Listening to Dust (9 page)

“Dustin....”
 

“Stephen, can you please just shut up for a minute, please?”
 

That stung, but he nodded.
 

“I had every intention of hurting you that night, maybe even killing you,” Dustin told him as he released Stephen’s hand and slumped down to the floor in front of him. Tears started slowly leaking down his face as he spoke. It was one of those rare moments when Dustin ripped his chest open again so the world could poke at it and laugh, but Stephen wasn’t laughing.
 

“You can’t know what it was like, Stephen. I hated myself, I hated you. I wanted you dead.   I’ve never had what you had, Stephen. Never.” He shook his head, emphasizing his words. “My parents never gave a damn. And being gay... what the fuck? Like I needed another reason for them to despise me.”
 

He let out a long breath and continued. “I really think I meant to kill you because it wasn’t even you I saw when you opened the door. It was Drew. Drew laughing at me when I was tied up in the barn; Drew telling me how he was going to make Robbie scream and how he was going to make me watch. Drew ripping Robbie’s clothes off...”
 

He glanced up at Stephen and quickly dropped his eyes again, a beaten, raw expression on his face. “I went in that barn voluntarily, Stephen. He’d been doing that since he caught me with a gay porn mag I found out at the truck stop. It was the only way to keep him from going after Robbie. But that night it wasn’t enough and he already had Robbie undressed before I started screaming for him to run...”
 

He closed his eyes and became very still, his breath heavy before his hand came up and held onto Stephen’s knee. Stephen took note of the fact that it was his body that Dustin reached for and not the scar he had carved into his own chest.
 

“That night, after I... entered you, it... it all changed somehow,” Dustin continued. “I can’t even begin to explain it,” he said as the tears started flowing freely. “It was you in front of me.” He looked up at Stephen who was crying with him. “It was you, and all I could think of was how you treated me that first night, that first time.
 

“It was my first of everything that wasn’t forced, and it was you that showed me what it was like to feel wanted, really wanted.” He looked around the flat, as if avoiding the reflection he saw in Stephen’s eyes. “I don’t think I can explain to you how terrified I was when we got here. I mean, I know you saw it in my face, but I was paralyzed. You could have
done
anything, but you didn’t. You made me understand me and who I was and... so much more. That’s why I ran out of here. I was so fucking scared.” He paused and looked down at his knees, still and silent once again.
 

“Do you know why it took me so long to come back?” he asked Stephen after a quiet moment.
 

Stephen shook his head, but Dustin never looked up; he just went on with his story.
 

“I couldn’t remember how to get here. I ran so hard when I left I couldn’t remember how to get back,” he snorted at himself in derision. “I spent two weeks looking for you, for this place, wanting revenge. That’s what kept me in London. But once I found you and once we started... once I…it all just changed.”
 

He looked at Stephen. “And I want more of that, I do. But I also know that it can never be anything permanent. I just can’t do that to Robbie. We have to take what we can get now, Stephen, and let’s worry about the
then
when we get there. That’s all I can offer. It’s all I’ve ever been able to offer. Can we do that?”
 

Stephen nodded, but he knew he couldn’t, ever. He would let Dustin believe that he could, but he would never be rid of the constant nibbling fear that this relationship was about to end; that he would be able to handle the fact that one day Dustin would be there, and the next... the next he just wouldn’t, ever again.
 

Chapter 17

The Diner
 

Robbie had finished his omelet and his cocoa and sat with what looked like a growing nervousness. He smiled suddenly and glanced at Miss Emily uneasily, as if he wasn’t quite sure if he should broach the subject with her present.
 

“I ‘member another letter, want to hear it?” he asked Stephen quietly.
 

Stephen shook his head. He knew Robbie, or at least Robbie’s mind, was trying to distract itself from his most pressing concern, but Stephen couldn’t bear to hear another one. He knew every comma, every pain behind every single word he’d written. It was the most inflicted prose he had ever put to pen.
 

“I...” He glanced at Miss Emily, watching to see if she would keep Robbie from answering his question. “I’d like to know what happened,” he said hesitantly.
 

Robbie and Miss Emily exchanged a glance, sharing something between themselves.
 

“Aw, Mr. Stephen I don’t ....”
 

“Tell him,” Miss Emily said, cutting him off sharply.
 

Robbie looked back and forth between Stephen and Miss Emily, as if reluctant and unsure of what to do. Finally he nodded. It was not his first telling by far, but even for the simpleton they claimed he was, it was no less painful.
 

*****
 

There was a hard squint in Dusty’s eye as he looked up the long dirt road that led to his trailer. Easily visible in the distance was a billowing cloud of dust that Stewart was creating as he barreled down the hardened gravel in his red pickup truck.
 

“You two have a fight?” Dusty asked as they watched Stewart speed toward them.
 

“No, not that I know of,” Robbie answered.
 

“He doesn’t need an excuse,” Dusty said with open contempt. “Go on in the house,” he ordered Robbie.
 

“But Dusty...”
 

Dusty turned to him. “Robbie, when was the last time Stewart came out here?”
 

Robbie shook his head. “I dunno, I think when we was supposed to go get that stud colt.”
 

“Exactly, now go on in the house,” Dusty told him with a nod toward the door. “Whatever has his panties in a wad brought him all the way out here so.... go in the house, please.”
 

Robbie glanced at him and looked up the road with a worried expression. “But don’t be riling him. Okay?”
 

“Sure. Now go on in the house.”
 

Robbie turned and lumbered to the trailer, taking a position inside the screen door as Stewart’s truck slammed to a stop. His Pa could get downright ornery when it came to Dusty, and they’d had more than a few arguments about it even though he’d fibbed to Dusty and told him that he’d dropped supper, or some other such nonsense Dusty would have been likely to believe.
 

It didn’t need to be said that his Pa figured Dusty would fail in the military and return home without his uniform or all those shiny medals he got. Pa wasn’t too happy that it turned out so much different than he figured it would. In fact, his pa seemed downright jealous since Dusty came back from U-rope, but it weren’t no use in making things worse than they were between the two of them, so he never said nothing to Dusty about that either.
 

“Robbie, get your big, dumb ass out here now!” Stewart screamed.
 

“Stay right where you are, Robbie,” Dusty said without turning around. “What do you want here?” he asked Stewart. “He’s not going with you.”
 

Stewart looked from the door to Dusty, pure malice flickering across his face. “You want to explain this, you fucking faggot?” he snarled as he held up a blue and red-edged international envelope and tossed it into the dirt at Dusty’s feet.
 

Even from the trailer Robbie could see that the envelope had been opened, and understanding its contents, started pushing the screen door open to stand by his brother. But Dusty heard the door’s squeaky spring before Robbie got it open even an inch and waved him back inside without taking his eyes from Stewart’s face.
 

Now how had Pa gotten that letter?
Robbie wondered. That was a question in itself. Old man Bo down at the post office weren’t too fond of his pa and was ribbing him constantly about things that Robbie didn’t understand. But Bo wouldn’t never have mixed up one of them envelopes and dropped it off at Stewart’s instead of at Dusty’s where it belonged. Would he? Those envelopes was too different from anything else their little post office handled; Mr. Bo had even said so himself.
 

“What will all the boys at the roundhouse say when they find out I suck dicks because you raised your firstborn to fuck little boys?” Dusty jeered at Stewart. He started laughing, making a mockery of Stewart’s building rage. “What do you think they’ll say,
Stew
? Fruit don’t fall far from the tree...something like that?” Dusty taunted.
 

Robbie started whining without realizing he was making any noise. He could see his Pa was getting madder and madder but Dusty just kept poking at him like an old broken dog.
 

Stewart mumbled something Robbie couldn’t hear and when he went to get out of the truck, Dusty kicked the side of it in with his foot, denting it and slamming it closed again.
 

“Get the fuck out of here, you drunken piece of shit,” Dusty said as he reached down for the letter. He took his eyes off of Stewart for a second, and when he looked back up the shotgun barrel was staring him in the face as he stood to his feet.
 

He stood fully and sneered at Stewart, “Fuck you.”
 

Robbie screamed in the background when he first saw his pa bring the gun up, knowing he must have had it in his lap the whole time. But it was already too late; the blast blew Dusty back and off his feet as Robbie raced out the door.
 

“Noooo!” Robbie wailed as he raced forward and crouched beside his brother.
 

 “Fuck that faggot!” Stewart screamed. “Get your ass in the truck, boy. Now!”
 

When Stewart spit, and the juice from his dip hit Dusty in the face, Robbie lost all control. He screamed at the top of his lungs, ripped the shotgun from Stewart’s grasp, grabbed Stewart by the neck, and jerked him through the window of the pickup in a blinding rage. There was a snap as Stewart’s hips cleared the truck’s window frame and Robbie tossed him away before he knelt at Dusty’s side bawling in agony.
 

“You killed my Dusty, you killed my Dusty,” he murmured over and over.
 

Dusty’s chest was mangled and when Robbie pulled him into his arms he saw Dusty’s eyes flutter for a moment before he drifted away. He tried to say something, but he was gone before any words escaped. Robbie was sure he was mouthing ‘little brother.’
 

“Dusty, no. Please don’t leave me. Please, Dusty, please….”
 

And he sat there weeping for half the day with Dusty clutched in his arms before his tears finally dried. He put Dusty down carefully, wiped the dirt and spittle from his face one last time, and then got his bike out of Dusty’s shed and rode to the sheriff’s office to tell them what his pa had done.
 

*****
 

“I didn’t mean to do it, Mr. Stephen,” Robbie said as his tears started falling on the table between them. “But he hurt my Dusty. He just took him from me and....” He started crying violently as the diner went silent again. Miss Emily reached over and pulled his head to her breast while she swayed back and forth, cooing his sobs until he stuttered to a stop, a small, gutted child in a man-size body. Stephen remembered the feeling too well.
 

“There’s nothing left for you here,” Miss Emily said as she looked over at Stephen. “You should go.”
 

“No,” Robbie said, straightening himself from her grasp. “No, he has a right to be here just as much as any of these folks. Dusty loved him fierce,” he added with a punctuated nod at Stephen. “What’cha all looking at?” Robbie barked at the diner when he saw everyone staring at him.
 

“Robbie,” Miss Emily chided him. “Mind your manners.”
 

Robbie wiped at the tears on his face, subdued by her light disapproval. “Yes, ma’am.”
 

He looked over at Stephen who sat in stunned silence, unable to move, speak, or even breathe.
 

“He loved you fierce, Mr. Stephen, don’t let nobody take that from you. Nobody,” Robbie said.
 

The door to the diner flew open before Stephen could even begin to digest what Robbie had just told him. All he could think about was the letter Stewart had thrown at Dustin’s feet. The letter...
 

“They’re back,” announced the sweaty young man who had flung the diner door open.
 

All eyes immediately returned to Robbie. The jury had only recessed for a little over an hour, which meant they hadn’t bothered with lunch before coming to a decision. A few hands in the diner went up for their checks and then the place broke into pandemonium as people tried to pay their bill and get back to the courthouse.
 

Robbie and Miss Emily looked at one another while Stephen simply stared at the table in front of him, completely oblivious to the announcement.