A High Country Tale Ch. 01

"We be strokin' to that, Tevin, thanks Bra," he wasn't kidding. "Hell, it may just hit the silver screen someday, if that be OK...?" Jeremy had already laid the babies twice--- and that was just hearing the story. I imagined Cal had likewise put out to Jake, too, knowing those two. But, the true value was to come... soon.

"Sho 'nuf, big man, that be dope, now. A'ight," he was fine with just about any exposure of the downstairs dweller. Who says the way to a man's heart is through his stomach...?

Cal and Jeremy had been up to the house awhile and we had finished off our third margarita. Tevin wandered off in search of the next conquest, showin' off the wares, knowing that he would be making choices in the quick future. Three people had nearly waylaid him just in our vicinity and we snickered at the man's hutzpah.

The Juneteenth speakers had throttled the crowd up incrementally and all were finally awaiting the keynote by Lonnie Lynn, Junior. Fresh off the production of Selma, the man was integrally involved with the 21^st century Civil Rights movement, the successor of Emancipation. Austin had been lucky to corral the singer, poet, actor and philosopher into addressing the progressive enclave here.

As the stage cleared and the mayor introduced the man of the day, the guys returned. "Just in time," J-Man said, and we settled in for it.

L.R. Lynn, Jr., aka Common, wowed us by his message, espousing the essence of American ideals as embodied in the Constitution, signed into being by the Founders. The man informed us that the new generation coming up after the Millennials would be adopting that namesake, as well. The New Founders were destined to take our divided country onward as originally intended, he intoned. Toward the realization of the dream: Life, Liberty, The Pursuit of Happiness with Equality for All. Rule by the Majority with the Protection of the Minorities. In Peace. The rest of us, he told, must work for the preparation of their coming of age by fighting tooth and nail for the rights under attack by the forces committed to assailing those rights and all that remains right.

He finished as the crowd, in unison, voiced their approval. And the bands kicked it up to entertainment level. We four decided to vacate up to the house and enjoy the music in the comforts... On the way, distant chants from around the bend and down toward Town Lake filtered over the music. Jake and I diverted to check out the source, pretty certain of what we would find. But Cal and Jeremy herded us both away and back up our stairs.

"It's who you think, all right, boi's, but it's already been taken care of," they grinned. Like Cheshire cats.

From our deck, we cracked a bottle of the good red. An occasion was upon us, as assured by our men. We listened to the good music, but our ears were cocked toward the lake. Sure enough, the sounds of loud speakers bit into the hip hop song, and the gang of rabble-rousers from the bridge appeared. Nasty signage still proclaimed their twisted and decidedly un-Christian values. Crude and thoughtless discord spread their lies as they waddled toward the concert crowd. The hypocrites halted, almost directly below us. Pastor LeJeune and his wife lead them, controlling the message.

Cal toasted Jeremy as we watched their looks of pleasure. The huge HD screen backing the stage abruptly tracked, as if on cue, to a shadowed haze. The music video had changed to a very blurry image of rhythmic motion in shades of blacks and whites in time with the band's beat. As we watched, the focus sharpened and gradually grew into a large black penis plowing a pallid white, flabby ass. The crowd gasped collectively as a blood red crucifix with John 3:16 in foot high relief plastered across it blasted the eyes of the thousands present. It was a religious lesson none would soon forget. Parents screamed at kids to look away, others gawked and cat-called the hard core flick playing out before their surely lying eyes. And the band kept playing... kind of like it were planned.

The fundamentalist faction slowly became aware of the video footage and dropped their offensive cadence to gape as well, until only the pastor and his wife continued bellowing into their bullhorns. With perfect timing, the screen image flipped to a new image of the revered pastor, himself, on his knees. Not praying, but attempting to perform fellatio on the same oversized black organ. In a most ungodly manner.

The bullhorn and the female screeching accompaniment wavered and fell silent, gawking like the rest of us at the re-enactment of a broom closet hookup. The audible sounded above the suddenly pianissimo hip hop song, "Suck that, bitch, just like you always suck that big, black dick you love...you filthy bitch."

The flick faded to black and the band ratcheted up again...

***

"Hooter Man," Jeremy shouted up to the roof, "You're late! Get down here boi, quick!" He almost never raised his voice, so I knew something was definitely up. Too, he had used my uncommon nickname---Hooter--- as he did only when appealing to my intellectual side. My obsession with the majestic avian predators existed on a purely physiological plane. To understand everything about them. Jeremy had extrapolated that to the wives' tale involving the wisdom thing... go figure.

I put down my treatise by Avicenna, the eleventh century Muslim Physician and Philosopher, flip-flopped up, wrapped my towel around my speedo and stood under the mist system for a minute to cool down. My fiancé preferred tan lines and milky white ass staring at him when he was in the mood, which was almost always, so I used the beat down Austin sun rays to stay in tone. Coppertone. Smile.

Reaching the second floor balcony entrance to our bedroom, I was met by a bear hug and a face lick, "My man, It - Be - Done, Baby! We are on the road tomorrow. We're gettin' married in the morning, wassssupp!?"

"Blow me, JK... they did it?" I was astonished, even though we had been awaiting a ruling for the past three days. The trepidation had been killing us. Our suitcases and dog stuff were already in the trunk of the Benz in expectation, yet the news made my skin prickle. Jeremy swung me up over his shoulder and we took off down the stairs, both dogs celebrating whatever in their following--- anything constituted a party for the two.

Picking up my cell, he handed it to me and I speed-dialed Jake. Answering on the first ring, the two howled into the receiver together, drowning our ears in gibberish. After the cacophonous opening, we traded congrats, agreed to meet on the road at daylight and convoy to Colorado cross-country. Pitkin and San Miguel Counties were about to be changed forever.

June 24^th, 2015, C.E.... A 5-4 decision, close but decisive nonetheless. There would probably be repercussions for months or years. But the shoe had dropped. The call ended upon Jake's note that he was being piggy-backed. Code for about to be ravished...the line went dead.

Jeremy took the cue and my speedo was ripped in half on our way to the floor. We couldn't wait for the onset of the misery.

***

Three days later found the four of us ascending in a rainbow-striped hot air balloon with the sun peeking over Ajax Mountain. The pilot, a lesbian friend, guided us to 14000 feet above sea level, then resumed her day job as an Episcopalian pastor. Cal's and Jake's vows reinforced the basis for honesty and openness in everything, the rest would fall into place. Lifelong commitment was hardly new when the two soulmates had been on that road for eight years. The future looked rosy, and the boys told us of their plans for a summer in Cal's hometown bonding and reacquainting with the large family he had grown up among. Their honeymoon in Aspen had been planned as a cosseted period to acclimate to the status America had belatedly allowed them.

We all trekked together through the splendor of southwest Colorado several days later, dead ending into the box canyon that hid Telluride town. Our log home had been opened, aired, and readied for our arrival by friends and neighbors of the mountain community. The county clerk, true to her word, streamlined our license and certificate processing in the quaintly handsome, period red brick San Miguel County Courthouse, the county judge welcoming to our application.

Marise, the same presiding Episcopalian pastor to do the honors for the Marshall-Broadhearst ceremony honored ours as well, at the pond side setting outside our home. Mountain Columbine bell flowers were rife around the waterside. My denizen hoot owl, resident of the old blue spruce shading our balcony, and welcoming to us since we had moved in six years before, called out during the small ceremony at the time of mountain dusk. Twinkling white lights entangled with the bell flowers were everywhere. Neither the white lights nor the blue flowers signified virginity. Only contentment.

Our wedding eve dinner party at Allred's on the Peak matched the altitude of our best men's moment at 14000 feet, a pre-planned idea. The private party of forty toasted the life of misery heretofore denied.

Our plans were to change the ever-loving religious sufferers' self-proclaimed curse to one of positivity and optimism... it had only taken Jeremy and me eighteen years of companionable bliss to break through the ceiling.

America had taken one small step toward minorities and a huge step forward for Humanity...to paraphrase a time-honored space quote. The Kell-Cevennes family had, indeed, arrived. Sky-high.

Ahem and Amen...