for Aunt Ruby; she needs us. She needs us all."
"Val, I can't. I just can't face them. I'll call Ruby tomorrow."
"If you need money-"
"I'm doing fine, thanks. When is the funeral?"
"I don't think…" she hesitated, "on Saturday."
"I'll send flowers."
"Derek, your family is here. Mother and Father, Tim, Laura and the kids, and I-"
"Yeah, I'll be in touch. Thanks for calling." I hung up before Valerie could start her routine on families working out differences before it was too late. But, it was too late. Walterene was dead. Ruby was alone. Valerie, an old maid at forty-one. Me, the shunned faggot son in San Francisco. All misfits in the kingdom of the Harris clan.
Emma came back into the room from the kitchen, munching on a banana. "Should I help you pack?"
"Hell, no."
"Won't you regret this later? Things you should have said? Things you should have done?''
"Last time I talked to Aunt Walterene, I told her I loved her, and she said she loved me. That is all that needed to be said." I settled back into the chair and turned up the stereo to put an end to the conversation.
"What about…" she yelled over the music, then grabbed the remote from me and shut off the receiver. "What about your Aunt Ruby? Doesn't she need you?" The penetrating look she gave me made me glance away.
I stared out the window; the fog had rolled in thicker and I could barely see two blocks down the hill to the BART station. I could be on the BART, and on my way to the airport in thirty minutes. "No." I shook the thought loose with a jerk of my head. "They banished me. I won't subject myself to them again. No family is worth their torment. Besides, I have my family here: you, Lindsay, Jeff, Kayleen, Jason, Bill-my family of choice. I don't need the hassle of my birth family." I looked back out the window, watching a seagull pick its dinner out of the neighbor cat's dish. "Fuck them."
She smiled at me. "What time will you be leaving?"
Chapter Two
MY FLIGHT WAS scheduled to arrive in Charlotte at 3:05 Friday afternoon. I didn't really expect anyone to meet me at the airport. After a sleepless night, I had called Ruby, and then caught the next flight out of San Francisco. The flight seemed to take no time as I stared at the window reliving moments I had spent with Walterene, trying to convince myself that she was really gone. I felt numb, out of my body. The loss of her left me cold and vacant; my childhood home lost all warmth without her presence. The plane circled downtown to line up for its landing. Pressing my face against the cold plastic window, I strained to see the Charlotte skyline as a glimmer of sunlight blazed off the Bank of America tower. The town had expanded; which of those skyscrapers had Harris Construction done? It's bizarre to fly over something you know your family created, like they wield the power of God to change the landscape to suit their needs.
We arrived on time, and emerging from the corridor, I scanned the crowd to see if Ruby or Valerie had come to meet me. Ruby always had her hair dyed a deep red, her trademark. I think she was a natural brunette like the rest of us, but she wanted "Ruby Red" hair. Not a redhead in sight. Valerie, tall and thin like me, should have stood a little above the other women, but the crowd seemed squat and dull.
"Guess I'll rent a car," I muttered, squeezing through the happy reunions in the terminal.
My bags in the trunk of a white Camry, I drove away from the airport and onto Billy Graham Parkway. "Damn, things have built up around here," I muttered. Office parks lined the road where woods once stood. I rolled down the car window and the warm, heavy air stirred dust off the dashboard; deep breaths filled my lungs with the thick humid air of springtime. Traffic started and stopped until I turned onto South Boulevard; soon I pulled onto Sedgefield Road, lined with old elms and maples. Ruby and Walt's house sat on the corner. The emerald-green yard spread out cool and inviting.
"Derek." The door opened, and Ruby wrapped her arms around me in a bear hug. Her body felt spongier than I remembered, but her hair still held the ruby sheen she loved. She let go and pulled me into the den where the smell of years of fried chicken and Ruby's recently applied hand lotion mingled into the distinct scent of my aunts. "I'm so glad you came in. It's been too long. If only Walt could see you…" The dark circles around her eyes were new but expected.