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theratstorm

Jan 17

The Girl Out There

"Someone told me there's a girl out there / With love in her eyes and flowers in her hair"

sort of a spin off story i wrote that takes place before a much larger work.

8536 words

Queer, MLM, 70s, rock 'n' roll

TW: drug use, child abuse, talking about sex

(I feel like some information might be missing and stuff because I did not write this to post, but anyone should def be able to follow it)

It was one night in the late summer of 1971 when a 19-year-old James Porter was driving through Los Angeles. It had been a terribly long day, unbearably hot. He’d been working for some rich lady in Beverly Hills, tutoring her bratty kids in Spanish. When he left at 8, his car almost immediately broke down, so he had to deal with that. It was now almost midnight as he finally got the Wagoneer up and running, as he drove to his place. His golden curls had turned into a frizzy mess after being in the humidity all day, but they also stuck to his face from the sweat he’d built up.

This dream of his was starting to feel pointless. He’d been in LA for a little under two years, and he still couldn’t manage to find a solid group of friends, a good job in the food industry, or anyone to actually spend time with. Of course, he’d hooked up with some men, but they were few and far between, and none of them were even remotely compatible with James for a long term relationship.

It drove him crazy that he couldn’t find someone who actually could care about him deeply.

He was tuned into some rock ‘n’ roll station as he drove under the moon. Some song by the Who ended, and the radio jockey came on to introduce a song from Led Zeppelin’s new album. James perked up a little, as Led Zeppelin must’ve been his absolute favorite band, and he hadn’t had a chance to listen to their new album fully yet. He’d just heard a few songs on the radio because he didn’t have the money to actually purchase a vinyl.

Robert Plant wailed “Someone told me there’s a girl out there / with love in her eyes and flowers in hair,” and James felt overwhelmed with some strange feeling, a feeling he couldn’t recognize.

It was in that moment that all his doubts left his mind. James knew that he’d find his person out in California, with love in his eyes, and flowers in his hair, who plays guitar, and cries, and sings.

The song felt like a prophecy that James was destined to fulfill, eventually.

And just less than a year later, in the summer of ‘72 James was at a low again. He was already wasted, kicked out of one club because some guy had picked a fight with him, and of course, he bested the guy.

That is the problem with straight people, he thought, so quick to get aggressive. He had just been talking to a woman about her tattoos, and her boyfriend came and squared up. As if James had any interest in a woman.

He quickly found some small, underground, shitty, hole-in-the-wall bar called Marley and Sons and decided to make a pit stop for another drink on his way home. When he went inside, some old guy was playing the keyboard and singing a ballad he didn’t recognize. He was rather sad and slow as he sang on. The place was dim and old, mostly empty.

James sat at the bar and waited for the bartender to make his way to him.

“What can I get ya?” asked the middle-aged graying bartender.

“Can you make an El Pepino?” James asked stupidly.

“Sure thing, man,” he said, turning away to make the drink.

“Reminds me of home,” he continued to drunkenly ramble on, “Kinda sounds like El Paso. El Pepino,” he repeated with an exaggerated Mexican accent. “El Pepino! It means ‘the cucumber’, which is kind of funny because when I asked for an El Pepino, I technically said ‘can I get a the cucumber?’ which doesn’t make sense at all.” He chuckled to himself as he set down the drink without saying anything. James thanked him, and he just nodded.

James watched the older man singing. He finished his first song as James sipped on the drink, waiting for him to keep singing but he took a bow and left the small stage.

Another man walked onstage and spoke into the microphone, “That was Johnny Wright, everyone,” he announced, met with some sparse applause. “The next performer is the youngest of our group tonight, at only nineteen years old, he specializes in guitar and songwriting, please welcome Quinten Greene to the stage.”

This was some sort of open-mic night, and James was about to down his drink so he could get out of this. He didn’t want to hear shitty wanna-be rock stars sing their crappy songs.

But when this man graced the stage, he found himself captivated. Quinten was tall, thin, and had wavy brown hair that fell just above his shoulders. He wore rings and bracelets, brown boots, dark blue bell bottoms, a brown belt, and a dark green, loose-fitting, button-up shirt with white and blue flowers growing up from the bottom of the shirt. His electric guitar was a shade of bright lavender. His face was almost feminine, but maybe it was just his hair and clothes that seemed to give him that androgynous effect. Either way, he made it look so great.

He smiled into the microphone and said “Hey everyone,” with such a charming, distinct, relaxed, Californian voice.

He was beautiful, and Quin decided to stick around for his set.

The first song he played was a very well-written original, and with every word that left his mouth, James became more and more entranced. It was about the nightlife of Los Angeles. His voice was smooth and powerful, and was unique. His slender fingers strummed the guitar, and he realized that the music accompanying this song was complicated, and to believe that he composed it himself blew James’ mind. He couldn’t play guitar, but he knew a lot about music, and it was no joke when the man said that he specializes in guitar. By the end of his first song, James was practically falling off of his seat.

And then it hit him. He was the girl with love in his eyes and flowers in his hair. He played guitar, he surely cried, and definitely sang. It was him. James had never been so sure of anything in my life.

Quinten sang another original, this one more slow. It was about leaving home, and it resonated deeply with James. It had been three years since he’d left El Paso for Los Angeles. His third and final song was a cover of Space Oddity by David Bowie, and he looked as though he really enjoyed performing. If you saw him, you would’ve thought that he was playing for a crowd of thousands, but it was only 10 people in that small bar.

He took a small and humble bow, thanked the audience, and walked offstage. James had to see him perform again. He turned to the bartender, feeling slightly dizzy from the sudden motion, but not enough to care.

“How often do you do these things?” he asked.

“Every Thursday night is our up and coming artist open-mic night,” he answered.

“Is that guy here a lot?”

He shrugged, “Think this is only his second time coming.”

James left after this, too scared to actually talk to this beauty of a man. But for the next few days, he couldn’t get Quinten out of his mind. He tried to blame the alcohol for clouding his vision and making him out to be better than he really was, but deep down, he knew what he saw, what he heard.

So the next Thursday, he put on his favorite wide-legged jeans, a nice, short-sleeved button up, his shiniest boots, his gold rings, and his cowboy hat. He drove his Jeep Wagoneer down to Marley and Sons’ to see Quin again. He had no idea if he would even be there, but he hoped more than anything that he’d get to hear his voice again. To look at him again.

He ordered a drink and as the same bartender handed it to him, James asked, “Do you have like a list of who is performing?”

“I don’t have one, kid. One exists somewhere, but I’m the wrong guy to talk to.”

“Well, who should I ask?”

He sighed and pointed towards the man who had been announcing all the acts last week. He was standing off in some area towards the back of the stage.

James made his way across the small bar to ask him if he could look at a lineup. He was busy dealing with some technical issue and said “sure” without asking any other questions.

James reached for a paper that had ‘performers’ written across the top, and he scanned the list. He was the second to last performer today, and as James read his name, he smiled wide.

“Thank you,” he said, setting the paper down and walking away happily.

Today, he sat closer to the stage, where the artists could easily see him, and he sat through an hour and thirty minutes of barely talented people trying their hand at performing.

Finally, his name was announced, and James felt butterflies flutter about his stomach. He didn’t know why he felt so flustered, this never happens to him, but here he was waiting for some hot guy to go sing like some teenage fangirl.

Quinten walked onto the stage looking excited and jittery. Last week, he was more calm and suave. Not that he wasn’t still cool, but today he had a much more lively energy. Maybe he was on something, James reasoned. Quinten was even more beautiful up close, purple and blue lights shining across his feminine face.

“Hello guys,” he spoke to the small audience before him. “My name is Quinten, and I’m going to play some music for you tonight….” He paused to adjust his guitar. He was wearing a light wash pair of bootcut jeans, a small black Led Zeppelin t-shirt that fell just above his waist, and the same brown boots and belt as before. The Led Zeppelin t-shirt felt like a sign.

James had never felt so silly, so idiotic, in his life. A sign? This prophecy man who had been waiting for him out in California? He was never anything but logical his entire life, and there he was, kicking his feet at the idea of fate bringing the two of them together.

“This first one is called Never Alone.”

He sang, and he was just as James remembered: amazing in every way. His voice was still beautiful and comforting. He still looked captivating, beautiful, and cool. He still played the guitar so impressively.

The first song that he sang was very personal and about his loss of faith. The concept of never being alone came from the idea that many religious people believe, that you’re never alone with Jesus on your side. James thought it was brilliant.

Whenever he clapped as the song ended, they made eye contact, and he felt blood rush to his cheeks. It was almost embarrassing how excited he got when Quinten looked down at him. He was just some local musician, some guy. There was no reason to be this flustered over a simple smile, but James was lovesick.

He sang the same song about leaving home as he did last time, and it too was just as great as James remembered. He rested his face on his hand and watched him in awe as he sipped on his drink.

Quinten ended his set with another cover, this time of ‘All Things Must Pass’ by George Harrison, a perfect and hopeful way to close off of his overall kind of a downer of a show.

When he finished the song, as he took his small bow, his head hung low, and he looked out at James again, and he smirked. After the moment passed, James realized he had to get out of there. He couldn’t talk to him, who was he kidding? He had no idea how to go about that.

If it were any other guy, James would have just taken him back to his place, but this wasn’t like that. While he did think he was hot and he thought he was beautiful, he didn’t want to just hook up with him like most of the other guys he’d known. He wanted an emotional, personal, relationship with him.

And he knew nothing about him but his name. It was a stupid fantasy.

Throughout the next week, he tried to remind himself that nothing would ever happen between them. He didn’t even know if he liked men, or what his personality was like, but when the next Thursday rolled around, and he had nothing better to do, he was at Marley and Sons’ again.

This time he sat in the back, at the bar. He was too far and it was too dark for anyone onstage to see him. He showed up halfway through the performances, so he wouldn’t have to wait too long for Quinten who went on at around 10 both nights before.

And as he predicted, Quinten Greene walked onstage at exactly 10:12, and he settled into his barstool to watch him.

Another amazingly beautiful performance that left James wondering why Quin wasn’t famous already. He sang two originals that James hadn’t heard yet. One told the story of a boy who was turned fearful of everything by a church, and the other was about being in a relationship with someone who was afraid of commitment.

Both were extremely well written. He was a lyricist better than half of the successful musicians on the radio today, even at such a young age. He closed it up again by covering a song. This time it was ‘Farewell Angelina’ by Joan Baez, which James thought was an interesting, but not bad choice.

He put his own unique charm into the song, and James had fallen in love as he sang. For the first time ever, he thought that he was in love. James never understood love when others spoke of it, but this felt right. Quinten felt right. This was love.

Moments after that realization, he felt like an idiot. In love with someone he didn’t know because a song came on the radio one day a year ago? James left in shame. He had to stop doing this. He wasn’t going to go back next Thursday, and that was going to be the end of it all. No more dreams of Quinten Greene.

But that wasn’t the end of it.

James doesn’t know whether it was just a crazy coincidence or some sort of higher power that pushed them together, but the next day he ran into Quinten.

He took a cab to a club not far from his home. It was full of people, young couples dancing. It made James kind of sick to see couple after couple come up to the bar next to him. Each guy paid for their girlfriend, and James wondered why he picked this place. It never made him feel good. He was waiting for a good song to come on when he heard someone come up on the other side of him. Another couple, he figured.

“Can I get an aviation?” the voice spoke, and it sounded hauntingly familiar, but not enough to decipher who it belonged to without turning to face it, and there he was.

Quinten Greene stood before James, leaning against the bar in a cropped Pink Floyd tank and bell bottoms. He looked over to James and cocked his eyebrow.

“It’s you,” he said, looking down at him with a smile. “That cowboy at my show.” He took a seat as he spoke.

James was speechless, and honestly a little bit flustered. He’d been looking for him for a year, and finally, they were speaking.

“My name is James,” he said, reaching out his hand. He shook it, and his hands were soft.

“I’m Quin—”

“I know,” James said awkwardly, stupidly. “Sorry.”

He laughed and smiled. “It’s okay.”

“I really liked your music,” James tried to tell him casually.

“Thanks, man,” he said

“You from LA?” James asked in an attempt to make small talk.

He shook his head, “Nah, I’m from about 100 miles North of here. Been living here for about a year though.”

“I’m from Texas,” he said.

“Explains the boots,” he laughed, using his own foot to gesture towards James’, tapping the boot as he did. “And the hat,” he looked up at his cowboy hat and tapped it with his finger. “And your voice,” he added, looking down at James’ lips.

“You know, I didn’t even think my accent was that bad until I moved to Los Angeles? But ever since I’ve been here, all everyone tells me is that I sound like some dumb redneck.”

“Well, I don’t think you sound like a redneck, that’s more deep south. You’ve got a slower, old-west, Texas type voice.”

“That’s exactly what I try to tell people!” James exclaimed. “And I’m actually quite smart, I’m not some dumbass, backward hick.”

“You going to school out here?”

“Actually I dropped out of high school,” James admitted, and they both laughed because this did make him seem like the uneducated hick he was claiming not to be. “Okay, but it wasn’t like that. I was always the top of my class, and I felt like everyone else was holding me back, and I want to be a chef, so I don’t need school. And most of all I just needed to get the hell out of El Paso. And I have never once voted for a Republican, so.”

“Well, I get that,” Quinten said, sipping on his drink. “I practically ran away from my home, even though it’s closer than Texas.”

“I full on ran away. In the middle of the night, with nothing but some clothes, money I stole from my parents, my bass, and my car.”

“You play the bass?” he asked, intrigued.

“Yeah, I can also play the piano.”

“That’s awesome,” he told James. “I can only really play the guitar, but I understand most other instruments to a certain extent.”

“You are seriously so good at playing the guitar,” James told him. “In those originals, I mean, the guitar was so amazing. I was captivated by it, by you… your talent! I mean especially the one that was about the clubs and bars and stuff. Your guitar playing just blew me away.”

“You were at that show?” he asked, and James could tell his face was burning red.

“Yeah, I’ve actually been to three of those things,” he admitted, feeling like some sort of shameful stalker, but Quinten just laughed.

“Which three?”

“Well, I was there yesterday, and the past two weeks before that,” James admitted, taking a large drink to wash away his embarrassment.

“You liked my songs that much?” he asked slyly, smirking down at James, and he started to feel warm. Maybe he had a shot with this guy?

“I wasn’t there just for you,” James said quickly, defensively, but failed to come up with any explanation for his behavior. He was never a quick liar. He sighed, and admitted, “Alright, I really did like your music.”

“Not a very good liar, are you, James?”

He shrugged, blushing down at his drink. “Not really.”

“Well, I tried to talk to you after that one time, but you were nowhere to be found.”

“Oh, yeah. I left because I was scared that would happen,” James told him, unable to really hold anything back because he was drunk.

“I’m scary?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Not at all,” James assured him. “I just got nervous. I usually don’t and I don’t know why you… you intimidated me. I’m talking to you now, and you aren’t scary at all.”

He laughed, but not in a mocking way. He seemed charmed.

‘My Sweet Lord’ by George Harrison came on in the club, as he downed the last half of his drink in one swig.

“You wanna dance?” Quinten asked him.

“I can’t really dance.”

“Then why are you at a dancing club?”

“To drink.”

“I’m sure you could dance if you tried.”

James shook his head, “I know how to waltz and foxtrot and swing, but that’s about it.”

“And where did a man like yourself learn all those high end dances?”

“Well, my parents are weird, so I went to like cotillion and dozens of debutante balls when I was young.”

“So if you learned those dances surely you can learn how to dance in a club.”

James shook his head. “I’ve tried, I’m too stiff and… and structured.”

Quinten laughed. “I know this spot, out a door of the club where you can still hear the music, if you want to go get a quick lesson in dancing.”

James laughed, and followed him outside. He put his hand around James’ wrist and pulled him behind him.

Quinten walked him through how one might dance to that song and the next, and he forced James to try it out, which ended with them both laughing. The third song came on, which was ‘Tiny Dancer’ by Elton John. Far too slow for a club, but this club liked to throw in an occasional slow-dancing, romantic song for all those couples.

James was going to sit but Quinten grabbed his hand and pulled him back. James was at a loss for words, as he held him close and swayed with him.

“Am I still scary?” Quinten whispered into his ear. James had all the symptoms of fear. His heart was racing in his chest, his stomach twisted in knots. He couldn’t breathe, could barely move, couldn’t look Quin in the eye. But it wasn’t fear that was coursing through him.

“No,” he answered softly.

Quinten draped his arms around James’ neck, while James debated putting his hands on Quinten’s waist. He reached out, but pulled back before he could.

Quinten moved one of his arms down, and took James’ hand in his own and guided it onto his waist. “There you go,” he said, as he lifted his arm again. James reluctantly placed his other hand on his waist, looking up at him, ready for him to be disgusted or to push him away.

But he smiled softly and said, “It’s okay, James.” He blushed madly, and Quinten teased, “though you knew how to ballroom dance, huh?”

“I—I do,” he replied flustered. “You’re just… you’re not a woman.”

“Very observant, James,” he said softly.

“I mean, I meant that—”

“I know what you meant,” Quinten cut him off, pressing his body into James’. “Is it a problem? That I’m not a woman?”

James shook his head, and he could feel Quinten smiling.

“You sure?” he asked.

He nodded as he spoke, “Yeah, yeah, I’m sure.”

“You’re gay?”

The bluntness of the question scared James. He had never met anyone so open about it, and he couldn’t ever imagine himself being so, but he was enamored by Quinten’s confidence. It inspired him.

“Yes.”

James usually got emotional when he was drunk, but this was peculiar, even for being wasted. He had never felt so drawn to a person in his life. He needed him in every way humanly possible. James wanted to know everything about him, about his past. He wanted to experience his future beside him. He wanted to marry him. He wanted to take him to bed.

They held each other close, and with the muffled music filling their ears, James thought about how dangerous this was: slow dancing with a man, one hand in his, one on his waist with hundreds of people behind that wall. They could get attacked if the wrong person stumbled through those doors, and yet, they drunkenly swayed to the soft music in the dim lights, and it felt so intimate. Bodies gently brushing against one another, his arms draped over James’ shoulders, James’ face nuzzled into his neck.

After the song ended and abruptly transitioned into dancing music, they both laughed. James knew that he felt it too.

And then, someone did burst out the door. He was a man, older than both of them.

The three froze, stared at each other. James’ heart dropped into his ass, thinking surely they’d be attacked.

“Fucking faggots,” the guy said, stumbling as he stood. He was disgusted, and he turned his head back to the open door, trying to get someone’s attention and turn the two of them into a spectacle.

James looked over at Quinten, who was laughing.

“Come on, let’s run,” he said, grabbing James’ hand and sprinting off. The guy called out to them as they ran, but he didn’t bother to chase them.

Quinten brought them to his truck, where they both caught their breath. “Do you want to get out of here?” he asked. “We can go smoke.”

“Fine by me,” James chuckled, too embarrassed to tell him he didn’t smoke. They got into his truck. It felt like something he’d see back home in El Paso, but they were certainly in California.

“Where are we headed?” James asked him, only knowing that they were heading North.

“You’ll see,” he answered as he drove.

“So I got into a car with a stranger, and now he won’t tell me where we’re going. Am I about to be kidnapped?”

“Oh shut it,” he laughed. “Just trust me.”

“Okay.”

Quinten smiled and turned up the radio. It was on a rock station, and you wouldn’t believe what fucking song came on.

“Going to California”.

Going to Fucking California by Led Zeppelin was playing. James smiled in shock, amazed by the song being on right now.

“What?” Quin asked, looking over at him as they drove.

James didn’t really know how to answer him. There was no normal way to explain how much that Going to California playing at that very moment meant to him, so he simply said, “I love this song.”

“Led Zeppelin's great,” he agreed.

“Who are your three favorite artists?” James asked him, staring over at his figure as he drove. He looked very attractive under each yellow street light they passed.

‘Someone told me there’s a girl out there

with love in her eyes and flowers in her hair’

“Definitely the Stones, Bowie, and probably Pink Floyd,” he explained, and James nodded.

“You’ve got good taste, Quinten.”

“And what about you?”

“Well, Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath for sure. God, my dad hated both of them so much,” James explained. “And honestly, I really love Johnny Cash,” he admitted, embarrassed by the fact. He loved Johnny Cash, and those other classic country singers, but he never told anyone that. Maybe it was the whiskey in his system, or the feeling he could tell Quinten anything, that gave him the confidence to confess this. He laughed at himself, and buried his head in his hands.

Quinten laughed, “No, Cash is great, but I feel like he doesn’t fit in much with those other two, does he?”

‘To find a queen without a king

They say she plays guitar and cries and sings... La la la la

Ride a white mare in the footsteps of dawn

Tryin' to find a woman who's never, never, never been born’

“He doesn’t,” James nodded. “But, man, my dad hated him too.”

“Really?”

“Oh yeah,” James laughed. “The Man in Black and Folsom Prison Blues are so anti everything my dad stood for, and he’s good friends with Bob Dylan. He has been arrested for drug use god knows how many times, and my dad is one of those people that thought his first wife was African American. He hates interracial marriage, even friendships.”

“Friendships?”

James nodded, realizing he was going to get deep with him, but he didn’t care. “We had this maid, Alejandra, when I was a kid, and she had a daughter ‘bout my age, and for years we were friends—which he didn’t like but had never said anything about before. On this particular day, we decided to play catch in the street. He didn’t want me seen with ‘the help’ I guess, and told Julia to go back to working with her mom, and dragged me inside and just beat the shit out of me.”

“That’s awful.”

“Yeah, I know. Texas in 1960 was not the most progressive place, but good lord, I was eight! Eight, and he nearly killed me from how hard he beat me. You noticed how my eye like closes kind of when I smile?” James asked him, rambling on.

“I did.”

“I wasn’t born like that. No, my old man fucked up some nerves in my face when he beat me, and now I smile all ugly.”

“Ugly?” he repeated, “Are you joking?”

“I ain’t joking,” His Texan accent slipped out a lot as he said this, and it made him feel stupid, as it always did.

“I find that hard to believe. Your smile is seriously stunning.”

“Well, you might be the first person to think so, but thank you,” James said, hoping that the darkness disguised his burning red cheeks. No one had ever really complimented on his messed up smile before, not like that. “After it all happened, Alejandra took me, and she iced my face. She was one of the sweetest women I ever knew. Barely spoke any English, but she was always there for me when my parents weren’t, and they usually were nowhere to be found. She understood emotion very well and had such a strong mother’s intuition that I think she’d know how to help any kid, no matter who they were. Plus her daughter spoke English pretty well and could translate if it was ever necessary, and as I got older I got pretty conversational in Spanish.”

James explained. He was never able to forget anything.

When his mom had finally gotten his dad to stop, he was bruised, aching, swollen, and bleeding from being whipped raw by his belt and feeling the wrath of his hands. James could still remember the pain of sitting after he had gotten beaten like it happened yesterday. It was strange, how his body hadn’t forgotten the sensation of stinging and burning slashes across his back, his rear. And that time, he couldn’t feel the left side of his face, but he was just eight and didn’t understand how that was definitely dangerous. It had come from his dad throwing him down to the ground. He smacked the side of his head, just above his ear, really hard on their stone coffee table. It bled.

Once his father left, his mother tried to help him up. James took her hands. His were bloody from touching his head, and when it transferred onto her skin she gasped in disgust, dropping him back to the floor.

“Ew!” she whined, “It’s gotten all over my sleeve! Damnit, James,” she complained, walking out of the room. She hardly ever cussed.

She was more ashamed than his father that he’d been seen outside playing with a Mexican, always caring way too much about their social standing in El Paso’s “high society” (whatever that was), but his father was always the one who handled discipline. In rare cases like this one, she stopped him from beating James to death or serious injuries.

He was left alone, in more pain than he had ever experienced, and so young and confused. Julia had gotten away from her mother to go check on James when she knew his father was gone.

“James!” she whispered in shock, running across the living room to get him. He was curled up against the couch, careful to keep his head off of the fabric. “You are really hurt.”

James couldn’t say anything, so Julia helped him to her Mother. Alejandra immediately scooped him up, sat on the floor, and held him as he cried. She cleaned all the blood off of his head, not caring that it got on one of her few skirts and blouses for work. Then, she had sent Julia to get ice from the kitchen, and when she returned, Alejandra held the ice to his face, so cold it felt like it was burning, but he didn’t resist her.

“Pobrecito,” he remembered her repeating over and over, “It’s okay, mi sol.”

Julia sat on the floor with them as Alejandra comforted the scared kid. Once he had managed to relax slightly, she spoke to him in Spanish, and he listened, though he had no idea what she was saying.

“Señor Porter es un buen jefe, me paga bien y me da tiempo libre, pero es muy mal hombre! Cualquiera que le haga esto a su propio hijo está loco.”

“She says your dad is a good boss, but a bad man,” Julia explained, “He’s crazy to beat his own kids.”

Alejandra lightly smacked her arm and scolded, “Vas a hacer que me despidan.”

“Sorry, mamá,” she replied.

Now that James was more aware of everything at that point, and as Alejandra lowered the ice from his face, he realized it wasn’t really moving. He started to panic as he used all his energy to move his face, but it remained frozen.

They were both watching him, concerned as he cried out that his face wasn’t moving.

“Julia, ve a buscar a Señora Porter!” Alejandra told her daughter, as she helped James up and walked him to the living room.

“No, no, no,” he whined, “Don’t get my mom!” knowing that Señora Porter was his mother.

“¡Necesitas hospital!” she kept telling, as James continued to protest his mother.

When his mom and Julia came down the staircase, he stopped crying and tried to act tough. The last thing he needed was for his parents to know he had not taken the punishment well.

“James necesita ir al hospital. Dice que no puede mover la cara,” Alejandra explained, holding my at her side.

“She says that James—” Julia began, but his mother had cut her off.

“I can understand Spanish,” she snapped. “And I think I’ll be the judge of my son’s need for medical care,” she said angrily, pulling James away from her. “He is fine.”

But when the next morning came around, and James still couldn’t move half of his face, she begrudgingly drove him down to the doctor’s office.

They had told him he had traumatic facial paralysis, and they didn't know if he’d regain mobility in the left half of his face. He managed to keep any tears down when they told him this, but he was so scared.

“You said he fell outside when this happened?” the doctor asked. His mom nodded. “Are you sure nothing else happened, that would be pretty rare—”

“He fell.”

“Well, facial paralysis usually comes from a precise, concentrated sort of blow, like the one he’s got, but this wouldn’t happen from just falling on concrete… unless he hit a rock or something.”

“Okay, so he must’ve fallen on a rock then.”

“Loretta, you know I’m supposed to report these things.”

“I said he fell on a rock, so he fell on a rock, Marty,” she urged.

“You know, if you and your kids need help—”

“You’ve known Dennis your whole life, don’t do this crap. The kids are fine, I’m fine.”

He sighed uncomfortably, looking from James to his mother. “Let me talk to him alone?” His mom left the room, frustrated and sending James threatening looks as she closed the door.

“Hey, kid,” the doctor said, squatting down to be at eye level with James. He sat on the small bed covered in paper, avoiding his eye contact. “How’d you get all banged up?”

“I fell,” he told him. His mother had dressed him in a long-sleeved shirt and jeans to cover any bruising he had, even though it was July in Texas.

“How did you fall?”

“I was playin’ outside with my friend, Julia, and I was running, and I tripped and fell on the sidewalk.”

“Was it on your street?”

James nodded.

“You know, you can tell me the truth,” the doctor said.

James knew that lying was wrong, but his mom had wanted him to lie. He didn’t want his parents to be in any trouble either. “I am, sir,” he said.

The doctor sighed, stood, and said, “Alright, kid.”

He let James’ mom back into the room, and she asked “Well?”

“He probably fell,” he agreed.

“Thought so.”

The doctor prescribed James some medicine, but they really had no idea if his face would get any better, and for months, it didn’t. Kids at school teased him ruthlessly.

Droopy is the name they gave him because his right side hung lower than the left. It wasn’t terrible like how you typically see in adults. His skin was tighter, and the damage was hardly noticeable unless you were talking to him. But still, kids were mean.

It didn't help that he was already prone to teasing, being a chubby kid, but now he was a chubby kid with a fucked up face.

But after about half a year, he slowly started to regain mobility in his face. First, it was his forehead and then his chin. Next thing he knew, he could move his mouth again. Then, he practically had full mobility in his face. The doctors called it remarkable. There was only a small area that still remained immoble, the area directly underneath his right eye. So when he smiled, or did anything that elicited squinting, only the left eye moved, while the right eye stayed in place.

The nickname stuck, though. Until he left Texas, he was known as ‘Droopy’ throughout El Paso.

Quinten took him to some strange cliff overlooking the ocean. It was secluded, beautiful, and so peaceful. The Moon was large and full, or at appeared to be. There were very few dim stars scattered around, but the moon was shining so brightly in the absence of stars. It looked hauntingly beautiful over the Santa Monica Bay.

And Quinten looked even more beautiful underneath the moon’s light. James sat on the bed of his truck, while Quinten was standing, leaning against the tailgate, rolling two blunts.

James really liked this guy.

He finished rolling the first one, and passed it to James, along with his lighter. It was purple like his guitar.

James inhaled and stifled a cough. He couldn’t let the cough out. He didn’t want Quinten to think he was some inexperienced stick-in-the-mud, so he painfully swallowed it. He was no stranger to drugs, but didn’t smoke because his lung was bum. It collapsed when he shot himself, had to be reinflated, the doctors warned him that smoking was very risky.

“This is my favorite place in all of Los Angeles,” Quinten explained, smoke pouring out of his mouth, somehow elegantly.

“I suppose you take everyone here?” James asked, feeling self conscious of his Texan accent slipping out. He had said more of an ‘I ‘spose you take eh-vree-won here?”

He shook his head, looking up at James. “I haven’t actually taken anyone here.”

“Why me?”

“I don’t know. You’re with me now, I wanted somewhere nice to smoke and felt like overlooking the water.”

James wanted to ask him a million more questions about why he chose to take him of all people here (Had it not ever occurred to him to take a partner here? Family? Friends? Perhaps he didn’t have many people in his life, but James couldn’t imagine why he wouldn’t have at least friends. He was thinking too much about something so painfully insignificant.), but he stopped himself.

“What area of town you livin’ in?” he asked.

“Well, I’ve been bumming around at my uncle’s house in Culver City for the past year. He’s cool though. Much cooler than my parents and way younger than they are.”

“Oh, that’s cool.”

“Yeah, but I’m gonna leave soon. He’s moving his girlfriend in, and I think he’s too nice to kick me out.”

“Where will you live?”

He finished taking a hit and spoke as he exhaled smoke. “My truck is pretty comfy.”

“In a city like this? That’s dangerous.”

He just shrugged and raised the blunt to his lips, so effortlessly cool.

“Where do you live?” he asked.

“I’ve got a dumpy little apartment in Boyle Heights.”

“Bet your dad would love that,” he joked, knowing Boyle Heights was the most notable Hispanic neighborhood in Los Angeles.

James laughed, and explained “He’d lose his mind, but actually I’m Mexican too. I mean, I am more European, but I’m probably a little less than half Mexican. I was raised white as hell though, even in our town made up of nearly entire Mexicans,” he rambled, feeling the need to overexplain his own identity.

“So your dad married a Mexican, but beat you for playing with one?”

“I know, he doesn’t make any sense,” he agreed. “My mom never really embraced that part of her though.”

“Well, it’s still cool that you’re Mexican,” he said, exhaling smoke.

They sat in silence for a while, looking out at the water, until James finally spoke up.

“How did you know?”

“Know what?”

“That I was…”

“Gay?”

“Yeah.”

Quinten shrugged, and pulled the blunt from his lips. “It was pretty obvious, I thought.”

“But you were confident enough to act on it?”

“You were reciprocating everything.”

“Yeah, but it’s just, I don’t understand how you just… I don’t know,” he rambled, unable to explain what he meant.

“I spend a lot of time in gay bars, so, around gay people. You just learn how to do this stuff.”

“Yeah,” he said, uncomfortably. He hadn’t ever gone to a gay bar. He’d heard of them, but he wasn’t ever sure where to go or if he’d even fit in.

“Don’t tell me you’ve never been to a gay bar?”

James sighed, ashamed to admit it.

“You’ve been in LA for three years now, what have you been doing? Farting around?”

James laughed. “I guess.”

“Well, how about tomorrow, you and I, hit up one of my favorites?”

“Okay,” James nodded eagerly.

They chatted some more about nothing of a serious matter, Quinten finished his blunt, and James still slowly chiseled away at his own.

“You don’t have to finish that if you don’t want to,” he finally said, after watching James struggle to inhale each time he took a hit.

“Is it that obvious?” he sighed, hiding his face in his free hand.

“Yeah, man,” he laughed. “You are no smoker.”

“Look, it’s not that I don’t do anything,” he explained, reaching over and putting out the blunt on the concrete beside him. They were sitting on the ground, facing each other. “I’m just not supposed to smoke. My lung is really fucked up from—” he stopped himself. “It’s fucked up, and doctors told me that smoking could make it collapse. So between being afraid of that and not having smoked so much as a cigarette since I was sixteen, yeah, I’m not a smoker.

“Well, shit, why didn’t you tell me that?” he asked, concerned.

James shrugged, “I didn’t want to seem like a loser.”

“You aren’t a loser,” Quinten told him.

Not long after James put out his blunt, Quinten drove him to his apartment, the two jamming out to “Wild Horses” as they did.

“Thank you for the ride,” James said, unbuckling.

“No problem,” Quinten replied, coolly.

“And thank you for the dance lesson,” he joked.

Quinten laughed, “I’m sorry I wasn’t more successful.”

James was now standing in the parking lot, holding the door open and looking up at Quin, smiling. He thought about inviting him in, but decided against it. He didn’t want to screw up what they had going on.

“Bye, Quin,” he said.

“Goodbye, James,” he replied. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Right,” James smiled, closing the door and walking off overjoyed.

James woke up early, despite the fact that he had been out so late. Quinten was going to pick him up at ten, and James did nothing but wait around in anticipation all day. He picked out his outfit, polished his boots and his belt buckle, washed his hair, spent a long time assuring each curl was just as he liked, and even made sure he got a good workout because he was convinced he looked better when he did so.

And by the time he’d done all this, he still had hours to go.

With about an hour left, he put on his outfit, and stared in the mirror. He looked good, but as he looked himself he bounced between confidence and embarrassment.

It was stupid how excited he was. Why did he care so much? Why did he spend hours trying on everything in his closet? Why did he make sure each item of clothing was perfectly ironed? It was all stupid.

But then again, the man he saw in the mirror looked good, confident.

At 9:55, James made it downstairs and paced around the parking lot of his apartment complex.

At 10:07, Quinten pulled up in his truck.

James climbed in, and Quin said, “Sorry, there was a fucking wreck on the 101.”

His truck smelled the weed and he was blasting the rock station.

“Isn’t there always?”

“That’s Los Angeles for you,” James sighed. The two took off, and Quinten looked over at James while he drove. He smirked.

“You look nice.”

“Thank you. You do too.”

His hair fell just above his shoulders and was perfectly wavy. He was wearing a cropped, emerald green tank, some medium-wash, bootcut jeans, and some black leather boots. He had silver rings, a silver watch on one wrist, silver bangles on the other, and his silver nose piercing.

“Sooo, are you excited?” he asked, bouncing around in his seat.

“I’m nervous,” James replied, staring at his cowboy boots.

“What for?”

“I’ve never been to a… gay bar.” The world still sounded foreign to him.

“Well, you have nothing to be afraid of. It’s fun, you’re a catch, and I’ll be by your side the whole time.”

This sentence implied two things, one that James liked, one he didn’t. Quinten thought that James was a catch, but by saying he’d be fine at the gay bar because he was a catch meant that other people would be interested in him.

When they got there, they had to walk through some strange alley between buildings, go through a door between a dumpster and a laundromat, up some stairs, and through another door.

“See this place used to be a speakeasy back in the ‘20s, so it’s all hidden. After that, the Italian mob used it for shady shit. Rumor has it that this stain outside the bathroom is a bloodstain when this mob boss shot some guy. I don’t know if that’s true,” he explained as they approached the final entrance. “But, yeah, welcome to Jay’s,” Quinten said to James as they stepped inside. He looked over at James, who was almost frozen in admiration, and laughed. “Pretty cool, right?”

James nodded, overwhelmed, but fascinated at the same time. He’d never been around so many people like himself, it was eye-opening. All the gay people he’d come across lived in disguise and in shame, for the most part, but here, they were proud.

“Come on, let’s get you a drink,” he smiled, leading James towards the bar with his slender hand wrapped around his bicep. They both ordered drinks, and James enjoyed just observing those around him.

There were all sorts of people. People with strange haircuts and piercings, overtly machismo looking men with thick mustaches, men with long hair, men with buzz cuts, men who were wearing makeup, women in suits, women in elaborate gowns, women he wasn’t sure had been born women, and vice versa.

He saw men dancing with one another, men holding hands, and women kissing each other.

It amazed James, but it frightened him.

“You alright?” Quinten asked, putting a hand on his knee.

James jumped a little at his touch. “Yeah,” he said instinctively. “It’s just… it feels so wrong. I mean these people aren’t…”

“Ashamed?”

James nodded.

“Are you Catholic?” he asked.

James was confused. “No,” he answered.

“Never at any point a Catholic?”

“No.”

“Well, coming from someone who sat through mass twice a week for eighteen years, you’ve got a real Catholic mentality.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re just so scared, so ashamed. It isn’t wrong for people like you and I to enjoy ourselves just like anyone else.”

“But what if—”

Quinten put his hand over James’ mouth. “You don’t have to be unhappy, and you don’t have to live in the shadows.”

“And what? Tattoo gay on my forehead?”

Quinten had an unamused expression on his face, “Obviously not. Look, there’s a balance between safety and happiness, you just have to find it.”

“How’d you find it?”

“Well, it was hard,”Quinten began, taking a sip of his drink. “Like I said, I was Catholic, so I was raised very much in a culture of pushing stuff down, hiding things, and just confessing and praying till those parts of yourself went away. And I always knew something was different about me. I didn’t fit in with the boys or the girls. I was always my own entity, you know?” James nodded, but he didn’t really know. “And it wasn’t until I was like fifteen that I put it together. But, you know, I’m not gay, I’m bisexual, so I thought I could just be with women all my life and ignore it. And then I read about Stonewall, got into good music, and saw how the people around me lived their lives so miserably. I didn’t want to be like that. I decided to live happily, freely, not embarrassed about who I was,” he explained, proudly. He had grabbed James by the shoulders and shook him. “And so should you.”

“You make a compelling argument, Quin,” he said, taking another drink.

“I know I do,” he said proudly. “Now, you finish that, and we’re dancing.”

“No,” James said quickly.

“You can’t come to a gay club and not dance, James.”

And so they danced, the drinks kept flowing, Quinten smoked a few joints, and James took an edible. They were both gone, on another planet, when a man who had been dancing with James asked if he’d like to go home with him. James looked over to Quinten excitedly, almost proud that he’d been asked. It was like some sort of right of passage. Quinten laughed and nodded happily for James, urging him to pursue him.

So he went home with the man, a guy about his age with a kind smile, a back tattoo, and a large afro.

It was the first time James had sex that wasn’t a terrible secret or something to be embarrassed about, and it made a real difference.

The next morning, when he woke up next to some handsome stranger, he felt a little let down that he didn’t end up spending the night with Quinten. It was Quin that encouraged him to get with this guy in the first place, so maybe he had just wanted to be friends.

And that was okay, but James was more than happy to play the long game for Quin.