Page 27 of Guitars and Cages

Huh?I thought, or maybe I said it out loud, because Rory repeated his question while I stood there with my mouth hanging open because that wasn’t the question I’d expected to be asked. Hadn’t the damned kid noticed his uncle was in adress, for fuck’s sake? Or maybe that didn’t matter to kids his age; maybe that wasn’t something they thought about or questioned? Nah, kids were the ones who pointed out even the things you didn’t want them to, their honesty overriding politeness most days of the week. So had my anger made more of an impact on him than the dress? Had seeing my reaction given him more cause for concern than what his uncle had been wearing? If that was the case I needed to get away to think before my mouth overrode common sense and I managed to skew this kid’s opinion of Alex before I decided whether I was gonna give Alex the chance to know him.

Crap, what the hell would Kimber say?

See, this was why I didn’t wanna be responsible for anyone but me: too many questions, too many choices with potentially devastating consequences. I knew what Cole and Michael would say. I knew what my old man would say. I knew what they would do to Alex when they saw him. I also knew what would have happened to me if my older brothers had ever known about Gage. I didn’t know what to say because try as I might, I could never quite be them. My gut was tangled up in knots and I wanted a drink, but this was the last place I could sit and get drunk in. I looked down at Rory, still sitting there patiently, still looking up at me...waiting.

Why was I so mad?

Why?

“You hungry?” I asked, ’cause that was easier, and at this point I was all for anything easy.

“Yeah,” Rory said, nodding earnestly.

“Come on, let’s find you some food.”

An hour later Rory was fed and we were out the door. Morgan would have bottles of liquid salvation, rows and rows for me to choose from, and a corner booth that was always mine when I wanted it. When the night ended and the place closed, he and I could talk, because in this shattered city he was the only one I truly trusted. Or maybe not, since Alex was still here, waiting in a fleabag motel room for me to come to my senses—but then, Alex was the very reason I was out here tonight, picking my way past the junkies and the whores, turning down the offers of a baggie of this and a half-hour of that, to get to the swirling neon sign that readJokers, though the blue light on the Kwas beginning to fade.

Was it salvation in a bottle that I needed, or the man behind the bar who’d been more father to me than my own, who’d known my brothers and I since we were children, watched us grow and helped guide us along with redneck words of wisdom and old-school biker charm? The mountain of a man who never seemed to age, timelessly stuck inHell’s Angels Foreverwith his hair pulled back in its ponytail and hawk’s eyes that bore into your soul.

I shoved open the door and spotted him, wiping down the bar in time to “Green River”as he sang along. Rory took off up the stairs, heading for the room Morgan had fixed up for him, and Duck Hunt with its laughing dog of doom. It was funny how well the kid had taken to that old game. I watched Morgan, and in that moment everything was normal again. I plastered on a fake grin and went over and had a seat, all bluster and charm as I slapped down a five I knew he wouldn’t take.

“Hey, bartender, Jack with a beer back and make it a double,” I ordered like a pretentious little imp.

Of course he saw right through it. In seventeen seconds he broke that fake plastic smile and gestured toward the back, toward chicken wings I could drown my sorrows in served up by ears that would always listen.

Three a.m. and the only sounds left in the bar wereSkynyrdon the jukebox, playing “Simple Man,” and Morgan washing the last of the glasses and putting them away. A half-empty platter of chili-cheese fries, beer-battered stuffed mushrooms, and fried cheddar balls sat in front of me on the counter, along with the mostly finished bottle of Jameson I’d grabbed from behind the bar when Morgan wasn’t looking. I’d sat in silent contemplation for hours, nibbling on the food and watching drunken fools make assholes of themselves and occasionally get tossed out the door. Typically I’d be doing the tossing, but tonight Morgan had feared I’d be too violent. I guess one look in my eyes and he’d known how close to the edge I was.

I watched Morgan put the last glass away and reach beneath the counter for the darts he kept there for nights like this when someone had something to say, but couldn’t figure out how to say it. I guess the steadythunk,thunk,thunkof the darts was cathartic or something, because after a couple rounds and a couple shots we always seemed to spill our guts. This was the place where Michael finally admitted he was the one who’d shot through the kitchen window and winged Dad. Funny, since we’d always figured it was Chase who’d done it, but then, I guess if Chase had picked up the gun he’d be alive and doing time for killing the bastard who spawned us; may the son of a bitch one day rot in hell.

This was the place that as adults we’d run to when we were hurt or lost or standing on the edge looking to jump. The place where there was always warm food and shelter and someone who cared enough to listen when we were ready to unload our secrets. I followed Morgan across the room, bottle in my hand, knowing I wasn’t walking straight as I knocked a table askew and bumped into a chair hard enough to topple both me and it.

“Ya fuck up my bar you’re gonna be back here in the morning fixing it, hangover or not,” Morgan said as he offered his hand, his blue-gray eyes smoldering with the look that usually preceded a lecture. “Why the hell’d you go and drink so goddamned much anyway? Told you before to cut that shit out. It don’t help none, whatever is eaten at ya is still gonna be there when you’re sober again, so what’s the point of drinking all my goddamned whiskey?”

One bottle was hardly all his goddamned whiskey, the exaggerating old coot. I couldn’t help it, I flashed a drunken grin as he pulled me to my feet and guided me across the room to the post where we always stood when we were playing. Was a good thing too, ’cause I was gonna need to lean against it if I was gonna have any hopes of hitting that board. I felt the weight of the darts case as he pushed it into my hands, and I fumbled with the catch for a moment or two before it finally fell open. Inside were the black-and-purple-lightning-bolt Piranha IIs that had been a present from Morgan on my thirteenth birthday, the same year he’d helped me build my first dirt bike and taught Cole how to play Texas Hold’em while our dear old Dad was off screwing the flavor of the month in whatever random city he’d decided to squat in for the year.

I looked over at the man who’d attended the parent-teacher conferences for us year after year, closed down his old bar to see football games and wrestling matches and battle of the bands without ever once asking any of us for anything. This was the man the school had called when one of us ended up in the principal’s office, or, when we were older, sitting in booking at the county jail. What little my brothers and I knew of right and wrong came from the man who waited with thirty-five-year-old darts in his hand, balanced perfectly, waiting for me to pay attention.

I launched the first dart ’cause I wasn’t ready to speak yet, and as one song gave way to another, thethunk,thunk,thunkbroke up the rhythm of the drums. My anger poured into the throws, harder and harder, no longer hitting the target at times but the cork board around it, angrily pulling out pieces each time I retrieved them. And still Morgan said nothing, not a word, as I paced and threw and drank down the rest of the bottle, and then threw it on the floor, feeling some measure of satisfaction as I watched it shatter, despite the mess I knew I’d be cleaning up later.

“My brother’s a fucking cross-dresser!” I finally yelled, throwing the dart wildly and watching as it smashed into one of the metal dividers and careened away into the shadows.

“Which one?” Morgan asked calmly, tossing his dart at the board and ending up in the third ring of the twenty.

“Alex,” I said, throwing the next dart a little softer now that I’d finally managed to spill what the problem was.

“Okay,” Morgan said with another calm throw, hitting that inner blue ring just before the bulls-eye. “So what exactly about it is bothering you?”

“What do you mean what about it is bothering me? Everything about it is bothering me—he’s my brother, for fuck’s sake, and he’s gone and had some operation that’s given him breasts, and he showed up on my fucking doorstep looking so much like a goddamn woman that I was contemplating fucking him before I realized he wasn’t a fucking woman.” I griped as I threw, hard again, sending another one careening into space.

Morgan chuckled; he actually had the nerve to chuckle while I stood there and fumed.

“So is it what he’s done to himself that bothers you, or the reaction you had to him before you realized it was him?” Morgan asked as he calmly nailed the bulls-eye and then turned his eyes toward me, no doubt to observe the expressions that crossed my face.

I felt my cheeks grow red, and I glared, because I didn’t want him to know how close he was to the truth.

He knew anyway. He always seems to know.

“Sounds to me like he’s not a cross-dresser, but a transsexual. Pretty sure the two are different, anyway,” Morgan added with a shrug. “Doesn’t matter; blood is blood.” He had the stern look on his face that he reserved for those moments when he felt one of us was doing our best imitation of a jackass. “If he’d lost an arm he’d still be your brother, so what difference does a pair of tits make?”

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