Big Diehl: The Road Home

By George Seaton

Home. For any soldier, that single word became a mantra, repeated thousands of times, enveloping the images, aromas, love, and peace of places and times left behind when duty had called. For Diehl, the word also held the inescapable specter of an inflicted misery, a profound hurt that even the savageness of war had not managed to best.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Untreed After Dark
• Release date: Jun 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781953601797

Book preview

ONE

At the ass-end of Ault, a quick-minute burg straddling Colorado 85 North, a hop-skip from the Wyoming line, the old fool, Grover Grib, savored his predilection to evoke gab from his clientele. Half drunk at ten in the morning, baring a yellow-toothed grin, he winked at Diehl. I knew your daddy. He hacked hard and spat green as he followed Big Diehl out the fenced side yard of Grib’s Farm Supply and Feed, drooping and peeling, worse every year since Diehl could remember. Hell, knew you, too. Come in with your daddy. Come in by yourself once in a while. Your mama, too, ‘fore she passed.

Grasping red suspenders, Grib’s hands rested on the balloon of his gut. His gray dungarees were shredded at the ankles, T-shirt, once white, was yellowed at the armpits. The shirt had pulled up, exposing his belly at the navel. Your daddy come in about every three, four weeks. Bought oats, fertilizer, small implements. Liked my fence wire, if I recall. Sometimes cash. Sometimes credit. Yessiree, I knew your daddy. Licking his lips in the shade of his broad-brimmed straw hat quivering with the wind, Grib was anxious to taste the morsel Diehl would toss back at him.

Diehl, a small-framed, tight-muscled young man with hard gray eyes and a face lingering in ambiguous youth, keyed open the weather-dulled green ’82 Ford Fairlane’s trunk. Tossed in the hundred-pound bag of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. Daddy paid your light bill every month, Mister Grib. He tried on a grin for the old man.

A half head shorter than Grib’s six feet, a ball cap pulled tight on his head, Diehl’s olive drab T-shirt, neck limp with age, fluttered with the wind. Jeans aged to gray; wallet chained to his belt loop. His legs conspicuous outward arcs, muscles, ligaments, bones molded by horses’ backs since his fourth birthday when his daddy had set him atop his first. Diehl gave up his grin and, turning from Grib, his tan combat boots crunched against the pebbled parking lot.

Trailing Diehl like a happy puppy, Grib followed him back to the yard. I believe it was you took off, left this part of the country a few years back. Or so they said.

That I did. Diehl grabbed the second bag, grunted it up to his shoulder.

Where’d you find yourself?

The Army, Mister Grib.

Iraq?

Been there. Been in Texas, just lately.

How was Iraq? Goddamned towelheads and all.

Nothin’ to write home about.

Come back, then?

Diehl tried another grin, failed, looked at Grib. The whites of the old man’s eyes were yellow-brown as fall-finished corn. Discharged yesterday. Been drivin’ all night from Texas.

Well, Grib said, bowing his head, scratching his armpit, A course, your daddy’s place is gone. Hear he moved up to Laramie.

Nodding, stepping around Grib, Diehl carried the second bag to his car, dropped it in, and slammed the trunk. He then opened the driver’s side door.

Two bags ain’t gonna get very far. You got a spread somewhere? asked Grib.

Little one. Up north. Diehl lied.

Still, just two bags…

All I need right now, Mister Grib.

Well, Grib clawed his ear, ain’t nothin’ you don’t know, but that stuff don’t like heat; blow your ass to hell and back, not given the proper respect.

Diehl looked at the sky, the mid-November’s fluorescent glare, felt the forever wind against his face. Somehow, I don’t think we need to worry about that right now, Mister Grib. Heat ain’t somethin’ that passes through these parts this time a year.

Got a point. Still, the smile creased his face. Knew gab wouldn’t fill his belly this time. Goddamned cow people treated words like diamonds—ain’t givin’ ’em away. Farmers, though, Grib thought, watching Diehl climb behind the wheel and skid back onto 85, farmers gave up an all-you-can-eat buffet every goddamned time.

* * *

A couple miles past Ault, north toward Pierce, Diehl slowed, pulled the old Ford onto a no-name county road. Prickly wire on either side. Stopped about a mile east.

The clingy sidekick to the mid-November Northeastern Colorado dry sky, the razor cut of high prairie winds rushed west to east across the Rocky’s Front Range. Bumping up against an occasional bluff or an errant mesa rising out of nowhere, the cold blow found an easy passage between the no-name road’s dirt top and the Ford’s rusted undercarriage.

Squatting in front of the car, Diehl rested his back against the bumper, felt the heat still coming off the engine, ignored the rush of chill below. He lobbed the Remington .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol, palm to palm. Remembered his mama’s words: Somethin’ workin’ on your mind, Big, you get on outside. Have a sit down with the Lord. Take the Good Book with you. Walk a mile or two. Get off by yourself. Just you and the Lord. Don’t have to read scripture. Just hold the book. You and the Lord will work it out.

Still thinking it through, working it out, feeding the urge to do what needed to be done. Diehl felt the gray steel as a comfort inching close to the image of his mother’s smile. Or the Good Book in his hands, or the wrap of a heavy blanket on a cold night, black as a nightmare, when shooting stars evoked more grief than wonder. They’re dyin’, he remembered thinking, as he’d watched the flash-sparkle across the sky peter out, dying, dead. Barely ten, alone with Scooter, his Blue Heeler, herd quiet, more than a few coyotes pondering their next moves. Cow pies had fueled a stingy fire.

Back and forth, palm to palm. The same thing he’d done as a child with the Word. He’d walked a couple miles where the home place was unseen behind rolls of prairie grass. Heifers on their bellies scrunched into a sewing circle where the shade of a sickly cottonwood barely mattered, Scooter sniffing some critter’s trail. The Good Book, back and forth, palm to palm.

Sharp knife ain’t no goddamned good, ‘less you got the wrist flick just right, his daddy had said. Quick slice a couple inches down from the top of the sack, squeeze out the balls, then another flick high up on the sperm cord just to make sure it takes. Don’t need no goddamned steer full a juice with no equipment to work it with.

Diehl sliced his first bull when he was eight years old. Homemade squeeze chute no damned good, Scooter silently snapped at the calf’s nose. His daddy or Ernesto, their hired Mex, held up the tail, a knee shoved against the flank through the gap in the rickety chute, a splash of antiseptic on the bleed.

Ain’t no life for a kid, he thought. Ain’t no goddamn life for a kid. Back and forth, palm to palm.

Biting images. His mama gave up a stillbirth when he was ten. Found tumors. His daddy never touched her afterward. Watched her shrivel. Waited until Diehl was twelve, began touching him, took his pleasures with him after that. The old Ford, the last gift given in atonement maybe, maybe just thinking Diehl had been a good boy to please his daddy—not crying, not telling. A new saddle, his grandpa’s old Remington, the gelding got with the third cutting of alfalfa, the goddamned Nintendo, the old Ford. The old Ford had put an end to it all. Ain’t doin’ this no more, Diehl had told his daddy, shoving the scarlet-eyed, wobbling, beer-bellied, pitiful ruin of a man aside. Diehl had grabbed his car keys, drove half the night. Returned when he knew his daddy would be sleeping it off, sprawled on the couch or face down on his bed.

Back and forth, palm to palm.

Skunk drunk, standing over the birthing bed, you came two weeks early, his mother had told him more than once. Your daddy breathin’ pure fumes, wobblin’ on his feet, a fat ol’ cigar rollin’ side to side across his mouth, he looks down at you in my arms and says, ‘Gonna name him Big.’ ‘Roy,’ I says, ‘what you got in mind for a big name?’ Well, he stops chewin’ on that cigar and stares at me real serious. ‘Big,’ he says. ‘Gonna name him Big Diehl.’ Well, wasn’t no arguin’ with your daddy, as you surely know.

Big Diehl surely knew.

Palmed in his right hand, squeezing the grip, Diehl pulled the slide back with his left hand, cartridge chambered, the hammer cocked. Bracing himself, he lowered his left knee to the ground. Clasping his left hand over his right, he raised and extended his arms, sighted, eased pressure on the trigger. Plugged a metal fencepost thirty yards up the road. A metallic ding fused with the explosive hard pop, the slide’s recoil, and the spent shell’s tingle as it danced on gravel off to his right side.

Knowing a single shot, traveling the open prairie, would urge a momentary pause in the lives of folks unseen up the no-name county road. They’d usually dismiss it as just a mere affectation—the nature of open spaces and dimwits with guns. Diehl gave up the urge to fire a couple more slugs from the old Remington. If he fired again, folks would want to know the source of the ruckus. Folks were that way. More than a few heifers lost to sonsofbitches, liquored up, their defense ready: Well, shore looked like antelope to me!

Curious folks were something Diehl didn’t need or want right now.

Diehl stood, the Remington held against his thigh, lifted his ball cap up a bit with his left hand, let the wind’s cold flow cool his thoughts, snuggled the hat back down on his head. Figured he’d had his sit down with the Lord.

* * *

Wrapping the .45 in a lightly oiled cloth, he put it back into the glove box. Tapped a pack of Kools on the dashboard, pulled one out between his lips. Flicking a stick match against his thumbnail, he lit up, exhaled against the windshield washed in the leavings of a habit begun at fifteen. Bald tires no damn good to grip him out from depressions on either side of the road, he gave up ten minutes maneuvering the car west, back toward 85.

Easing from behind an eighteen-wheeler, Diehl floored the gas pedal. Crooked an ear toward the dashboard, listening to the engine’s strained chug. Sniffed gradually worsening gas fumes, first noticed almost six hours ago as he’d crested Raton Pass and eased into Colorado, leaving Texas and the Army behind him for good.

Grabbing the bill of his ball cap with his thumb and forefinger, he gave it a slight tug as he inched past the big rig’s cab. Smiled at the driver through his side window. Nodded. Said, Happy truckin’, muthafuckah. The image in his mind of long-lost Scooter cradled in his arms, hips broke by some sonofabitch pushing a deadline behind the wheel of a Peterbilt up 85, past Nunn, where four lanes became two.

Scooter had crossed the highway a thousand times from the home place’s western edge to the leased forty just across the road. But, that one time, the last time, a big rig moving ninety-to-nothing clipped him good. Real good.

Back in the rightmost lane, Diehl grabbed the quart of Southern Comfort on the seat to his right. He’d worked the sweet whiskey since leaving Denver behind. Hugging the bottle between his thighs, he unscrewed the cap with his right hand and kept the Ford’s want to slew across the center line in check with his left. Plucked the Kool from his lips, placed it atop the mountain of butts in the ashtray, raised the bottle, sipped, and swallowed. Put the bottle back between his thighs, screwed on the lid. Cranking up the volume from the oldies station crackling out of Denver, he snatched the cigarette, gently clamped it between his teeth. Squeezed his hands around the Naugahyde-wrapped steering wheel. Listened to Tom Petty warn, Don’t come around here no more. Diehl shook his head, smiled. Here already, my man.

Kinda stumpy, he said, noticing two-month-old plantings of winter wheat as he passed the town of Pierce, snuggled up against the highway. Losing Tom Petty to the capricious ebb of radio waves birthed miles behind, he studied the jut of winter wheat seeking sun and water on either side of the straight-shot monotony of 85 North, skirting clumps of towns with names as dismal as his memory of a childhood lived amongst them: Eaton, Ault, Pierce, Nunn. Winter wheat would soon become dormant as the days shortened. Fallowed fields bore witness to hit-or-miss backbreaker dreams of God-fearing farmers who, every Sunday, hunkered in the Lord’s house where prayers begged a plentiful spring.

Past Nunn, as the four-lane squeezed to two, he fiddled with the radio dial. Found the shit-kicker station out of Cheyenne—Waylon Jennings pleading a waltz to heaven, Honky-tonk angels in heavenly flight… Diehl squinted: A tiny speck of black-white in the middle of the road, right on the yellow line. Dismissed as some unlucky critter, maybe skunk, dead on the stretch between Nunn and Cheyenne, where farms dwindled and open range spread to the horizon. Fields dotted with Herefords and black baldies, their necks bent as supplicants feeding on a more fundamental need than divine grace. Dismissed the black-white on the road as some critter’s unkind intimacy with a fender. The image of Scooter returned, the old boy broke up inside.

Closing the distance, he raised his cap and scratched the red-blond stubble on the top of his head. Lowered his cap back down, brushed his hand against the two-day growth on his face. Shit, he said, taking his foot off the gas. Speck resolved itself into what was clearly a dog; a Border Collie, most likely, its head raised, alive, fur shuffled by the wind.

Diehl gently pumped his brakes as he passed the critter, oddly content lolling in the middle of the road. He tugged the steering wheel to the right. The pebble-studded dirt on the apron let loose a brown cloud from the Fairlane’s undercarriage and, caught by the wind, vanished as soon as it rose. The used-up tires skidded against the gravel. Gas fumes puffed up from under the dash. The car was just about used up. It had brought him this far from tumbleweeds and armadillos, from the Texas hardscrabble where he’d served out his last year in the Army. Knew he’d have to nurse the old gal just a little further. Laramie wasn’t that far away.

Stopping about fifty yards from the dog, he shoved the gearshift into P, grabbed the bottle of sweet whiskey still between his thighs, tossed it onto the passenger seat. Opened the door and stepped out onto the graveled apron. Tugged his cap further down on his head, spit the Kool from his mouth. Ground it into the dirt with his boot. Looking back, the dog hadn’t moved. Perked its ears.

Knew he’d pulled off 85 at the precise spot where, for the last time, Scooter had leaped the barbed wire along the home place’s western edge: the house, the barn, the silo, his mama, his daddy, the cattle, the horses. Knew everything the home place was back then, back before hard times and fat Japs holding the bank’s paper, his daddy’s greed in the mix had yanked the whole thing out from under him. But, knowing all this, he kept his eyes stuck on the black-white in the middle of the road. He’d promised himself a long time ago there was no damned reason to look back. Or, now, in even turning his head to his left to reckon the spread of Colorado prairie that had embraced his youth just a few thousand heartbeats ago. But, tough as it was, hard as his daddy had made it, it had still been home.

Forsaking his promise, he’d looked back often. Had to make things right. Justice will be done.

* * *

Diehl began to run.

He closed the distance. Twenty yards between them, stopping, he looked up and down the highway. Seeing no cars or big rigs topping the horizon at either end, he spread his arms, yelled against the wind, Hey, buddy. Slapped his leg with his hand, whistled, Right here, buddy. C’mon.

The dog, ears still perked, stared at Diehl, didn’t move. Shit on a stick. He walked toward what he now knew for sure to be a Border Collie, somebody’s working stock, content lying for some damn reason in the middle of the road.

Not thinking about it, instinct maybe, he said, Scooter! Come!

Sitting up, not moving from the centerline, the dog’s tail began to wag.

That’s right, Diehl muttered. Slapped his thigh, repeated it, Come! Scooter! Come!

The dog stared at Diehl.

Turning his head, Diehl looked up 85 North, then south, where, barreling hard, an eighteen-wheeler pierced the horizon.

Shit! Shit! Shit! Diehl slowly stepped to the dog. You’re a sweet one, he said, calm as could be, repeating words he hadn’t uttered since Scooter was whole. He walked onto the blacktop, down the yellow line, soothed his words. You’re one crackerjack dog, you are.

Two feet from the dog: happy eyes, one brown, one blue-white, burrs in its coat, tail still washing the tar top, no blood. Diehl looked south again, saw the big rig not a mile away. Slowly extended his hand, said, What the hell you doin’ out here, buddy? The dog sniffed the nicotine-stained fingers, smelled something familiar, stood on all fours, stepped toward Diehl. That’s it, he said, placing his hand on the dog’s head, scratching an ear. It wasn’t broken up.

The big rig blaring its air horn, now a half-mile away, Diehl grabbed a handful of hair on the dog’s neck, quickly slipped his arm under its belly, picked it up, carried it to the road’s west side, slid down the small gulch off the apron, held the dog tight in his arms.

Semi passed, whipping a vacuum on either side of 85. Diehl, still hugging the dog, raised his head, looked north. Saw the rig well up the road, moving hard toward the state line. Saw smoke rising from the Ford’s front end. Christ! he said, hearing a puff. Fire coming off the engine. Christ! he said again. Picked up the dog, began walking farther south, away from the car. Thirty more yards, he stopped, bent down in the gully, kept the dog low against the ground, watched the fire inch toward the trunk. Lowered his head, laid down over the dog, knew what was coming.

* * *

Aunt Bea, you out there? Come on. This is Red Devil. Red Devil, red-faced, well-fed, long-hauling out of Greeley bound for Sioux Falls, truck idling. Had pulled off the road, thumbed the CB mike buried in his thick-fingered fist.

Aunt Bea, born Claudette Catherine Casebolt, ensconced in a ten-by-thirty tin house set on cinder blocks at the western edge of Nunn. Never married, seldom dressed in other than a button-up bathrobe painted festive with daisies, red sallies, tulips, huffed a sluggish cloud from the Camel between her lips, grabbed her mike. Never fear, Aunt Bea is here. Hey, Red Devil, how you hangin’? Over.

Well, some G-D big explosion ‘bout three miles north of Nunn. Saw it in my rearview. There was a piece-of-you-know-what Ford sittin’ off the side of the road back there. Wasn’t there after the boom. Metal, glass flyin’ all over the place. Smokin’, burnin’. Little prairie fire, too. Ain’t got the time to check it out. You give a call to the smokies, will ya? And, Bea, leave my name outta it, okay. I’m pushin’ a schedule. Over.

The kitchen table cluttered with her CB, police scanner, telephone, coffee pot, ashtray; Claudette swept the cigarette from her mouth, grabbed the phone with one hand, pressed the mike with the other. On it, Red Devil. Be safe out there. Over.

* * *

The Devil’s playground. The blast lifted Diehl and the dog up, inches off the ground, set them down hard. Bits of steel, plastic, rubber, rocks rained on Diehl’s back. A slow rise to his knees, still embracing the dog, Diehl looked to where he’d left the Ford. Not there. Saw the car’s detritus. Saw the hole, seven, eight feet across and about half as deep. Shook himself, took his cap off, slapped it against his thigh, put it back on. Let the dog loose. It sat up, stared into Diehl’s eyes, tongue hanging out the side of its mouth.

Diehl stared back into the dog’s eyes, cradled its head between his palms. Broke his hold, pulled the burrs from the dog’s coat. Yessir, you are one crackerjack dog.

* * *

Colorado Highway Patrolman u-turned just this side of the Wyoming line and sped to the scene of some mess on the road a few miles outside of Nunn. Not worth a second look, not unusual on this stretch of 85, he gave a quick eye to the young man, legs bowed, ball cap, green T-shirt, faded jeans, walking north on the apron toward Cheyenne. A Border Collie loped behind the kid, its shoulders hunched, head held low to the ground. Best goddamned herdin’ dog on the face of the fuckin’ earth! the patrolman said to himself, letting the thought pass a dog like that would herd a breeze if it thought it was blowing in the wrong direction.

TWO

The world Diehl had escaped from as a teenager and that he now returned to as a man goes like this: Pleasant Acres Trailer Park was and remained a dismal place. It heaved with the detritus of small lives lived in small places. Four acres centered by what the original owner had called the Community Center had tended toward dilapidation over the years. The kidney-shaped twenty-meter swimming pool hadn’t been filled in a decade, the cement sides now crumbling. The greenish-brown iced-over muck in the bottom gave off a stink that harkened some back to times when they’d had some intimacy with pigs. The pool was now fenced against toddlers’ unsupervised meanderings. Most mobile homes, trailers, and modular houses spread out from the Community Center had poorly suffered the Wyoming winters, wind, and summer boil. Paint applied in the Acres heyday was now pale and peeling. A rejection of color, a fade to gray, as if somehow the structures themselves knew the party was over; a plead they be freed from their purpose, a supplication to fold in on themselves. The leavings of those who had escaped from Pleasant Acres dotted the landscape like unsightly pimples. The useless stuff that hadn’t been worth the effort to load up and haul away remained as undisturbed witness to the requisites of flight before the rent or mortgage payment was due: crippled dining chairs, their legs broken, sofas bleeding their stuffing, mattresses soiled by telltale signs of this or that, TVs dead as a doornail. Big Wheels without the big wheel, sandboxes, toy trucks and cars, stuffed bunnies, horses and dolls, plastic action heroes—all surely once loved by innocents—littered the yards as silent evidence so many children called, or had once called this bleakness home.

* * *

A well-kept place at Pleasant Acres was home to Ophelia Tye, called Ophie. She was a large woman intent on seeing herself as small. Sitting at her dressing table, she gathered her waist-length hair and worked it into a tightly rolled bun. Secured the bun with rubber bands and plastic berets she’d had since junior high school; charming miniatures of bluebirds on a branch, sunflowers, Yogi Bear. Placed her elbows on the dressing table, a small card table actually; the felt top rubbed bare down to the threads. Looked in the mirror and framed her face between her hands. Liked what she saw. A pretty face, looking no more than twenty-five, she thought, though she’d turned forty-two just last week.

Ophie grabbed the pack of Marlboros on the tabletop, pulled one out, lit up, exhaled against the mirror. Let loose what she knew would be one humdinger of a fart—the sound, then the buoyant aroma. Having once timed it, she knew it would linger for at least the next ten minutes. She knew Joe’d gone to work already. Even if he hadn’t, he’d never say anything about such a thing, about the smell. Knew her boy loved her. Knew her boy was… She’d never said the word, even to herself, that encompassed her suspicions, darkened her thoughts about once in every day. No, Joe was sensitive, quiet, a good boy who loved his mama. Those other thoughts? Well. Sleepin’ dogs do lie! she said, huffing more gray fog against the mirror.

Woohoo! She waved her hand behind her, smiling at the little face in the mirror that smiled back.

Joe was a reminder his half-breed father had charmed her legs open at seventeen, had married her, and provided the doublewide. Then, well… Sonofabitch just took off when Joe was yet two. Joe had taken on the asshole’s outward charms: the dark skin, brown eyes, high cheekbones, black hair. But Joe was different. Whereas his daddy was rough on the inside—one sonofabitch just waiting to bolt—Joe had become a beautiful boy, inside and out. Stared at the back of his head when he watched CSPAN (CSPAN for Christ’s sake!) or at his body after he’d stepped from the shower, a towel wrapped around his middle. His body was, well, fine is the only word she was ever able to come up with. Knew her boy could have any girl he wanted, bar none. But he never seemed to have much interest in girls. Sleepin’ dogs do lie! Thankful her boy had stayed with her and not gone off on some wild hair-up-the-ass adventure like other boys had done, like the Diehl kid. The Diehl kid. Now there was the subject matter for serious discussion.

Ophelia Tye wiggled from the aluminum folding chair under her, stood, pulled the polyester and cotton blend Capri pants from the crack of her ass. Stepped lightly, in a small woman’s way, to the living room. Joe had earlier turned on the TV after getting up and having his coffee. It was still set to the news. Ophie believed TV news was too depressing to bother with, a sure way to ruin her day first thing in the morning. Settling herself into the La-Z-Boy, she grabbed the remote and pressed the button. Another morning of dramatic portrayals of life among the rich or famous, all living comfortably in California or Florida, all dealing with one life crisis after another. Would check out Judge Judy and Oprah later. Oprah had a good head on her shoulders despite…well—Ophelia let the thought pass. This was Wyoming, after all. But she didn’t have to agree with most of her neighbors. Uppity Oprah could probably buy Wyoming, lock, stock, and barrel now that she thought about it. There were a couple, Mary Horn and Ethel Crib, who’d become, like her, liberated, or at least, non-judgmental in some areas. She enjoyed their company. Maybe she’d have them over for coffee and cake later on once she was energized enough to rise from the goddamned chair and walk into the kitchen. Perhaps she’d get up right now and pop a Coors and a couple more before she called Mary and Ethel. A cold beer or two always did seem to get her going or put her back to bed. Funny how that worked, she thought. Didn’t dwell on it. Thought her metabolism just fluctuated sometimes.

* * *

Joe Tye, at twenty-four, had pretty much put off any dreams, aspirations for his life in deference to the needs of his mama. But, hell, what she’d been through with his daddy—something she’d, over the years, never tired of repeating, drawing out as a cat would a ball of string—pressed his sensitive buttons deep. Maybe as deep as his soul. Had had a chance to escape the doublewide, the goddamned funk of it all, when he’d graduated high school. Had the opportunity to take off with Diehl to points unknown, points full of promise and possibilities. But shit, Diehl’s intent to leave had scared him, had kept him awake through the night, that one night before that one sunrise when Diehl would come for him.

Now, six years later, Joe’d long since accepted that Diehl’d never make an effort to come for him again.

* * *

Joe had slipped from his bed six years ago at four-thirty that morning, pulled on his jeans, T-shirt, tennis shoes. Knew Diehl’d be stopping by early, maybe six or six-thirty. That had been the plan, anyway. He’d grabbed the keys to the Dodge pickup he’d managed to buy just a month before. Thought about his mama asleep in the master bedroom at the back of the trailer. Thought about her needs too. Had to help her through the trials of life for at least a couple more years. Sure, Diehl’d be disappointed. But hell, how could he leave his mama? Diehl’s dreams were just that: dreams. His mama was here and now, needful and loving, something akin to blood being thicker than water. Then again, he scratched his head, turned the key, and fired up the Dodge. During high school, what he and Diehl had become pretty much touched blood rather than water. If he had to put his thumb on what he and Diehl had meant to each other, the only word he’d be able to come up with would be love.

Before pulling the gearshift into R on that morning six years ago, Joe Tye brushed his forearm across his eyes and spit the words, Shit! Fuck! Fuck! Shit! Pounded the steering wheel. Knew his cowardness was shameful. He was escaping Diehl’s promise of possibilities. Eased down on the gas pedal—didn’t want to wake his mama—backed up, shoved the gearshift into D, and pulled away from the doublewide. Didn’t know where he’d go. Thought maybe he’d find the county road where he and Diehl had talked it through once they’d graduated from high school. The place where they’d sat on the roadside, their backs to Diehl’s battered Ford, and spoke about life, possibilities.

* * *

During the six years since Diehl had left, Joe continued to work his body, as he’d done in high school, swimming laps at the Laramie Y. Took courses at the junior college. Had studied other boys, men at the Y, at the college. Followed a few into restrooms or traded glances with a few in the Y’s shower room, where the object of interest became hard-ons desperately needing attention if only just a look-see. Met some like-minded boys in a bar in Cheyenne. Joe shared some intimate time with more than a few boys, men who, after the deed, Joe rarely even remembered what their names had been. Felt the guilt of somehow offending his mama by doing such things. Doing such things always brought the hurt back to his gut. He’d not been strong enough to begin a life with Diehl that morning in June, six years ago. A lifetime ago.

Joe’d visited off and on with Diehl’s daddy, who lived just a couple rows of tin houses up the hill from him and his mama. But Diehl’s daddy hadn’t heard from Diehl either; he didn’t know where he was or what he was doing. For six goddamned years, Diehl’d never let his daddy know about his life. Joe’d be polite with the old man. Brought him a quart of Jack or Jim every once in a while, watched the old man huff and puff embers burning between his lips, oxygen tube yanked from his nose, pulled up on top of his head. Joe would have a moment of concern about the mixture of a lighted cigarette and pure oxygen still hissing at the top of Mister Diehl’s skull. But, hell, the old man had become an expert in avoiding the consequences. Even laughed about it, telling Joe not to sit so far away. If he managed to blow them to kingdom come, neither one of them would realize what had happened. We’d just be hell-bent to heaven above, Joe Tye. Relax boy. Life ain’t that goddamned important!

Joe Tye thought otherwise. Knew the encounter with the boy he’d met at the Y the afternoon before affirmed the significance of life’s little pleasures. Life was important. The time he’d spent with that boy had provided just a teaspoon of satisfaction for his empty bucket of unfulfilled desires. Knew Mister Diehl wouldn’t understand. Neither would his mama, for that matter. But hell, he was twenty-four. An adult. Master of his own… Yeah, he thought, master of what?

* * *

Joe’s courses at the junior college impressed Laramie Power and Light so much they offered him a job as an apprentice lineman electrician when he became twenty-one. Gave him training on electrical circuits, hook-ups, high voltage lines, and other practical, technical, and otherwise lifesaving instructions on the dangers of electricity. Once Power and Light determined they’d made a good investment in Joe Tye, they gave him a voucher for three brown uniforms, safety shoes, and a plastic helmet. When he got home, he breezed past the La-Z-Boy, walked into his bedroom, and closed the door. Pulled off his jeans and T-shirt. Hadn’t worn underwear since high school. Didn’t see the point. Then on came the uniform. He stood in front of the mirror on the back of his bedroom door. Turned a full circle. Looked good. Looked… Hell, he looked like somebody he’d take a second look at. He filled out the pants and shirt just fine. Put on his hardhat. Got hard and turned a second circle before the mirror. Wondered what Diehl would think of him now in his Laramie Power and Light