A Second Harvest (26 page)

Fear skittered down Christie’s spine.
Shit.

“What do you want?” His voice was steady.

“You’re the gay boy,” said the one with the knife. “Moving here, waving your fairy ass around, corrupting people.”

“Goddamn fags,” said the redhead.

The one with the bat just raised it menacingly. “We hate fags. You all deserve to burn.”

“Get out of my house,” Christie said coolly. “Or maybe you like the idea of going to jail for the rest of your pathetic hick lives?” He knew he was in trouble. Bad trouble. But he couldn’t seem to keep his mouth shut.

“The only person going anywhere is
you
,” said the one with the knife. “You’re going to move back to wherever faggy place you came from, like
tomorrow
. David Fisher doesn’t want you here. Nobody wants your gay ass here. Get the fuck out of town while you can still move, or you’ll be sorry.”

“
If
you can still move after we’re done with you,” said the one with the baseball bat.

This was definitely about David, then. Were they friends of Joe’s? Maybe they were just trying to scare him. Please, God, let them just be trying to scare him.
Say, “Fine.” Say, “Sure, I’ll leave.” Then call the police once they’re gone. Placate them, Christie. Come on.

But Christie suddenly wasn’t afraid; he was pissed. Deep, dark, bile-sour anger boiled up inside him. He’d been through too much tonight, and these assholes were in his
house
.

“I will fucking see whoever I want to see,” he spat out. “So fuck. You.”

“Bad answer,” said the guy with the knife, his voice shaky with rage.

“Let’s see how you feel after this!” said Orange Sweatshirt.

The first blow was from the bat. Christie saw it coming and tried to dodge to the left around the couch, but it came in fast and hard, and it struck his elbow. The pain was immediate and excruciating. He was sure it was broken or at least cracked.

He fell onto the couch, clutching his elbow. Despite the pain he somehow scrambled over the back cushions. He had to reach the kitchen door, get out. He was a strong runner. If he could only get out into the open air, get a little space between them.

He made it a few steps into the kitchen before someone tackled him, wrapping around his hips and sending him off his feet. He landed on the linoleum, hitting his hurt elbow again. He screamed. Broken—something in his arm was definitely broken. He kicked his legs furiously and tried to crawl forward toward the door.

“Get off me! I’ll kill you! Get off!”

Hands dragged him backward, the linoleum skittered under the outstretched fingers of his good hand. A fist punched his back, hard. Someone kicked his leg. He felt the blows, but they were nothing compared to the white-hot fire in his elbow.

“You will leave town, you little fag! We’ll fucking
make
you! Say it! Say you’ll leave!”

He was pushed over onto his back. All the hands on him felt filthy, dirty, obscene. The guy who had the knife punched him in the face. It hurt but the angle was awkward. Christie lashed out with his good hand, hitting anything he could find. He was still screaming, apparently. A hand covered his mouth and he bit it, hard.

“I will fucking kill you!” someone screamed. It sounded a lot like his own voice.

He was punched in the face. Again. Again. Pain seared in his ribs as a boot landed. It became agonizing just drawing breath.

I will fucking kill you. I will
…. He continued to fight as hard as he could. As hard as he could, the ball-less bastards, fucking limp dicked rednecks, even while part of his brain went offline from shock and pain, shutting itself away from the scene like it was closing the door on a pantomime.

He could die tonight, end up one of those gay-bashing martyrs, a face on a poster.

God, that would kill David.

Not from these three losers. They aren’t smart enough to end me.

The room was silent. He opened his eyes. Darkness danced in dots on the edge of his vision like a shadow-people version of
The Nutcracker
. He was alone in the house. And he was alive.

He tried to speak and bubbles came out. He didn’t have to wipe them to know they’d be bloody. He could barely draw breath.

They meant to scare me, not kill me. You went a bit too far, you fucking idiots
.

He was badly hurt. Badly. Hurt. Broken arm. Broken ribs, likely. Maybe a punctured lung. He could barely expand his chest around a stabbing pain, and his nose was probably broken too, swollen shut and throbbing. Air was now the most precious commodity on earth.

Phone. Call 911. Do it. Move, goddamn it.

He managed, hissing in agony, to crawl into the living room. Phone. Where was his phone? Oh yeah, it had hit the wall.

He found the phone. It took a long time. He might have passed out as he crawled around looking for it, more than once.

The phone was dead. His bloody, crooked fingers hit the On button again and again, but the screen remained cracked and dark. He had never turned on the land line, so his cell phone was all he had.

God, please help me, I don’t want to die
, he thought.

David
, he thought.

Then he thought no more.

Chapter 22

DAVID JOGGED
out to the barn. It was dark and frigid—hell, it had to be past midnight by now.
Happy New Year’s Eve
. He turned on the lights and made his way to his workshop. He shut the door but didn’t lock it. If Amy or Joe needed him….

He couldn’t lock the door against them. A father never stopped wanting to be there for his kids, even when they just pissed him off more than he’d ever been pissed off in his entire life.

But now he just felt defeated. He sat down on the stool at his workbench and slumped, face in his hands. What the hell was he going to do?

But he already knew—it was a horrible, vile, crawling sensation in his gut, like Satan emerging from the pit. His eyes stung. He blinked them rapidly.

Maybe he should break it off with Christie. Life just wasn’t going to let him be. If he continued with this course, every single thing in his life would be set against him. As angry as Joe made him, he had a point. No one could take the farm from him, of course, but if he lived openly with Christie here, his neighbors would probably be shocked and many of them would avoid him. It was a conservative area. All the support he had from the Mennonite community and his church would be gone. Amy and Joe and his mother would probably also be estranged. He might not have trouble with the dairy company who took his milk or the co-op where he sold his crops, but he wasn’t positive about that. And even if he could take all of that hostility himself, was it fair to expect Christie—lively, confident Christie—to be subjected to that too? On the other hand, if he sold the farm, what then? He’d be a nobody with no career, no friends, no family. Would Christie want him then?

It was all too much to bear,
too much
. He felt as hollow and blasted out as a railroad tunnel. He needed to write a letter. He needed to. He searched around the workshop and found a pen but no paper.

He had to write a letter to… to whom? To Christie saying good-bye? To Joe laying down the law? To God asking “why me?” An editorial to the local paper ranting about injustice? David wasn’t even sure what he was going to put down in writing, only that he needed to. Why couldn’t he find a goddamn piece of paper?

He searched the workroom, then out in the feeding aisle and milking stalls area. Why didn’t he keep a notebook out here? What the hell was wrong with him? Even the back of a damn blank receipt would do.

He went back into the workshop, looked in the top drawer of the worktable, then the second one, and then he tugged on the bottom one, just in case it had mysteriously come unstuck at some point. But it didn’t budge. Another problem he’d never gotten around to dealing with.

“Oh for heaven’s sake!” he shouted out loud.

Angrily he picked up an ax by the woodpile and brought it down with all his might on the handle of the bottom drawer. The steel handle flew off with a pop and there was a crack from inside. The drawer came open a little. David tossed the ax away and pulled it all the way out. A thick magazine was on the top and it was bent and twisted. It had been jammed in the rollers, and that’s why the drawer was stuck. David pulled it free.

He was about to toss it on the worktable when he really looked at it.

On the torn cover was a naked man. David paused, blinking at the magazine. He flipped some pages. It was a male porn magazine, but he’d never seen it before in his life. He looked at it more closely. It was old, older than his own stash. Based on the haircuts and typeset, it looked like it was maybe from the sixties. Inside were lots of black-and-white or garishly colored muscle men with erections and a few feature photo spreads of men with men.

Realization struck and he dropped the magazine. It hit the floor.

Oh God. Oh good Lord!
That drawer had been stuck since… since….

It was his father’s magazine. He knew it without a shred of doubt. His father was homosexual too, or at least fantasized about men now and then. Had he ever acted on it? Maybe, maybe not. But he worked so hard on the farm and rarely left, so he couldn’t have had very much of a life outside his marriage. And then he dropped dead in the fields without warning. He didn’t have the opportunity to get rid of the magazine. It was jammed in that drawer all these years.

Daydreaming never did one chore for you, or got you anything but misery.

His father.
No wonder he as such a miserable man, so stoic and unhappy. He dropped dead at fifty-eight, his heart just giving out. So much work. So much misery.

For the first time that long, awful night, David felt his eyes prickle with heat. He hadn’t cried over the bliss he felt with Christie nor the rage he felt with Joe. But the thought of his father’s unhappiness unmanned him. If only his father had talked to him. If only they’d been able to talk to each other.

He breathed long and deep, fighting the pressure in his chest. When it eased and his mind cleared a little, he found he was no longer confused or angry. He knew what the right thing was to do. And he felt at peace about it. Yes. Yes.

Thank you, God.

He tossed the magazine in the trash and left the barn.

DAVID WALKED
down the lane to Christie’s house. It had started to snow and the air was frigid, but he didn’t care. All the way there, he kept rehearsing what he wanted to say in his head.

I don’t care what anyone says, I want us to be together.

Say you want that too.

I’ll sell the farm. We can go wherever you like.

Say you’ll still want me if I do.

I love you, Christie. I love you so much it feels like every cell in my body is infected with it. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.

Say you love me too.

The lights were still on in Christie’s house, so he was awake. David jogged the last bit, but when he got to the front door, he found it slightly ajar. That was strange. Nobody kept a door open any longer than absolutely necessary in temperatures like these. The first thought that crossed his mind was Christie was leaving. He was packing up his car or something. Anxiety tripped in his chest.

Then David pushed the door open and saw him.

Christie was lying unconscious on the floor, holding his phone. He was only recognizable because of his blond mop of hair, his sweatpants, and long, thin feet. His face was swollen beyond recognition and his body was covered with blood and bruises. One elbow was purple and puffy.

“Christie!” David dropped to his knees by the body. He went to pull Christie’s head into his lap before he realized he shouldn’t move him. He could have spinal injuries. Christie was breathing, the passage of air through his mouth ragging and
wheezing
with a slight whistle. Oh Lord. His lungs. Something was wrong with his lungs.

“Baby, can you hear me?”

Christie didn’t move. David took the phone from his hand, choking back his horror, but the phone was dead. Frustrated, he tossed it away and was relieved to find his own phone in his coat pocket.
Thank God.

David had the local ambulance service on speed dial from when Susan was ill. He called it now, gave the address, and relayed the situation in a panicked voice to the dispatcher. She assured them they would be there as soon as possible. He hung up and dialed Amy. Another blessing—she picked up.

“Dad?” She sounded sleepy.

“Amy, I’m at Christie’s. He’s been badly hurt! Bring our medical kit over and hurry!”

“What—?”

“
Hurry
!”

He dropped the phone and leaned over the love of his life, trying to see if there was anything he could do. “I’m here, Christie. I called for an ambulance, so hold on. Can you hear me? I love you so much. Please don’t leave me.”

Christie didn’t open his eyes. One looked swollen shut, but the other pale eyelid remained closed all on its own. His breathing was so labored the sound of it rattled like death. “Oh God, what can I do?”

Christie’s hands were both bloodied. It looked like he fought so hard! One appeared to have some broken fingers. David took the less-damaged hand gently in his own. “Christie, I’m here.” David kissed his bloodied knuckles. “I love you so much. Please hang in there. Please don’t leave me.”

There was the sound of tires braking fast outside, but when the door burst open, it was Amy and Joe, still in their pajamas.

“Oh no!” Amy gasped in horror.

“Dad, what happened?” demanded Joe.

David was still kneeling at Christie’s side, Christie’s hand in his. He shot daggers at his son. “You don’t know? Did you do this?”

“What, me? Of course not!” Joe looked shocked.

“Then who did?”

Amy knelt on the other side of Christie and opened their red first-aid kit. “Dad! We need to focus on Christie right now.”