"No."
"Yeah."
"No way!"
"Way."
"No, Rick. I . . . I don't believe it."
Rick throws back his head and unleashes a big laugh.
"Sorry to disappoint you, little brother, but it's true. Every word of it."
"But . . . but . . ."
"What?"
"I just don't understand."
"What's not to understand?"
"Well, uh, I, uh . . ."
Rick pushes himself away from the battered old coffee table that sits in the middle of his garage apartment and climbs up from the floor where he and his younger brother have been sitting.
"You know what I could use right about now, Petey boy? A beer. How about you?"
When Pete who's looking pretty stunned makes no attempt to answer, Rick trots off to the nearby kitchenette to retrieve the beer. He soon returns, bearing two cans, and sets one on the table in front of his brother.
"Here you go. Looks like you could use it."
"But, Rick, it just doesn't make any sense. I mean even if it was true, why would he tell you?"
"Why not me? Oh, I get it. You mean, why didn't he tell you, cause as everybody knows you're the
good
son."
"No, because I'm the
gay
son. If it's true that when he was in college, Dad really did mess around with guys the way you say, then he had to know that would mean a hell of a lot more to me than you."
Rick shrugs. "You're looking at this all wrong, my man. Consider the circumstances. There we were, just a couple of guys stuck up there on that mountain with nothing much to do but drink and talk. OK, so technically it
was
a hunting trip, but it didn't take us long to figure out that neither one of us was much in a mood to spend our time out in the cold woods chasing after deer or rabbits or something. So instead we found this out-of-the-way, hole-in-the-wall bar out on the highway and spent most of our time drinking beer, playing pool and challenging the local yokels to round after round of darts."
"Dang, I wish I could've gone. So how'd the gay stuff come up?"
"Well, it didn't come up right away. As I recall, we had lots of stuff to get off our chests before that—stuff about work and school and the way Dad went off and got remarried without even running it by us. I really let him hear about
that,
I can tell you."
"OK, fine, but how did the gay stuff come up?"
"Well, as I recall, I was the one who brought it up, sorta. Since we were in the process of sharing and getting things off our chests, for me that just sort of naturally led to the subject of sex."
"Naturally," Pete quips, rolling his eyes.
"OK, OK, so no big surprise there," Rick chuckles. "But the fact is we really were having a good time, Pete. Hanging out. Shooting the breeze. Really opening up for the first time in a long time. For once, it was like all the walls were down, and I felt like I could just tell him anything I wanted to without worrying about him coming down on me like a ton of bricks."
"Sounds nice."
"It was. Damn nice. Anyway, like I said, we were just a couple of guys hanging out, and as what usually happens when guys hang out, talk of sex just naturally came up—a number of times. And for once, I just let it all come out: the sex parties, the booty calls, the wild women, and finally even . . . yep, the boys."
Pete giggles. "You did not tell him that."
"Afraid so, little brother. I told all."
Rick takes a big gulp of his beer.
"And did you . . . I mean, um, did you go into detail?"
"Sure—why not? OK, so not everything, but enough to let him know I liked boy ass just fine."
"And he wasn't shocked?"
Rick smiles. "Yeah, well, see, that was the thing. Not only was he not shocked, he really didn't seem all that surprised. What he did seem was turned on. Oh, he tried to hide it, made out like fucking guys was the craziest damn thing he ever heard of. But you know Dad: He's a lousy liar and a worse actor, and I smelled a really big rat. So I set up a little test. I started talking about boys—I mean,
really
talking about boys, like how there are times when nothing will scratch that particular itch but a perfect little round boy ass—and then I turned to Dad, gave him a look, and said: 'Ain't that right, Dad?'"
Rick lets loose with a big laugh and Pete bends forward.
"What did he say?"
"What could he say? I'd caught him dead to rights. He was like a kid caught with his hand down his pants. After that, pulling the whole story out of him was easy as pie."
Pete sighs. "Oh, jeez, our dad is gay."
"Hold on there, speedy. Nobody said anything about gay. I think the word you're looking for is 'bi.'"
"Like you."
"Yeah, like me."
"I still can't believe it. It's like he's been lying to us all these years."
"How do you figure?"
"Oh, come on, Rick. You know what I mean."
"Can't say I do."
"It's like that time when I was 12 and he caught me messing around with my friend Jay in the basement. He threw a fit, made out like it was the worst damn thing a guy could do."
Rick stifles a laugh. "Oh, yeah, I forgot about that. Quite the little horny toad, wasn't ya? But you're reaching back awful far, Pete. And you yourself admitted that Dad eventually came around, and even apologized and told you he totally accepted that you're gay."
"OK, fine, but what about last year when he caught me sneaking in after hours and totally lost it, accusing me of sneaking out to hook up with some lowlife thug? He didn't even give me a chance to explain that I had actually been up here in the treehouse hanging out with you."
"I'm not sure that would have helped, bro. There have been times Dad accused me of being a lowlife thug."