Brothers in Arms

"Tha's different!"

"How? How is it different? You think I'm queer? You think I've done this before? How do I

know you're not the one whose queer. Maybe you were laying there just waiting for me to do something. And I didn't see you jumping up and running away screaming. Look, if I hurt you, pissed you off, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to offend you, to hurt you. If anyone had told me a few weeks ago that I would touch another guy. . . like . . . you know, like that, I would have punched him. But these last weeks, being with you. The feelings I been having about you. I don't know. I don't know anything. You were just lying there looking so. . . so. . . beautiful, I just reached out. I ... I just couldn't help myself." Sean reached out and grasped Prest's shoulder, turning him to see his face.

"Damn you Sean McFadden! Damn you to hell!" Tears were streaming down Preston's face. "Why the hell did you think you had to rescue me? Ah would'a been okay. Ah would'a been jes fine. Now what am Ah gonna do. Ah gotta girl back home. How am Ah gonna? . . . I mean now that ya. . . . now that I . . . You think Ah ain't had feelings? You think Ah haven't wanted to . . . to. . . Oh Hell! Just Fuck you Sean, Just fuck you!" Preston turned away and ran off toward the Reagan farmhouse.

Sean stood there in the gentle shade by the running stream, the afternoon sun warm on his shoulders. Birds chirped merrily in the trees, the peace and serenity of the setting belying the storm which raged within him. He never wanted this. He made his way slowly back to the farmhouse that had been their refuge for so many weeks. He had really done it now, screwed up everything. Preston would probably never talk to him again. What would he do? Where would he go? Things could never be the same now that he had, well, done what he had done. But if he wanted it so much, if it felt so , so good, how could it be wrong? And he knew that really, down deep, Prest had wanted it too. Didn't he? Well, damn it, didn't he? He guessed that was what it all boiled down to. Did Press really want it? And if so did he know what he wanted. Would he admit he wanted it too? Why did life have to be so fucked up? All he wanted was to love, to care, and to have someone love and care back.

As he crested the small hill, Mrs. Reagan was clanging the bell to announce supper. For a moment he forgot his troubles, for the hunger of the past several weeks still stayed with him, gnawed at him. He hurried forward to supper.

All through supper and the pleasant chat by the fire afterward, Prest had been glancing at him with a dour, unreadable look on his face. At dark,the two boys lay alone in the loft of the Reagan's barn. The silence was loud and accusing in Sean's head. Had his actions earlier ruined his friendship with Press forever? Aside from "that" (whatever it was that was happening to him), or maybe because of that, but also because of the trials and terrors and hardships they had suffered together, It was a friendship Sean had grown to treasure. He decided to sound out his friends feelings.

"Hey. Hey Prest?"

"Yes. What?"

"You ever going to talk to me again?"

"Maybe not."

"You going to at least tell me why not?"

"Ah think ya know that."

"No. Not really. What did I do that was so bad?" Sean at least had Prest talking now, maybe he hadn't lost him yet.

"Ya know, ya never have no thought for no one else's feelin's. Ya just barge ahead and do whatever ya want. Maybe think later."

"Well, yeah, that's what I did when I stuck my neck out to save the life of a no-account Reb."

"And ya ain't never gonna let me fergit it are ya?"

"I hope not."

"Well, ya know what we, Ah mean you, did back there at the pond earlier, ya know. AH mean Ah ain't never even done that ta myself. I was brung up right. I was taught it was a sin ta do all that stuff. Ah ain't even never done nothin' more than kiss ma girl Jennie . We was supposed ta be keepin' ourselves fer marriage. Now look what ya gone and done. Nothin' ain't never gonna be the same again. Nothin' ain't never gonna be right again."

"I sincerely hope not," Sean replied.

"Now wha'd'ya mean by that?"

"I mean if we were doing what was 'RIGHT', what we are supposed to do, what everyone except Mrs. Nixon says we are supposed to be doing, we'd be killing each other. In my way of thinking, THAT would be the real sin. I don't believe in 'sin' any more. I have already been to hell out there on that battlefield. And what I did with you earlier is the closest I have yet come to heaven.

My God Prest, can't you see it? Can't you feel it? Don't you know we love each other with the kind of love only two people can have who have been through hell together? That night, the thunderstorm, remember, you in my arms?"

"Ya mean love each other like in love? Hell we can't be that we are both men. That'd be. . . Well that'd mean we was, you know, queer, homosexual er sumthin'. How could that be?"

"I don't know. Do you think I have ever thought of myself that way. Well, I haven't. But I don't know what you call it. I don't care what anybody wants to call it. I just know I can't see myself living the rest of my life without you. How about you? Could you just walk away tomorrow and never see me gain? Well?"

The long pause was excruciating for Sean. How would Prest answer? His heart began to ache with the thought that his friend might give the wrong answer. Or maybe the wrong answer would be the right answer for his life. What was he getting himself into? Where would they go? What would they do? How would they live? Would there be a 'they'? Should there be?

"Well, listen Sean. Certainly Ah've grown ta care fer ya a whole lot. And sure Ah want to stay with you. But Ah thought maybe jes as friends, not that other thing."

The loft was so quiet during the long interval while Sean composed his answer, that the two boys could hear the hay shuffling in the breeze that blew through the cracks in the old barn.

"Preston Dalton, I think you are a liar. I think you are lying to me and to yourself. How many times have I caught you looking at me, at my body, at my penis, my PRICK? How many times have you said to me in a half-joking manner that you would like to feel how heavy it is? This afternoon while we were swimming, how many times did you rub up against my body 'accidentally'? How many times did I see you start to reach out to touch it and pull your hand back? How many times in the months we have been together have you taken a piss at the same time as me, just to look at me, at it? Are you going to deny it to my face or admit it to yourself?"

Even in the darkness, Sean could see the other boy blushing. When Preston finally got his voice back, when the blushing and stuttering subsided, Preston said, "Ah know it Sean. Yer right. Ah have them funny feelings. Ah cain't keep the picture of yer huge 'thing' out of my mind. But thinking ain't the same as acting and now we have sinned together. You made up ma mind fer me before Ah ever got to think about it, sort things out. And. . . and Ah don't know what to think now. What is my . . . er . . . our life gonna be like now? Ah can't imagine living like. . . you know like. . .that. Ah just don't know."

"Well, Prest, I know how I feel. I love you. I can't sleep for thinking about you, about being with you, holding you. I don't know where these feelings come from, where I am going with them. I never had them for anyone else, not even for all those girls I have slept with. I just know that anything so beautiful as what I feel for you can't be bad. And that I'd be willing to put up with almost anything to be with you, to stay with you. Maybe we could pretend to everyone else that we are brothers or something like that. Please take your time, take some time think it over, but please don't say no to me, to our lives, together."

end of part one