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Stonewall: Stories of Gay Liberation 157

Behind his eyes, he smiled and opened his pores to the sun.
Energy flowed into him. Sweat beaded on his chest, grew to a rivulet,
and inched down his side. A fly buzzed, circled, landed, sampled.
Cameron felt its feet gigantic on him, treading up and down in place,
the way Ada’s cat at night often stood atop the blankets padding its
paws up and down on his chest as if he were so much dough to be
kneaded. He relaxed into the fly, tried to become the fly, but finally
the itch was too much. Eyes still closed he swatted, missed, and had
only his own sweat to lick from his hand. The fly landed again. This
time it marched strangely across his chest. A bead of sweat headed
fast down his belly toward the pool in his navel. He opened his eyes.
“About time,” said the figure silhouetted against the sun.
Cameron was momentarily blinded. Startled. The man had been
tickling his belly with a stalk of mountain grass.
“Curtis!” Cameron said. “You’re late.”
Curtis brought the stem of grass to his mouth. He bit off the
end and smiled. “I like to talk to people when they least expect it.”
He spit out the butt end of grass. “Guess you’d say I’m strange.”
“Curtis,” Cameron said putting his feet on the ground, “you’re
more than strange.”
“Come with me,” Curtis pointed partway down the slope.
“We can talk better down at the old Tam Railway Station. My car
is parked over by the lovely hippie.” He climbed uninvited on the
motorcycle. “You can drive us down,” he said. The straw twitched
between his teeth.
“So get off so I can start it,” Cameron said pulling on his shirt.
Curtis obeyed.
Cameron kick-started the bike into roaring life. “Okay,” he
said. “Get on.”
Curtis swung his leg across the machine. “Where do I hang
on?” he asked.
“Sit on your hands,” Cameron said. “Don’t play so dumb.”
“It’s time we talked,” Curtis said. “Really time.”
“About what?”
“About Ada.”
©Jack Fritscher, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved
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