Make amends with the boy you were, but not the man you are
STATS.
NAME: Gale Calloway GENDER & PRONOUNS: cis man & he/him AGE: 35 OCCUPATION: Livestock agent AFFILIATIONS: Walker FACECLAIMS: Aaron Taylor-Johnson
ABOUT.
Taillights, that was something Gale grew up knowing, and he knew them well. At the age of seven, he could call out what type of cars – just based on taillights. It was familiar, one of the only things that could get him hopeful. Hope became a dirty word early on. One that only took from him, repeatedly, as his mother placed a kiss on his cheek with a promise that she’d come back. Not everyone was born to be a parent, that was something Gale wouldn’t understand until he became an adult himself. Saddled with a child, Jeanie Calloway had to put her dreams on hold. Keeping Gale was a sacrifice he didn’t know she’d made, yet she held it over him like a reminder that he could’ve never paid her back enough for it.
Gale’s grandparents did their best, trying to deal with a whirlwind of a child who didn’t know what stability or a home could be. Hope would settle into his chest, a year of being with his grandparents, outbursts becoming few and far between – yet still, it wasn’t enough. Fights with kids at school who would ask why his mom didn’t want him, pushed along by a group mentality that if you didn’t have any parents, you were less than. Childhood was not kind, but it did not force Gale to grow up quickly. It reminded him that he had to get rid of that hope, the moment that a social worker showed up at his door and his clothes were jammed all in one suitcase.
Too much, yet never enough.
He learned to pack light after that. Physically and emotionally, nothing ever remained. Some homes did it for the check, others were always meant to be temporary placements. A promise that they would find his mother, yet another empty feeling in his chest the moment a pair of taillights left him on the doorstep of a new home. His yes sir’s and yes ma’ams were always readily available; nothing too formal, for the fear that if he got himself attached, he’d be left behind. Gale was just that kid that sat on a porch alone, watching a dust storm roll in. The homes would change faster than the seasons, and Gale would never make it easy.
But the rodeo? That was his place to be. He slept under the bleachers for a week before someone found him – a warm meal, a blanket, and a promise that he’d always have a place amongst them. He learned how to braid a rope before he could perfect any sort of long division. Gale would try to remind himself not to stay too long, that he’d never be someone’s favorite in a place like this, but they always remembered him. It was the closest thing to a home he could remember. The adrenaline of the crowd, of the first time he wrapped his hand around the horn of a saddle, and a handful of buckles that he never won, but were placed in his hands by those who cared about him. The rodeo taught him how to grin and bear it. A crooked smile that he uses when he’s not sure what to do, that when the pain becomes too much – just bury it and move on, kid.
He had his first kiss under those same bleachers – on his eighteenth birthday. A guy named August, another reminder that his life was just a collection of fleeting moments. Crushes were buried so deep they became sediment; more reminders of what he couldn’t let himself have. When he aged out of the foster system, it was just a reminder that chaos was his next lot in life. Homeless with just that set of bleachers, trouble was easy to fall into.
The rodeo gave him a familiarity. Running with the wrong crowd, however, was another adrenaline rush that Gale let himself have. He got exceptionally good at running – from the law, from his feelings. Petty crimes were enough to keep him fed, but the bigger the crime, the harder he knew he’d fall. He learned to be reckless out of desperation, not the thrill. Still, the feeling of handcuffs left too many scars on his wrists, and the power of being underestimated settled in his mind. He felt trapped in a life that he never asked for, and when a military recruiter set up shop outside the police station – it was a done deal.
Escape. The military would shape him into someone that he didn’t recognize for months. Discipline hit him like cold water, like the sharp sting of a whip on his leg when he loaded onto a bronco. He could follow orders, but trusting authority never really sat well with him. Gale needed an out, some sort of opening that would let him grasp a form of control over his life that he never had. A foster kid, a fuck up – back and forth from one place to another, Gale Calloway was certain he’d be lost.
His time there seemed to come and go too quickly. An honorable discharge, and a single friend that seemed to know him better than anyone else. Logan. The damn Walker seemed to see who he could be, not who he’d become. The real Gale that was hidden behind a rough demeaner, a fake, crooked smile that never reached his eyes. It was infuriating. Loyalty, however, was never a virtue to Gale. It became reflexive. No one could take their brotherhood away, not even how much Gale tried, or how often he was sure that the Walker would turn his back on him and disappear the moment they were both released from duty. But he didn’t.
Montana became a skyline that Gale was certain would reject him too.
It didn’t, and home became a ranch. That meaning of “quiet” finally hit him. A peace that settled in his chest. It was nostalgic, reminding him of his days in the rodeo. But not the parts that hurt. There was a warm bed instead of cold dirt beneath steel. There was that woman offering him a hand and a home cooked meal. There was the thrill of a first kiss beneath the stars. It was the first place that Gale finally started to keep things. A mug, a jacket, a photograph – like he was daring the world to take these from him as well.
As far as Gale was concerned, this place could be pulled from his grip at any moment. But Logan Walker had not left him behind, and Gale wouldn’t be the first to leave. He does his job, he fights through the nightmares – he wakes up early to escape them, and releases what he can into the quiet morning sky. He knows of the troubles for the family that had accepted him. The stray dog that wandered in one day and had yet to leave – they wouldn’t turn their backs on him. Gale doesn’t respect authority; anyone making things difficult for the Walkers got their own taste of what a feral dog could do. The military may have forced him to grow up, but the life lessons that Gale learned never went away. This was as close to home as he’d ever gotten, and he’d be damned if he let it go without a fight.
