Cloud Dancer

Pippa's easels were held together more with tape and hope than solid welds or professional care. The yellow warning light on number two disappointed, but didn't surprise her. The directional fans stuck. The 250-liter water tank had a bright orange rust stain from a slow leak. One docking cradle was missing its sculpting drone. This, even after she had drained her account for the parts to get both units flying again. At least they had passed the safety inspection, she thought as she called up number two's control display on her tablet.

The port fan's heating circuit said the air temperature was seventeen degrees Centigrade below zero, when it should have read about ten above. Pippa frowned, and smacked her hand against the housing. The temperature didn't change. She keyed the controls on her tablet and pulsed the heater. The feedback tracked up with the pulse, so maybe it was only out of calibration. She'd have to check into it later, there wasn't enough time to fix it here. When she won today, she promised herself, she would pay someone to fix it for her. If not, well, she'd think of something.

“Problems, Senhora?” a voice said. Pippa turned and saw Carlos Maya, looking over her shoulder at the tablet.

“Flaky heater circuit in one of my easels.”

“Bad luck for you, Senhora. You pulling out?”

"Did you ask your brother the same thing before coming over to bother me?"

"Julio? Nah, he never talks to me before a contest. I was just hoping I could get your fluff if you quit." He jerked his head towards his clouds. "I'll have to use half the water limit just to pull things together today."

"And you can't stand to see your little brother beat you," she said.

Carlos grinned. "Maybe. So can I have your fluff or not?"

“The easel should be okay,” she said and nodded at the judge's stand so Carlos would stop eyeing the easel. “Look, Mansel Reefik is judging today. I heard he's a fan of the Winters school.”

Carlos shrugged. “Perhaps. I wouldn't worry about it.”

“This could boost my career, Carlos. I just need to think up something to impress him.”

Carlos shook his head with a sad smile. “So serious. You need to have more fun. Make it your own, Senhora, and the Mansel Reefiks and Winters won't matter.”

“Says the man who has more gigs than he can take.”

Carlos opened his mouth when a loudspeaker came to life, and a woman's enthusiastic voice welcomed the crowd. Carlos nodded his goodbye and ran to join his brother. Pippa scanned the sky again; the voice over the speaker could be ignored for the next few minutes. Several ideas came to her, discarded one by one as she calculated how much heat, water, and time each would need.

Then she had it, a seascape. The ocean below reflected in the clouds. It had the duality the artists of Winters school emphasized, and hopefully she could make it look like she wasn't completely aping them. The stylus in her hand danced over her tablet as she stared at the fluff. She looked down after a few minutes and studied the contours she had drawn, and began editing her easels' instructions. She was so focused on the wind drift corrections that she almost missed her introduction.

“In her professional debut, please welcome Pippa Dianalar,” the PA speaker said.

She turned and blinked against a spotlight's glare. She waved in the direction of the scattered applause. The voice went on to introduce her competition. Whistles and shouts greeted each of the Maya brothers. The last artist, Becka, received the most applause. She had been sculpting for years, and had an uncanny talent for layering vapor density to produce half-tones that put the best modeling programs to shame.

Pippa held her tablet at arm's length, looking for mistakes, and making sure her own suit's flight path wouldn't collide with the easels or drones. She didn't have Becka's gift of layering, or a reputation that impressed judges. Neither did she have the Maya's knack for tapping into the crowd's imagination, or their rabid fans. She did have the best fluff today. If she could execute her idea, it would all work out. She erased a tunneling cut that didn't look quite right. She would just have to be perfect today, that's all.

The PA'd voice brought her out of her thoughts. “Sculptors, ready your easels...launch!”

Pippa swore and downloaded her changes.

The easels' rotors screamed as they bit into the morning air, making a keening that faded as they gained altitude. Pippa secured her stylus and tablet to her thigh, and fired her suit's jets. Her flesh felt heavy as she rose, focusing her mind on the fluff. The easels lumbered into position, and released their drones which scattered like children on the last day of school. The air shimmered around the easels as their heaters kicked in and began sending out streams of vapor for the gross changes. The drones started herding away stray wisps and building vapor densities for detailing later.

She set her suit to auto and arced towards the fluff that would become her ocean wave. She kicked out her legs and began swiveling hip over hip. Those years of dance classes her parents had forced on her had actually come in handy. Where others used a third easel for the fine sculpting, she used her suit's jets. It was a novelty when she first used it in her work, but was now part of her style.

She danced as the suit followed its flight path. Pirouettes, kick-outs, and heel-toes textured a curling wave. Kick-taps of thrust made sea foam, tufts of vapor transformed into gulls. Time lost meaning as she flew around and through her sculpture.

As the wave took form, Easel Two positioned another fluff mass and set it adrift. If her timing was right it would become the wave's crest, coinciding with the breaking light. Surely Mansel Reefik would notice that. Then she could use her win here and get fat commissions like the Maya Brothers, or deep-pocket sponsors like Becka.

A flashing red light in the corner of her eye broke her dream.

Easel Two wobbled beneath her. The unit's vapor unit vomited artificial fluff like a can of whipped cream. She dove at her easel, stopping just short of crashing. She smacked her hand against the vapor unit's emergency cutoff switch, and tried to figure out what was going wrong. One of the rotors sounded like the motor was filled with rocks. It alternated between full-power spin and dead-stop.

A crackle of static came over the radio. “Miss Dianalar,” the voice said, “Your easel appears to be malfunctioning.”

A smell like burnt toast and rusty metal came to her through the suit's filters. Black tendrils wafted from the seams in the unit's housing. Pippa bit off the impulse to shout something about the speaker's command of the obvious. She forced herself to calm down.

”Yes, Control, I'm assessing it now.” She drifted closer.

“Can you correct it?”

She chewed her lip. “I don't know.”

“We're bringing it down.”

“No!” She said, the sound coming out louder than she intended. She repeated it a little softer. “No, Control, I can fix it.”

There was a pause over the radio. She reached the unit, and started unscrewing the access panel. The radio came back to life, and a deeper voice spoke. “Negative. We're bringing it down now.” The voice held a tone of someone used to having orders obeyed. “Get clear, Miss Dianalar.”

Pippa worked at the screws. Her seascape was drifting. Time, she thought, just need a bit more time.

“Control, my suit's caught. Give me a second.” She opened the panel. The smoke engulfed her head, clearing to reveal a twisted bundle of melted insulation, frayed wires, and carbon slag. She was out, the thought. No money, no grant, no client list.

“Piece of junk!” She kicked at the easel's frame. Part of the wire bundle fell out of the panel. She saw a white-blue flash before her world went dark.


She woke up to a ringing in her ears. The easel fell end over end below her, trailing a thick coil of black smoke. She watched it shrink and disappear. The only sign of its landing was a small fleck of white as it hit the sea. She looked up, following the smoke trail.

A part of her noted that her suit had taken over and stopped her fall about fifty meters from the explosion. The rest of her focused on the mass of black smoke in her fluff. The sculpture's bottom, now without an easel, had started to drift away.

The ringing in her head went down a notch and she realized a voice on the radio was calling her name. “Dianalar! Respond!”

“I'm here.” She said. Her chest felt hollow.

"Do you need to declare an emergency?"

That would clear the airspace, possibly canceling the competition, she thought.

"No, Control, I'm fine, apart from being one easel down."

"We're going to need to take your other unit in as a precaution."

"Understood."

She set her suit to hold and stared up at her seascape. The sculpture had morphed from an ocean wave into bloated spider with dirty silk spewing from it. A spider with only five legs, she noted. A wind stream pushed the fluff so the spider appeared to be falling on its back.

Something tickled at the back of her mind. No, not a spider. She looked again. She opened her glove, and looked between it and the black cloud. She keyed the radio.

"Control, am I still eligible?" she said.

"Ahhh -- Technically, Miss Dianalar. But how you're -"

"Thanks."

She cut the channel, and looked over the fluff. Four minutes left.

She flew to the windward edge of the smoke, and looped from the center of the black mass to a smoke coil. She eyeballed the arc and contorted her body as she fought to keep exactly the same distance between herself and the coil.

"Four, three, two, one," she said and turned into the wind. When she was out fifty meters, she turned and looked. The smoke trail curved and abruptly broke off where her wake had arced and cut across. It worked, she thought, she had turned the coil into a curling finger.

"Four more to go." The countdown timer in her HUD read three minutes ten seconds.

As the timer ticked down to zero, she made three more fingers and a stubby thumb. Her legs and hips burned. Her faceplate fogged with each breath. She had to use dead reckoning to estimate length, angles, and wind drift, but it had worked. Where the spider had been, she now had a black hand, palm up, with fingers uncurling in the wind.

"Well, it ain't much," she said as the sun broke the horizon, "but it's mine."

After she landed, the event techs said her easel had something called an arc flash, and she was lucky that the concussion and electrical arc hadn't damaged her suit. She nodded at them and made the appropriate sounds, just wanting to leave. They eventually cleared other easel and let her go.

She looked at Becka's first place sculpture, a tableau featuring three of the colony's great statesmen. Two looked over the crowd, while the other pointed at the horizon in challenge. As usual, Becka had layered her fluff so that the eyes appeared bright and hopeful. The Maya's work was the crowd favorite, a reenactment of the Battle of Trafalgar, complete with billowy sails and gunpowder haze. They played to the crowd now, sending their drones flying out the tall ships' cannons. Pippa watched a drone erupt from one man o' war and plunge into the fluff of another, leaving a gaping hole in the enemy hull.

Pippa sat, hugging her knees to her chest. A black smudge in the sky was all that remained of her sculpture. She heard the grass crunch behind her. She turned to see Becka, staring past her at the smudge.

"I was sorry to hear about your disqualification," Becka said.

Pippa sighed. "I couldn't just leave it unfinished. They cited the rule against using artificial coloring agents, even accidental ones."

"I quite liked it. You turned the fluff into what it wanted to be, rules or no rules."

The tightness in Pippa's chest eased enough to let out a small laugh. "Thanks. It'll probably be the last one I ever make."

"Really?" Becka said, "You mean to quit?"

Pippa shrugged. "I don't want to, but I can't afford another easel, and can't sculpt with just one. I'll probably have to sell the damned thing to make rent this month."

"How unfortunate."

"Yeah, well, at least I went out with a bang." She smiled.

Becka wrinkled her nose. "Quite." Becka looked down at her, lips pursing. "I find it a sin for an artist to quit because her tools failed her. Perhaps you would reconsider?"

"How's that?" Pippa said.

"I can put you in touch with my shop's easel tech, Naomi. She will teach you how to repair and properly maintain your easels."

"I can't cover the costs of spare parts."

Becka gave her a lopsided grin. "I'm sure you could work off the costs by helping around the shop, if you take to your lessons. Naomi and I are always short-handed."

Working with Becka in own shop? Her words all ran together, jamming her voice. All that came out was "I -- yes!"

"Good. We will expect you tomorrow morning."

"Yes, of course. Thank you!"

"You're welcome, Miss Dianalar." Becka gave a little nod and walked off.

After she left, Pippa looked back at her work. The smoke had disappeared, leaving clean white fluff behind. Her eyes drifted over to the Mayas' sea battle. She made a few lines on her sketch pad and started up her remaining easel, sending it howling away towards the battle.

She located Carlos, and shouted. He turned as her easel passed overhead. He looked at her, puzzled.

“Prepare to repel boarders!” She yelled.


Carlos froze, dumbfounded for a moment before slapping his thigh. “We knew you'd come around, Senhora!” He turned and ran toward his brother, shouting in rapid-fire Portuguese.

Just Another Obsession - Part III

By Bettyann Moore

 

Long before the sun came up on the morning after Porpoise had his talk with his uncle, he looked groggily up from his pillow to find his father staring down at him.

“Get up!” he commanded the boy.

“Wha ..., what?”

“Out of bed, now. Meet me in the barn in five minutes!” Brian turned on his heel and marched out of the room, switching on the overhead light as he left.

Porpoise scrambled from his tangled sheets and rooted through the pile of clothes on the floor. He yanked on a t-shirt and overalls, grabbed a pair of socks, gave them a sniff and scurried barefoot down the stairs. He pulled on his boots, then realized he’d forgotten to put on his socks, so he stuffed them into his pockets and ran out to the barn where Brian waited.

Fully expecting to have some emergency task to see to, Porpoise was surprised to see his dad standing stock-still in the center of the barn. Porpoise approached him slowly.

“Dad?” he said.

 

Brian grabbed his son’s forearm and pulled him down as he dropped to his knees.

“Pray with me,” he ordered.

For the next half an hour, Porpoise knelt next to his father on the hard-packed clay of the barn floor as his mother’s chickens squawked and pecked around them, hoping to be fed. By the time Brian rose from the floor, Porpoise’s bare feet in his boots were cold and numb. He hobbled to a stand as pinpricks of life came back to them.

Brian strode across the barn to the tractor. “We’re baling today,” he said over his shoulder.

Porpoise scrambled after him, thinking, What? No breakfast first? He didn’t dare say it aloud. His father’s ramrod straight posture and the grim set of his mouth brooked no discussion.

After the farm work was done, Porpoise found himself kneeling in chicken shit once again. His father’s after-dinner apocalyptic readings from the Old Testament, thankfully, were given in the living room. When he could, Porpoise made silent appeals to his mother, but they went unanswered. Thea merely shrugged and bent her head to listen.

Thea McAllister’s love for her husband was complete and instantaneous from the first moment she saw him. She had gone into the marriage knowing full-well Brian’s proclivities. It was part of who he was and she had no interest in changing that. She had no idea what prompted his sudden and vicious denial of his nature. It not only drove him to a religious group that he would have found intolerant and judgmental just months before, but it made him ornery and hard to live with. It was taking its toll on the family. When she prayed, she was pretty sure she wasn’t praying for the same things as her husband.

In his bed at night, Porpoise tried to reconcile this new father with the father of old: the joking, tolerant father. The one who wore women’s underwear; Porpoise had no doubt that tidy whities were now the order of the day. The boy was starting to see a connection there. He was cool with the whole God thing, but having someone else’s version of God and religion shoved down his throat, that wasn’t cool.

The Right Reverend Truegood was coming to dinner.

Thea, having never met the man, had a few misgivings, but rose to the occasion. She planned on making her special meatloaf. Porpoise, though, Porpoise was livid. In the first place, the man made his skin crawl. In the second place, he had made plans to go bowling with his uncle. Brian had even given permission, then reneged, saying that the boy’s place was at home that night.

Thea was more understanding. “I’ll just call and invite Woody to dinner, too,” she told her son.

“Dad won’t like it,” Porpoise said, scowling.

“I’ll handle your dad,” Thea said. “Who knows? He might like the idea!”

Porpoise snorted. “Uncle Woody won’t want to come,” he insisted.

“Oh, quit worrying, he’ll want to come, trust me.”

“Hello? Mom? Uncle Woody is gay! He’s a “homosensual” headed straight to hell as the Reverend puts it.”

Thea laughed, then looked thoughtful. “Could be a very interesting night,” she said.

The Right Reverend Truegood set the tone for the evening by showing up half an hour early, as he always did when invited into a parishioner’s home “to catch them being themselves.”

Porpoise, hair still damp from the shower, answered the door.

“Uh … Reverend, you’re here,” he said.

“Of course I am, son!” Truegood boomed as he brushed past the boy. “My, my, what a fine home you folks have.”

Flummoxed, Porpoise stood by the open door as Truegood strode into the living room, looking high and low as if he were planning on buying the place. He had picked up several knicknacks, turning them over then setting them down, before the boy recovered and followed him inside. He noted that Truegood had dressed up for the occasion by wearing high-water green plaid polyester slacks and an unstained white golf shirt. His socks, in scuffed brown loafers, matched his shirt.

“My mom is probably in the kitchen … not sure where my dad is,” Porpoise said, wishing they’d appear. “You’re awful early.”

“Early bird catches the worm, my boy!” Truegood bellowed as he plunked himself down on Brian McAllister’s favorite chair.

Porpoise wondered if the man ever spoke any softer. Truegood settled back into the chair, hands behind his head, elbows high, as if he were settling in for a nap.

“Where’s your manners, boy,” he said. “You have any libations?”

“Liba … oh, you mean like something to drink?”

Truegood chuckled. “Yeah, like something to drink.”

“Well, we always have lemonade, I’m pretty sure there’s coffee … water, of course,” Porpoise began.

“Nothing stronger?” Truegood looked sly.

“Stronger … like beer and stuff?” Porpoise was surprised. The Reverend was forever going on about the evils of drink. “No sir. I mean, we used to, but Dad poured it down the sink. He had whiskey I think.”

The Reverend frowned and licked his lips. He startled a bit when the doorbell rang. “Who might that be?”

Porpoise thought it was rude of him to ask, but he answered anyway. “That’s probably my Uncle Woody, he’s coming to dinner, too.” He went to get the door just as his dad came down the stairs and his mother came out of the kitchen.

His uncle, sharply dressed in grey pinstripe pants and white shirt, stood grinning on the doorstep, a bottle of good wine in one hand, flowers and a wrapped package in the other.

“Porpoise, me boyo!” he said in a fake Irish accent. “Thea, me darlin’!” He noticed Brian at the bottom of the stairs. “Big brother o’ mine, you’re a sight for sore eyes.” He looked over Brian’s shoulder toward the living room. “Ah, I see your company has already arrived.”

All eyes turned to the Reverend, who stood stiffly in the center of the room.

“Reverend Truegood!” Brian said, abandoning his brother to his wife and son and going to greet the man,“I didn’t know you were here. I hope you weren’t kept waiting long.” He cut his eyes at Porpoise, who didn’t notice.

The cluster of mother, son and uncle stayed by the open door while Woody distributed his gifts. “These are for you, Thea,” he said, handing her the flowers. “And this is a little something for you, LD.” He handed Porpoise the package. “I don’t think you have them yet.”

“Oh, Woody, that’s so sweet of you,” Thea exclaimed, holding the bouquet to her nose. “Excuse me, though, I should say hello to our other guest and put these in water.” She hurried off to meet the Reverend.

“Holy cow!” Porpoise yelled, opening his package, “It’s a blue Snaggletooth and a Greedo!” The boy’s eyes shone. “Do you have any idea how cool this is?”

“I think I can guess,” his uncle said, laughing. “Make sure you put those away somewhere safe; they’ll be worth something some day. Now, come introduce me to this famous Reverend.”

“Oh, okay,” Porpoise said. The two headed to the living room where the good Reverend had his hands placed on top of Brian’s and Thea’s bowed heads.

“Geez ...” Porpoise muttered, “even at a dinner party.”

Woody made an “excuse me” sound in his throat.

With a grateful look at Woody, Thea excused herself to check on dinner and put the flowers in a vase. Woody extended his hand to Truegood.

“Reverend Truegood, I presume,” he said in a girly, lispy voice Porpoise had never heard him use before. “So lovely to meet you!”

“Lovely,” Truegood muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets and taking a step back.

Brian’s smile was automatic. He recognized his brother’s “routine,” the one they used as boys whenever they ran into fearful bigots. He recovered and quickly wiped the smile from his face. “Reverend, this is my brother, Woody,” he said.

Woody ignored the man’s reaction and minced up to him. “My stars, you look so very familiar,” he exclaimed., “but the name …” He snapped his fingers. “I know!” he said. “That drag queen group … are you one of the Truly Good Sisters?”

Brian frowned at his brother, though Porpoise thought he saw a twinkle in his eye.

“Er, heaven’s no!” Truegood said. “An abomination unto the Lord!”

“An abomination?” Woody said, hand fluttering around his throat. “Their act is pretty tacky, but certainly not an abomination.” While Truegood sputtered, Woody held the bottle of wine up to his brother. “Brian, I brought your fave Merlot.”

Brian glanced at the preacher. “Alcohol is ...” Brian began, but Truegood stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Now, brother McAllister, a drop of wine at dinner can’t be construed as a sin. Jesus, after all, turned water into wine.”

“Oh, and how I wish he’d show us that little trick!” Woody said. “All I can do is turn wine into pee.” He giggled like a school girl. Porpoise could barely contain himself. Brian hid a smile behind his hand.

“I hate to interrupt your nice time,” Thea said from the doorway. “but, dinner is served!”

Woody poured the wine while Thea brought the meal to the table. The Reverend, who had been seated next to Woody, scooted his chair away, but looked rapturous as he reached for the wine and watched Thea bring in the food.

“Meatloaf?” he said, the dismay evident on his face. “Brother Johnson’s nigra served lobster thermidor with the most heavenly baked alaska ...”

Thea stopped dead in her tracks. Had the man just called someone a “nigra” and insulted her food?

Brian frowned. “Thea’s meatloaf is famous hereabouts,” he said, reaching for it.

“Oh, my goodness, yes!” Woody cried. “I live for the day I get to eat Thea’s heavenly meatloaf. It made me what I am today.” He beamed a goofy grin around the table.

Everyone smiled, except the preacher, who shuddered. Thea put a tiny portion on his plate, while she gave everyone else super-sized slices.

It was all downhill from there. The good Reverend managed to insult everyone in the room, and many more who weren’t. He chastised the “little woman” for allowing Brian to get up to fetch the dinner rolls, insisting that a good “helpmeet” would never do such a thing. Brian, he said, needed to take the “reins of control” over his family, using force when necessary. Leslie’s collection of Star Wars figures were “of the devil” and would “turn him into a sissy boy like his uncle.” He refused to accept dishes passed by Woody’s hands.

Brian’s face grew redder and redder as the reverend’s talk became louder and more insulting (he’d drunk most of the wine himself). Each statement – each judgment – made him wince. Why had he never heard how ignorant the man sounded? He looked around the table at his family. Thea, he could tell, was either ready to cry or hurl food in the man’s face. Porpoise, eyes wide and jaw open, was getting an education that Brian never intended. And his little brother – a generous, kind man – was itching for an argument, but didn’t want to be disrespectful in his brother’s home.

Finally, during a dessert of homemade ice cream (“Certainly not on the same par as baked alaska, I must say.”), Brian had had enough.

“Reverend Truegood, if that is your name” he said, winking at his brother, “I think it’s time for you to leave.” He stood as the preacher sputtered, spraying red wine over the table.

“Brother McAllister!” he cried, “what’s the meaning of this?”

Brian reached for the man’s elbow to bring him to a stand. “The meaning – of just about everything,” he said, escorting him to the door, “is certainly lost on you. Intolerance and hypocrisy are not welcome in this home. I’d insist you apologize to everyone here, but I doubt you’d get it.”

“God will punish you for this!”

“I might be punished for some things, Reverend,” Brian said, shoving him out the door, “but not for this.” He slammed the door, leaving the man seething on the doorstep. Truegood turned to pound on the door, but the cheering on the other side sent him scurrying down the walk.

Brian did a lot of soul-searching during the rest of the week leading up to Woody’s party. He spent the evenings taking long walks with his brother and talked well into the night with his wife. Porpoise felt the tension drain from the house.

Everyone for miles around came to the party, with the exception of the Reverend. He wasn’t missed. Porpoise watched as his dad joked around with Mr. Simpson, the mailman, and Larry from the hardware store. Brian looked up at his son and winked.

“Helpmeet!” he bellowed across the room where Thea was discussing a new movie with friends, “fetch your man a beer!”

“Fetch it yourself!” Thea yelled back, laughing.

“He looks pretty happy, wouldn’t you say?” Woody said, sidling up to his nephew.

“Happiest I’ve seen him in months,” Porpoise said, then raised his eyebrows, his eyes wide. “You don’t think he’s …?”

“I don’t think who’s what?” Woody said, playing dumb.

“You don’t think my dad’s wearing ladies’ underwear, do you?” Porpoise asked.

There was, of course. a lull in the conversation just then. All eyes turned to the mortified boy who wished the floor would rise up and swallow him. Just as suddenly, the party chatter resumed. Porpoise was confused.

He needn’t have been. Everyone had their secrets.

Larry the hardware guy liked women’s feet, a lot. The mailman spent long hours playing with plastic army men up in his attic. Mrs. O’Riley, the librarian, had the biggest pornography collection in the state. Only Suzanne Westby had raised her eyebrows, but she was a writer and was already forming a new story in her head.

It wasn’t for them to judge.

Just Another Obsession - Part II

By Bettyann Moore

The basement never really existed for Porpoise. When he was little, his parents told him, he took a scary tumble down the rickety stairs and ever since, the door had been locked. When he got older and perfectly capable of navigating any kind of surface, they told him that it was his dad’s “special place,” the only area in the house that he could truly call his own, and therefore off limits for everyone, including Thea.

So, when mother and son were enjoying a rare moment alone at the breakfast table and Thea dangled a well-worn key in front of his eyes, Porpoise had no idea what he was looking at. He knew it wasn’t a car key, though having a car and getting away from his obsessive father was foremost on his mind lately.

“What’s that?” he asked his mother.

“A key, silly.”

“Mom ...”

“Okay, okay, Mr. Grouchy Pants,” Thea said, placing the key in his hand. “It’s your ticket to sanity.”

“Meaning …?”

Thea sat in the chair opposite her son and closed the boy’s fingers over the key. “Meaning,” she said, “that I – we, your dad and I – know things have been rough for you lately. This is the key to the basement.”

Porpoise was even more confused.

“Your dad,” Thea continued, “has, uh, found he no longer has a use for his basement retreat. So, sweetie, it’s all yours.”

A thousand thoughts tumbled through the boy’s head. The possibilities were endless. “And Dad’s okay with this?” he asked, eying the basement door.

“Oh,” Thea said, rising, “let’s just say that he’s eager to put that part of his life behind him.” She put her hands on her hips and as an afterthought, added: “You look so much like your father.”

Porpoise barely heard her; he was already wondering whether a pinball machine could get down those stairs, or a pool table … maybe, he thought, there was already one down there! He held that thought; they could hear Brian coming in from the barn. It was time for church. He’d check out the mysterious basement later that night.

When he finally descended the stairs while his parents slept, Porpoise had no idea what he would find. He wasn’t sneaking – the basement was now his, after all – but every time a step creaked, he cringed and stopped. A bare bulb at the bottom was the only illumination. Beneath its meager light, Porpoise stood still and drew in his breath.

There was nothing, or almost nothing as far as he could tell. There was a cot, neatly made; an old red and orange flowered arm chair that Porpoise remembered from his grandparents’ living room, next to which sat a combination table and lamp that he also recognized. He went to turn on the light and nearly jumped out of his sneakers when he saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He fumbled with the switch, then looked again.

What he saw was himself, multiplied. Mounted on one wall were various sized mirrors, some full-length, some round, some square. Ugh, he thought, not even wondering why they were there in the first place, they gotta go. He made faces at the many Porpoise’s he saw, then started scouting around.

The biggest surprise were the lockers, an entire row of numbered school-type lockers that lined the wall near the mirrors. Stacked two to a row, the lockers, Porpoise realized, were the ones that had been torn out of the middle school a few years before. He yanked one open. It was clean and empty, though he caught a whiff of perfume beneath the disinfectant – old lady perfume, not like the stuff the girls at school wore.

“Cool,” he said aloud, “I can put my Star Wars stuff in here!” He began opening and closing each one, then noticed something pink and silky caught in one of the bottom locker doors. He tugged on it, but it wouldn’t budge. The door itself seemed to be stuck. He struggled with the latch until it finally gave, sending him sprawling to the floor. On his hands and knees now, Porpoise groped inside the locker and extracted the pink thing.

“Geez, it’s a lady’s slip,” he said. “What’s it doing in here?”

He stood and held up the short, lace-trimmed slip; it was almost as wide as it was long. And it reeked of flowery perfume.

“Too big to be mom’s,” he said, thinking about how his dad could wrap his hands around her waist. He caught his reflection in the mirrors as he held the slip against his body. His mom’s words earlier that day came back to him: “You look so much like your father.” And, unbidden, a memory flashed through his head: He was small and had just learned to open doors. His greatest game was to open them, then shut them; opening and shutting and never bothering to look inside. Except the bathroom. The bathroom was mysterious and forbidden, so he had to take a peek. And when he peeked inside, he saw his dad shaving … shaving his chest while wearing a bright red strapless bra.

Porpoise got his first spanking that day and each door knob got a child-proof cover after that.

“Crap!” he said, flinging the slip to the floor. “That’s when they started locking the basement, too!”

In a daze, the boy backed up until he came to the cot and sat down heavily.

“Oh man. Crap. Shit. This is crazy! Oh my God! No way.” He kept shaking his head back and forth, trying to clear it. He had to be wrong. Brian McAllister is a macho guy. A manly man who scratches his butt and spits. Porpoise felt his world turning upside down. And what was worse, he had no one to talk to about it.

“Oh my God, Mom!” he said, jumping to his feet. “I can’t let her find out! Crap, crap, crap,” he said, scurrying across the room and scooping up the offensive pink article. He ran back to the cot and shoved it beneath the thin mattress, sat down, then jumped to his feet again.

“Not there, idiot, she’ll find it there!” He remembered how she had found his collection of Playboys under his own mattress.

He spun around, looking for the best place. Nothing. Nada. He had an idea. He carefully folded the garment until it was flat and square and jammed it into his back pocket. He stood sideways and looked into the full-length mirror.

“Crap!” It was obvious something was in his pocket and a bit of pink poked out. He pulled it out and slid it down the front of his pants. It felt cool and weird, but with his t-shirt pulled over it … yeah, that would work.

Porpoise barely slept that night. He shoved the slip into his pillow case, reminding himself over and over not to forget it in the morning. His hand kept returning to it over and over again, its silkiness somehow comforting. How would he be able to look his dad in the eyes again? Did this mean he was queer? What if people found out? And mom … should he tell her? Maybe he should talk to his dad, man to man. Porpoise snorted and groaned. Yeah, right, he thought. And all that churchy stuff … wasn’t this sort of thing, like, illegal to them? How long has it been going on? Who else knows?

He sat bolt upright in bed.

“Woody,” he whispered. “Woody would know.”

Uncle Woody, Brian McAllister’s own brother, was due at Grandpa and Grandma McAllister’s house the next day. Woody, as Brian was fond of saying, is “as queer as a duck in a suit.” Ha! Porpoise thought, and what does that make you? He lay back down to plan his strategy. His time with Uncle Woody would be limited, thanks to his dad. That was another strange thing. His dad and Woody always got along great, until now. And now he didn’t want him around hisson. Maybe it has to do with this church stuff … or the other way around? It was too much to wrap his head around. Woody would know. Woody would help.

After first rubbing the pink fabric between his thumb and forefinger, Porpoise finally fell into an uneasy sleep.

Woody McAllister, flamboyant, naughty and outrageous, was loved by all. From the top of his flame-colored hair, to his size 6 shoes (which were just 5 ft., 4 inches from that hair), he oozed drama. In rural Wisconsin, it was practically unheard of to accept, even embrace, someone so … so … gay. His flair for the dramatic brought him fame and fortune as a Broadway producer, but he came home to Wisconsin every year for one week. “Any more than that and I’d have my gay card revoked. Or get lynched,” he deadpanned.

Woody was unpacking a suitcase in the guest room of his parents’ house when his nephew came bursting into the room holding up a pink scrap of material.

“What is this?” Porpoise cried, blowing his carefully-planned approach.

“Offhand, I’d say it’s a slip,” Woody answered, continuing his unpacking.

“It’s my dad’s!” Porpoise said, plopping down onto the bed.

“Oh, well in that case it’s probably a Freudian slip,” Woody said, making a mental note to remember that line.

“Ha, ha, very funny.”

“I try,” Woody said, then saw the pain on the boy’s face and heaved a sigh. He had hoped it would never come to this. He extracted a bottle of scotch from his bag and went to the dresser where an ice bucket and glass waited. Bless you, mom, he thought. “Okay,” he said, pouring himself a stiff one, knowing he’d need it, “spill.”

Porpoise lay back on the bed, relieved to unburden himself to his uncle. He told him everything: Brian’s sudden unyielding religiosity, the Right Reverend Truegood (Woody raised an eyebrow at the name), his memory of seeing his dad in a red bra, how he was never allowed in the basement until now, finding the slip; he even told him how he was going to hide it under the cot mattress, but knew his mother would find it because she’d found his magazine stash … by the time he was done, Porpoise was exhausted and his uncle was back at his makeshift bar, pouring himself another drink.

Porpoise got up and sat down across from him. “So, he’s, like, um, you, huh?”

“Hardly, LD,” Woody said. He never called the boy “Porpoise,” it was such an undignified moniker; he either called him Leslie or used his first and middle initials. “Your dad is huge and I’m a leprechaun.”

Porpoise blushed. “You know what I mean!” he cried. “My dad’s gay, isn’t he?”

Woody glanced down at his empty glass and cursed his self-imposed two drink limit.

“LD,” he began, “If there is any story here, it’s your dad’s story to tell, not mine.”

“But ...”

“No, now listen,” his uncle admonished. “I will say this, categorically: No, your dad is not gay.”

“Then … what?”

“Again, it’s hisstory to tell, if he wants to and if there’s anything to tell, but as an emissary from the McAllister Gay Brigade – a brigade of one, I might add – it behooves me to straighten you out (no pun intended) about certain things in the broadest, most general sense. What I’m about to say is not about your dad, okay? It’s just information, okay?”

“Okay ...”

Woody took a deep breath. “The first thing to know is that if a man likes to wear w omen’s underclothes – or any other w omen’s clothing – that doesn’t mean he’s gay.”

“It doesn’t?”

“No, it doesn’t. And, conversely, just because one is gay, doesn’t mean one likes to wear w omen’s things. Some do, don’t get me wrong, but there are a whole lot of us who just think it’s silly.”

Porpoise sat for the next half an hour getting a lesson on the differences between cross-dressers, transsexuals, transgendered people, drag queens, nature vs. nurture – just enough information, Woody hoped, for the boy to draw his own conclusions and, most importantly, eliminate some of the fear and confusion he was feeling.

“Wow,” Porpoise said with no irony, “we sure didn’t learn that stuff in Health class.”

Woody snorted. “Neither did I, but it sure would have helped,” he said.

“What I don’t get is this religion thing,” Porpoise said. “And he’s always so crabby! He preaches all the time. He used to be fun, you know, for a dad.”

His uncle thought for a minute before answering. He had his own ideas about that, but wanted his nephew to formulate his own. He decided not to answer the question directly and hoped that at the age of 16, the boy could make the necessary, logical connections. He stood up and returned to his suitcase to finish unpacking.

“Did your dad ever tell you about what a mean SOB I used to be?” he asked.

Understandably, Porpoise looked confused. For one thing, he couldn’t imagine his uncle being anything other than fun. “Uh, no ...”

“Well, I was, for a while. I was also very, very involved at St. Stanislaus … altar boy, choir, manning information booths at street fairs. At one point I wanted to be a missionary, or a priest.”

“You?” Porpoise tried not to laugh.

“Bit of a stretch, I know, but it’s true. I also wanted to kill myself.”

Porpoise didn’t know what to say to that; he was more than shocked at the admission.

“See, even as a young boy I knew I was ‘different,’ that I didn’t like girls like I was supposed to. And the church, the church and everyone else around me made it abundantly clear that it was wrong. A sin, something dirty and shameful.”

“Did anyone know how you felt?”

“Your dad did, but he was cool. Your grandparents, but not until later. So, I hid it, but most of all I tried to hide it from myself. I even tried dating girls for a while. I hated it. I hated myself. I used to pick fights with other guys, the bigger the better. It made me angry that everyone else could be who they were, but I couldn’t. It was like having a hole inside.”

Woody shut up then and watched his nephew’s face while he stashed away his suitcase and tidied up the room. By George, he thought, I think he’s getting it.

“Hey, kid, you coming to the party Saturday?” he asked, when he thought the time was right to change the topic. Every year at the end of his stay, Woody threw a grand party for his family, old friends and anyone else who wanted to come. At one point or another, the whole town would be there to drink free booze and sample the catered food.

“Uh … I guess so,” Porpoise said. “Unless Dad won’t let me ...”

“Not to worry, LD, you’ll be there, I promise.” He gave his nephew a much-needed hug and sent him on his way.

Just Another Obsession - Part I

By Bettyann Moore

When Porpoise saw the white, half-moon on his dad’s upper lip that morning, he knew it would be a long day. Brian McAllister was chugging antacid again. He’d put his family through holy hell the last time, during the weeks leading up to April 15. Tax time was long past, but Porpoise knew he needed to lay low until this new crisis – whatever it was – passed.

It wasn’t easy. Father and son worked side-by-side on the family’s crop farm. Porpoise’s only reprieve came during school hours and the long bus ride to school and back through flat Wisconsin farm land. Today, though, today was Sunday and spring to boot; it would take an act of God to keep Brian out of the fields today.

“Go change your clothes,” Brian said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

“But ...” Porpoise looked down at what he was wearing. Coveralls, check. Stained, but clean t-shirt, check. Seed cap, check. Barn boots by the door, check.

“No ‘buts’, we’re going to church.”

It was then Porpoise noticed that his dad was wearing a crisply-ironed white shirt and black creased trousers. You could cut yourself on that crease. His mother, cooking something at the stove, was wearing her good blue dress and – holy mother of God – high heels. She turned then and he saw that she was wearing one of his dad’s barbequing aprons. “COME AND GET IT!” was emblazoned across the chest. Porpoise winced. She gave him one of her looks.

It either said: “Humor your dad, this, too, shall pass”, or “These high heels are a bitch!”

 

Porpoise was betting on the former.

What she said was, “Honey, breakfast will be ready in a minute or two. I hung up your suit in our bathroom to steam out some of the wrinkles. Run up and get dressed. Mass is at nine.” She gave a meaningful glance at the cat clock on the wall. It was 8:15.

Brian McAllister glanced up at his son from the Sunday paper. Porpoise turned on his stockinged heel and headed back up the stairs.

What the hell? He wondered. The family hadn’t been to church since his cousin Stu’s first communion three years before. Porpoise had good memories of the day and how Stuey had turned white as a sheet when the priest had put the wafer in his mouth, then immediately threw up all over the old man’s cassock. The priest had backed away, knocking over one of the altar boys, who dropped the smoke-filled censer, which rolled under Mrs. Avery’s feet, causing her to scream and leap out of her pew. Porpoise was only slightly aware of the commotion as the censer kept spewing smoke while it rolled under the pews and people made diving grabs for it. His attention was on the line of kids, all dressed in white, who had taken their cue from Stuey and were throwing up their celebratory breakfasts all over each other. It was glorious.

As he struggled into his slightly too small suit, Porpoise knew something was up … the antacid, skipping farm work on a spring morning, church … must be one hell of a crisis, he reasoned.

He had no idea.

Porpoise would always think of it as the Summer From Hell, despite the fact that church was at its center. Up before sunrise, he and his father toiled in the fields and barn, stopping only briefly for a quick meal at noon. They worked until dusk on most days. But it was ever thus on the McAllister farm, so Porpoise took it in stride. It was the constant church-going and praying that took its toll.

It was bad enough that on Wednesday nights and each Sunday, Brian McAllister dragged his boy off to church. Wednesday nights were the worst, with Porpoise only having a few minutes to rid himself of the day’s grime before he had to clamber into the go-to-town car (a well-maintained ʼ84 Chevy Impala) and head to St. Stanislaus with his dad. His mother was exempt from these forays, but Brian insisted that the boy attend.

But not for long.

After a few weeks of taking the familiar route to St. Stan’s, Porpoise was surprised when his dad drove past the church and continued down the road a few more miles. Brian seemed nervous and upset, so Porpoise bit his tongue, waiting to see what came next. But when his dad pulled the car into the parking lot of a nearly-abandoned strip mall, he couldn’t help himself.

“We going shopping?” he asked.

Brian cut him a look, then opened the door. “No, son,” he said, “we’re going to a new church … the Catholics are just too liberal.”

Porpoise rolled his eyes, but not before Brian was out of the car. He sighed and joined his dad, who stood surveying the empty store fronts: Lorna’s Clip ‘n’ Snip, Big Bob’s Business, the House of Cardamon and others had come and gone. Just a check cashing store, a locksmith and the Church of the Divine Comforter remained.

Porpoise chuckled as they made their way across the parking lot toward the “church.”

“What’s next?” he said aloud, “the Temple of the Exquisite Blanket? The Holey Bed skirt? Get it? Holey with an ‘e’?”

“Enough!” Brian shouted, stopping abruptly. He put his face close to Porpoise’s. “We’re going inside and you will not, I repeat, not make a fool of yourself – or me – in a house of the Lord.” He turned away and strode to the door, leaving Porpoise to follow, slowly.

Geez,he thought, is this the same guy who once put a whoopee cushion on Father O’Brien’s chair when he was an altar boy? And the cussing … Porpoise was six before he realized that the family tractor’s name wasn’t Jesus H. Christ.

He shrugged and followed his dad into the building where a dozen or so people, all old men, sat on mis-matched folding metal chairs facing a black stand – just like the one Mrs. Cassidy used in music class, Porpoise thought – where a man wearing a faded yellow bowling shirt stretched tightly over his belly surveyed the room. When his eyes fell on the McAllister men standing near the door, they lit up and he came to greet them.

“Brother McAllister!” he boomed, making the others turn their heads in their direction. “Welcome, welcome to the Church of the Divine Comforter!”

Porpoise hoped the smirk he couldn’t suppress would be mistaken for a smile.

“And this must be young Leslie!” the man said, snaking his arm across Porpoise’s shoulders and squeezing him against his massive chest. “Welcome, young man! Your father’s told me so much about you!” he said, giving him another squeeze. He lowered his voice, but just barely. “Give your troubles to God,” he said, “and let the milk of His love wash your soul.”

It was all Porpoise could do not to yank the man’s hands off of him and run from the room. He gave his father a “help me” look, but Brian McAllister was looking down at the floor. What did Dad tell this guy anyway? He wondered.

It was three (three!) of the most brutal hours Porpoise had ever spent. The man, the Right Reverend Truegood (“Yes, even my name has a calling!”), talked incessantly. Hell and damnation! Fire and brimstone! The evil serpent called woman! Porpoise sat rigid and wide-eyed during the whole thing. There was no nodding off on the Right Reverend’s watch.

The man was dripping sweat when he said his farewells to the parishioners at the door. He mopped his face with a none-too-clean handkerchief as Brian and Porpoise shuffled past.

“Amazing sermon,” Brian said, shaking the man’s damp hand.

“Thank you, thank you, Brother McAllister,” Truegood said, holding on to Brian’s hand. “The spirit truly moved inside me today, bless the Lord.”

“Uh, thanks, Reverend,” Porpoise mumbled as he tried to hurry past.

The Reverend was having none of it. He pulled the reluctant teenager to his dripping chest, once, twice, three times, Porpoise’s head banging painfully against his collar bone.

“Ah, Leslie,” the reverend cried, “I do believe your very presence inspired me today. I trust it will be the same tomorrow and every day thereafter. Bless you!”

The McAllister’s finally made it through the door; Porpoise was surprised that the sun was still in the sky and birds flew overhead. He half expected to see that the whole world had gone up in flames while they were inside. He looked over at his father, who seemed in a hurry to get home.

“Tomorrow, Dad? Did he say tomorrow?”

“The church members convene every day, Leslie,” his dad said, looking across the top of the car at his son. “And you and I will be there every day, too.”

Porpoise groaned inwardly as he climbed into the car. He knew not to protest. The fact that his dad had called him “Leslie” told him that much.

So, every evening after chores, father and son drove to the dilapidated mall and listened to the Right Reverend tell them that, any day now, they would be going to eternal damnation. Porpoise developed a pronounced slouch. When he crawled into bed at night, dead tired, he dreamed of cities in flame, hands grabbing, pulling people down to into the abyss. No more lovely, moist dreams of Mary Sue Simpson.

Then came the letter to the editor. Brian, in a fit of righteous indignation, wrote a scathing letter to the local paper, the Dailyville Weekly. He took the town – indeed, the whole country – to task for letting “young men parade around looking like sissies” and “turning young women into boys by taking them out of home economics where they belong and letting them take auto mechanics and shop!”

Porpoise’s own head sported a buzz cut, but he sort of liked having girls – girls like Mary Sue Simpson – in shop class. The thing was, Porpoise knew he could pull out the old family album any time and see dozens of pictures of his dad with long, blond locks. In his parents’ wedding pictures, Thea’s hair was shorter than Brian’s!

“Mom, seriously,” Porpoise finally whispered to his mother one evening when his dad went out to the barn to retrieve his bible, “what’s up with Dad? All the praying and manly-man stuff ...”

Thea McAllister sighed, but didn’t meet her son’s eyes.

“I think,” she said carefully, “that your father is working out a few things in his head.”

“But what things? Is the farm in trouble? Is he sick?”

“No, nothing like that!” Thea was alarmed that her son would think such things. Her mind raced. Porpoise wasn’t stupid and, at the age of 16, shouldn’t be treated like a child, but it was Brian’s story to tell, not hers. “Honey,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder, “we just have to trust that your dad will work it out. Give it time. I know it’s hard.”

Porpoise sighed and trudged off to bed. He actually looked forward to working on the farm early in the morning, though the sight of his dad on the tractor, bible open on his lap, dismayed him. At least there, he could enjoy nature’s beauty and bounty, even if Armageddon swallowed it up the next day. It was almost September, almost time for school to start. He looked forward to that, too. Before that, though, he had his uncle Woody’s annual visit to look forward to. A Broadway producer, he always brought big city fun and energy to the McAllister farm. Porpoise wondered, though, how it would go this year.

That night, Porpoise’s recurring dream where a miniature version of the Right Reverend Truegood stood on one of his shoulders and the Catholic version of Jesus stood on the other, arguing, was interrupted by shouting from his parents’ bedroom.

“No, he will not stay here!” his father’s voice thundered.

Porpoise couldn’t hear his mother’s reply.

“I don’t care if he is my brother, he is not welcome in this house ever again!” Porpoise’s heart sank. They must be talking about Uncle Woody, he surmised. Again, he missed his mother’s reply.

“Fine, fine, if they’ll have him, he can stay with Mom and Dad, but I don’t want him near my son!”

This time, Thea’s response came loud and clear.

“He’s my son, too, Brian, and don’t you ever forget that!”

Porpoise’s heart twisted. “And let’s talk a little bit about that, shall we?” his mother went on.

After that, his parents’ voices stayed low, just when Porpoise wished he could hear them.

For the rest of his life, Porpoise would wonder whether his mother meant for him to find what he found in the basement, or whether it was purely by accident. Brian McAllister had a secret, the boy would learn, and a big one.