Talker's Graduation (8 page)

and figure out what I want to do—and it hasn"t happened in school,

and the only clue I even have is that as long as I"m with you, I"ll be

happy doing it, okay?”

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47

Brian nodded and wrapped his arm around Talker"s shoulders.

“You know, if we get wetsuits, we can go surfing all year round,” he

said.

“Yeah? Did you look into that?” He looked at Brian carefully,

and was horrified to see that his eyes were bright, and the

brightness was spilling over.

“Yeah,” Brian said gruffly. “I just kept thinking about you, and

how still the ocean would make you feel, and the privacy and the

sand—but I didn"t want you to give up anything, you know?”

Talker"s own eyes were spilling over, and unlike Brian, he

didn"t try to trammel all that up in his chest. “God, Brian. I"ve got

you—how can you even say that"s a sacrifice?”

Brian didn"t say anything else, he just kept holding Tate and

dropping little kisses on the top of his head and rubbing his cheek

in the long, straight fall of Tate"s hair.

“So?” Talker asked after a minute.

“I"ll call Mark after breakfast,” Brian told him, and Talker

nodded, but neither of them moved for quite a while.

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Living in the Present

THEY had moved during the winter, right after New Year"s, and

Talker had been surprised at how many people were there to help

them move.

Doc Sutherland was there, with two knitted throws as a

moving/Christmas gift—one from him, and one from his wife, whom

they had never met, but apparently who had heard so much about

them that she felt like they were family too. Aunt Lyndie, of course,

and Craig, and Jed and his family from Talker"s work, and Juan

from Brian"s job at the Olive Garden, and Brian"s ex-girlfriend

Virginia, and her husband Alex. It hadn"t taken them long—the iron-

framed bed was the biggest thing, and it went into Jed"s pick-up

truck, along with the couch and their one stuffed chair. Everything

else had gone into various cars, and they had caravanned down to

the cottage, following directions from Google maps.

Mark had given Brian the keys to the small house and the

business on the day Brian had signed the papers, about a week

before Christmas. His ex-lover, the man responsible for all of this,

had passed away before then. Brian had offered (with Tate"s

agreement, of course) to have Mark over for Christmas Eve, along

with pretty much everyone who helped them move, but Mark had

declined. Talker never knew exactly what was said during the

conversation, but he did catch Brian"s muttered, “If he wants to be

alone that"s his problem. A man who can"t just have friends doesn"t

deserve
boyfriends.” Talker was very proud of how he didn"t push

that issue. The man had made his choice, and for Brian, it

obviously never was a choice, and Talker was content with that.

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49

They hadn"t even seen the studio/gallery yet—it was on the

main street of the town and it would take Brian about a month to get

it ready to open—but the house was another story.

“Oh Jesus, Brian,” Tate had said from the passenger seat of

their little car. “It"s twice as big as our apartment—and it"s so

pretty!”

It was
very
pretty. It had weatherproof paneling in gray and a

teal-colored wooden trim, and it sat on a small patch of lawn that

had been once carefully planted on the sandy ground. The two

acres the place sat on was mostly that same hard packed sand, but

there were lots of succulents, the kind with the purple and gold

blooms, and some earthy parts that held poppies in the spring.

Later, Tate would start carting in earth whenever he could find it

cheap and trying to landscape in his spare time, because his first

view of the cottage, small and perfect in its ragged little lawn with

the ocean at its back, had been almost like a Thomas Kincaid

painting come to life. Once he and Brian got moved in, he"d been

driven, somehow, to keep that gold light on it, the kind that came

when the sun slipped horizontally between the clouds and

saturated their little home with a shining, joyous blaze.

But that night, it was perfect just as it was. After they"d moved

all their stuff in, someone had gone to town to find pizza to feed

everybody and they"d had a quiet, celebratory dinner. They ate it

bundled up in sweat shirts and blankets as they stood out on the

back stoop that walked straight onto the sand and watched the

ocean at night. That night, Lyndie and Craig had sacked out on the

couch under a sleeping bag and everyone else had driven the hour

and a half back to Sacramento in the late night. Brian and Talker

had managed to assemble their own bed, and they fell into it, tired,

bemused, and happy.

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50

“Look at that,” Brian had whispered, and sure enough, they

could see the stars and the moon on the water through their back

window. Later they would put the insulation up, so they only had to

see it when they wanted and they didn"t wake up shivering, and

they would add area rugs and remember to wear moccasins

because the gorgeous, hardwood space of the cottage was not

always warm. Tonight, though, it was like looking at the whole wide

world spread out below their toes, while they cuddled in bed with as

many blankets as they could find.

“God, it"s like we can reach out and touch something,” Tate

had whispered back reverently, and he caught Brian"s quick grin in

the dark.

“Wait until tomorrow—I"ll reach out and touch something!”

Tate rolled his eyes. “You know—you"re supposed to be an

artist or something, but I swear, you don"t have a scrap of poetry in

your soul.”

Brian"s mouth had been hot and demanding on his, and Tate

hadn"t said another coherent thing after that. The message was

clear as they huddled under the thousand and one blankets on their

newly stained sheets: with them, sex was all the poetry Brian"s soul

ever craved.

THEY both put on trunks and hoodies because their wetsuits were

outside, hanging over the fence by the outside shower, and it was a

little too chilly to be wandering around in their underwear. Brian put

on coffee for when they were done, and then turned to go out front

to the pens with the animals when the phone rang. He grimaced

and Tate said, “I got it, baby. I’ll meet you in the water.”

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51

He had a feeling he knew who it was and had to brace himself

when he saw the caller ID.

“Tate?” JoEllen had the voice of a large middle-aged black

woman, which was good, because that’s what she was, big bosom,

red lipstick, and short-cropped girl-fro and all. Her voice made Tate

feel warm and cared for, which was probably a job perk, because

she was the local social worker in charge of foster children in the

area.

“Hi, JoEllen. How are you doing this morning?”

“Fine, baby—how’s Brian? Is he a wreck yet?”

“Naw—you know Brian. He puts that stuff out and acts like he

didn’t throw his heart and soul into it, yanno? He’s a rock.” Until

after the show. This was his fourth show, his third in Petaluma, and

each time was the same—Brian was all serenity and Zen until

everyone went home, and then the shakes took him over and he

needed Talker with an intensity that would have frightened anyone

else on the planet.

“Well, good. I came yesterday and set up the kids’ work, did

he tell you that?”

“Yeah—he said it looked real good.” Brian had actually praised

Tate until he’d told him to shut up and fuck off, because he was

never good at taking a compliment, but Brian had kissed him

senseless.

“Well, baby, that’s good. You know why I’m calling, right?”

Tate sighed. He was a big boy—he told himself that

repeatedly, but it didn’t stop his voice from getting gruff. “Shelley’s

parents got custody again, didn’t they?”

“Yeah. And the last place they’re going to take her is to an art

gallery. I’m sorry, sweetheart. She won’t be there tonight. I thought

you’d want to get that out of your system before the show.”

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52

Tate nodded and swallowed hard, feeling achy all sorts of

places and not just his throat.

“Yeah, okay. Thank you.”

“Hey, Tate—we talked about this, right? We talked about how

people get attached, but they’ve got to be ready….”

“I can take it, Jo, okay? I’ll see you tonight.”

“Yeah, sweetheart. I’ll see you tonight, and the other kids will

be with me.”

“I can’t wait.”

He hung up the phone and walked toward the back, where his

wet suit and surfboard waited, and tried to pretend his eyes weren’t

stinging with disappointment.

TATE found a job at a local bar almost immediately after they

moved. It wasn"t a gay bar, but it wasn"t a redneck bar either, and it

was small enough that pretty soon they had him serving drinks and

then pouring drinks and „bar backing" was no longer his profession.

As he"d told Brian, it was really all sort of the same thing, but it just

sounded
cooler to say „bartender". He liked studying drinks and

making up combinations; he wasn"t big on
drinking,
per se, but

then, he"d noticed most of the bartenders didn"t like to drink for

more than just taste. It was like they went to a school of object

lessons, and Tate, who had fallen asleep as a child on a whiskey-

soaked blanket and woken up a freakshow of scars, didn"t have to

be told twice.

So Tate had a job, but he was used to working
and
going to

school, and even though he helped Brian set up the gallery at first,

his normal butterfly mind was making him
bored.

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53

He"d been walking to the gallery after work one night when he

saw a flier stapled to a telephone pole. It was asking for volunteers

at a craft fair for foster kids.

He ran the flier into Brian, babbling incoherently, and when

Brian finally got him calmed down, he grabbed his worry-stone,

pulled all of his brain fish into one pond, and said, “Brian, it"s like I

looked at this and heard chimes.”

Brian looked at it and smiled gently. “Yeah. You"ll be good at

this. What do we have to do?”

Talker smiled shyly. “Well, I guess I just show up—I know

where the place is. I"m all on record and printed because I grew up

in the system. I guess, like it says, I just show up and help on

Thursdays. You think?”

“Absolutely. I think you"ll be great.”

JoEllen had met him at the door when he walked in. He"d been

diffident and uncertain about whether or not a state agency would

let someone who looked like him actually work with foster kids, but

JoEllen had spent her entire life looking beyond the shells that kids

presented to the world. She saw past Tate"s tattoos to the scars

they hid in half a heartbeat.

“What can I do for you, baby?” she asked kindly, and for a

moment he almost forgot that he was twenty-two and grown.

“I, uhm… well, I saw this… you were looking for volunteers….”

Suddenly he started babbling. “I can help. And my boyfriend gave

me a big block of clay so they can sculpt, and some out-of-stock

pencils and pastels so they can write. Supplies. He donated

supplies. And I"d like to help. Can I come in and help?”

JoEllen"s warm brown eyes lit up at the word “supplies” and he

was abruptly enfolded in a warm, fleshy, matronly hug that oddly

enough reminded him of Brian"s bird-like Aunt Lyndie for all of that.

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54

“We would
love
the help. That"s amazing. Come on in and meet the

gang. There"s not a lot of us, but we"re growing.”

Tate was introduced to five children, three boys and two girls,

and all he had to do to earn his stripes was sit down at the small

table meant for small people and color or sculpt or cut and paste or