Summer of '03

It was the summer of ’03 and my mom had had enough of my shitty behavior. She told me if I didn’t straighten up my act that she’d send me to live with my granddad on the ranch. I thought she was playing. I remember the expression on her face as I boarded the train to Thackerville, Tennessee for the old folks home. I had never really spent a ton of time with my granddad beyond the occasional birthday visit or weird Christmas present he’d send. Who likes taxidermy? I don’t even know where the hell Thackerville is. Before leaving, my mom told me that he was a kind man who I should get to know better but I’m not sure I believe her. She thinks she’s a nice woman and we both know what isn’t true. But either way, I'm on the train, headed to a place I know nothing about, to meet a man I really know nothing about. But I will admit, part of me is curious.

The train docked at the station a few hours late. We had so much engine trouble on the track. When I arrived, it was dark, with just a single street lamp on to illuminate the station. It didn’t do a very good job. As I hopped off, I saw him. He was rather short, but handsome in a strange way, kind of like a dusty county-looking version of Ryan Guzman, if Ryan Guzman was a dusty country kind of guy. I reached for my bag underneath the train door and his hand intercepted it for me.

“This yours?” he asked with that twangy southern draw.

“Yea, that’s me.” Our eyes locked for a moment. Then he handed me my bag and moved on to help the next person.

At that moment, I hear honking in the distance snapping me out of my daydream. It was my Granddad.

“Get in, Skip!” he yelled from across the street. I hate that fucking nickname but of course, I’m not going to tell him that. He’s old and I don’t want to be responsible for the death of an old man. I throw my bag into the back of his 1978 pickup truck which at this point needs to be retired. It's missing light and a mirror for fuck’s sake but I hop into the cab.

“Careful not to slam it too hard, the…” the moment I closed the door, the other mirror popped off… “mirror might come off. Awe, fuck it. How have ya been Skip? Are you excited to spend the summer with me? We’re doing some fun stuff, like refurbishing the barn, I’ll show you how to milk a goat, we can go…”

His words faded from my hearing because I was too busy staring at the baggage guy from the train. I was almost sad to leave for the ranch. Eventually, after about an hour of silence mixed with awkward small talk on his part, my Granddad- Pete- gave up. We rode the rest of the way home with the radio on. A station that only plays Christmas toons, year-round. I could fight Mariah Carey for that one song. People act like it’s the only Christmas song that was ever made.

We eventually pulled up to the farm. It's decrepit. Looks like a widower lives here so it only makes sense it's where my granddad lives. My Grandma didn’t die though, she left him for some young insurance salesman down in Florida. Now he lives here, alone. I lug my bags into the house and up to my mom’s old bedroom. I thought it would look like a girl's room, all pink and princess out but it had rocker shit on the walls and a poster of some pageant queen with her eyes crossed out. Who knew mom was a rebel?

As I was unpacking my things and knocking the dust off her old dresser, I caught my granddad standing in the doorway watching me. “You look so much like her'', he said.

A look of confusion splashed across my face. “If she was a boy, you know.”

“Yea Pete, I know what you mean.”

“Well dinner’s ready downstairs whenever you’re settled”, he said with a hopeful tone.

“I’m really beat because of the train ride. Plus, I’m not very hungry, so I think I’ll pass.” I could see the light fizzle out in his eyes but I didn’t care much. He waved and went back down the stairs to eat dinner alone I’m assuming. I simply hopped on the bed, looking up at the stars my mom taped to the ceiling, dreaming about the hot baggage guy from the station until I drifted off to sleep.

SPLASH! I woke up to a big ass bucket of ice-cold water being doused on me. I wish he would have let the ice melt more because that shit hurt.

"Get up. We don't sleep past 6 here."

Coughing up a lung because I've just been waterboarded. "What happened to the old man that wanted to feed me dinner last night?"

"You didn't want to try it the nice way."

"Well, now I see why mom ran away..."

"And why did she send you here?" He said with a smirk. "Now dry off, you're milking goats today."

After a much-needed hot shower, which was more like a lukewarm sprinkle, I donned my outfit for the day and headed downstairs. I had assumed that because he made dinner last night, he'd make breakfast in the morning. I was wrong. All that was left on the counter was a glass of goat milk and a note saying to come around back. I tried the milk. Ew.

I rushed out the back door to find Pete standing outside the barn with two goats tied to the post. It smelt like shit. Goat shit but that didn't seem to bother him. Reluctantly, I stepped over the many piles of dung to make it to the barn. My mom didn't tell me that I should've brought shoes that I didn't care about getting dirty and covered in poop. Those were limited edition 1998 converse in mint condition. Ruined. But Pete didn’t care.

“You’re supposed to have on real men's boots like Hero.”

“Who the hell is Hero?

Pete nodded for me to turn around.

“It’s actually Hector, but everybody calls me Hero,” he said with a smirk and a gleam in his eye. As he took off his hat the sunlight caught the wavy texture of his hair just right.

“Hey, you’re the baggage boy!” I smiled.

“And you’re the city slicker”, he smiled back. My smile quickly became a scowl. As he walked toward my Grandpa Pete, he patted me on the shoulder. I’ve never known for a touch to feel so heavy yet so light.

“Well, I’m headed into town to pick up some feed for the horses. Hero will show you how to milk the goat. Now be careful, Rudy is sensitive and if you pull too hard she might kick you.” He said all of this in the distance as he made it back to that raggedy-ass pickup truck. So I really didn’t hear much of what he said. Plus, for some strange reason, I found myself staring at the baggage boy. The sound of the truck revving to life and Hero snapping his broad fingers into my ear startled me.

“Earth to weirdo!” he snapped again. I checked back into reality. “You see how I’m doing it? Now you give it a try.” He had an accent. It wasn't like Pete’s though. I could tell he’d come from somewhere else. He was trapped in this small town like me.

I tried remembering the visual as best I could. So I grabbed the little fat pink tit of the goat and started yanking. Ruby rose forward and hee-haw-kicked the shit out of my chest. I guess I pulled too hard? Winded and in tears, I struggled my way back to the house for some ice and a breather. I could hear him laughing at me the whole time. Just made me feel more embarrassed. "You city slickers are something else!" he chuckled.

When I get inside I dart for the kitchen. I checked the freezer for Ice but of course, Pete didn’t have any. So I grabbed a frozen, Ziploc-wrapped raccoon head instead. Hero barged in, wiping tears from my little comedy act.

“Are you alright?” he asked while trying to bite down on his next chuckle. I simply scoffed and held the raccoon's head to my chest with the eyeballs facing me.

“Here, you’re doing it all wrong”, he uttered as he made his way over and took the head from me. “You have to put the flat part of the skull on it, to cover the wound better. Plus it's not as creepy as with the eyes facing away.”

We shared a grimace as he held it there. He insisted that I was too much of a weakling to apply the right amount of pressure so he’d do it for me. There was a charge when he touched me. It was subtle but electric and the look in his eyes calmed my hysteria.

There we stood in the kitchen having a genuine conversation while he pressed a raccoon head to chest. I found out some interesting things about him that day. He used to live in Montana until his dad died in an oil rig accident so he moved down to Thackerville with his Aunt. I asked about his mom but he didn’t feel like talking about her much. His favorite candy is any with caramel in it and the only regret he’s ever had was not seeing his dad for the last time before he died.

I was surprised he’d opened up to me so freely. He said it was because “there’s something about you that makes me feel like I can be honest you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” I replied with a whisper.

When Pete returned, to his dismay, we hadn’t finished milking Rudy. Instead, we had talked the day away. He was planning on using goat milk to make alfredo that night, so we had to settle for spaghetti instead. I offered Hero a place at the table but he declined. Apparently, he had a curfew and was already breaking it.

The night rolled around as I lay in bed tossing an old baseball up and down. The shitty part about the farm? No Wi-Fi and no signal. So this old baseball was the only thing I had to entertain myself with until I heard a pebble hit the side of the house. I didn’t pay it any mind at first until it kept happening so I made my way to the window. There he was. No shirt on, just a jacket and his jeans. In his defense, he didn’t need a shirt. I opened the window with a crack.

“I thought you had a curfew.”

“My aunt is tripping. Can I sleep here tonight?”

So many thoughts ran through my mind but the main one was, are we having a Shakespeare moment right now? Well, when in a play right?

I waved for him to come up. No surprise that he made quick work of the spruce outside my window. I told him to try not to make so much noise. I didn’t want Pete to wake up.

He browsed the room, picking up small trinkets of my mother's and sitting them back down. I made myself scarce on the other side of the room. I didn’t want him to feel like I was encroaching on his space. He sat down on the bed staring at me. Not uncomfortably. It was a soft look.

“It’s pretty late”, he said. “We should get some sleep. You don’t mind sharing, do you?”

I wasn’t sure what the look on my face was telling him but my mouth uttered “sure, we’re all boys here right?”

“Yeah, we are'', he said with a chuckle. “Ah, this jacket is killing me.” Hero wasted no time peeling the leather from his torso to reveal what three years of living in a Podunk town with nothing to do but hurl belles of hay had done for his body. I winced as he climbed into my mother’s bed and held the covers open for me to join.

“It gets cold at night down here” he whispered.

Reluctantly I ushered myself into the bed with him and lay on my side facing away from him. I didn’t want anything to poke him during the night. I could feel his body heat radiating toward me. Almost as if I was being engulfed by his energy. For a moment I felt like I could feel his eyes boring into my soul but I didn’t dare turn to look and see if he was watching me.

Can I tell you something? I whispered.

"Anything," he sighed.

"I don't always...feel like a boy." There was a long pause. The silence made me nervous. Then he said with his soft lips brushing the back of my neck, "it's okay, we're all a little complicated." I exhaled. Eventually, I found comfort in the thought of him lying next to me and drifted off to sleep.

When I woke the next morning, I found no one laying beside me, just an empty plot of sheets that still smelled like him. Strangely enough, I felt a bit broken, like last night was merely a figment of imagination that I’d let become all too real. But there was no use in sweating it.

I smelled bacon frying downstairs and with a grumbling tummy hurried to fix myself a plate. When I reached the bottom of the stairs I found him in the kitchen cooking breakfast with Pete, with nothing on but some bootcut jeans, and a towel over his shoulder.

“Look who came by early to cook us breakfast”, Pete hollered.

Came early? Staying late is more like it. I went with the flow. It's not like anything happened last night. Breakfast was surprisingly good. I remember him telling me that cooking was the one thing he did pick up from his mom. Looks like she taught him well.

“The fence outback needs a new coat of paint. You boys can do that today”, Pete demanded as he burped up the last of the sausage. To be honest I wasn’t excited about having more alone time with Hero because I had no idea what was going on last night. He just smiled as he scooped more pancake batter into the skillet.

Side note: Pete didn’t think it was strange at all that the 20-year-old guy from down the way was cooking breakfast in his kitchen shirtless? I digress.

After breakfast, Pete slapped two paintbrushes in our hands and pushed us out back. Told us that the game was on today and it's playoffs so don’t disturb him unless we’re being hunted by wild boars.

So outside we were in the heat of the day, brushing each post up and down, covering them in cherry red paint. I looked down the line to discover that though we were out there for hours already we’d only gotten the first ten posts painted and there were 2 more miles of posts to go.

We found ourselves right outside the window of the living room peering in to see Pete spectate the game. He seemed really into it. As I stood there watching him take in a simple pleasure, I felt something rub against the back of me. Quickly I turned to see that not only was Hero shirtless but he was caressing my butt with his strong hands.

I quickly moved away, uncertain as to why he was doing such a thing. He didn’t speak. Just drew closer to me. Closer and closer until he was merely an inch away from my lips. I hesitated. I tried backing away but he quickly grabbed the back of my head in his palm and pressed our lips together.

‘What are you doing?” I tried to utter but the moment overtook me. Though parts of me wanted to run away, most of me was intrigued to stay. I kissed him back. At that moment, I knew what the spark was in the kitchen that day. This is what I was longing for.

Soft, light kisses quickly became faster and more aggressive as he reached to unbuckle my wrangler bootcut jeans. It was as if he couldn’t get them unbuttoned fast enough. I could feel his strong arms as they pressed me against his rock-hard body. Is this what heaven feels like? Nah, but I’m sure it's pretty close. Suddenly, he turned me away from him and made me bend forward. I could feel his package rubbing between my cheeks. And then pressure.

“Wait!” I screamed.

He bent forward and whispered in my ear, “please?”

I braced myself for the pain which was a searing insurrection but surprisingly turned into pleasure and pressure. I could feel him inside of me stroking away. He even varied the speed. Soft and slow, hard and fast, gentle but rough. Moans bellowed from his chest each time his pelvis smacked against my ass. Was I really doing this? He spun me around and hiked my leg on one of his shoulders pressing my back against the post wet with paint, but I didn’t care. As he thrust and thrust I could sense his body convulsing into mine and then…

“AHHH!” I screamed, “What the fuck?” A splinter had found its way into my ass cheek. He immediately stopped to look at my wound but it was covered in cherry paint.

“Are you okay?” he asked,” we’ve got to get that out. Sorry”.

I tried to pull up my jeans but they were too tight so every step felt like it was pushing the splinter further and further in. We eventually made it into the kitchen and Hero helped me onto the table. He pulled my jeans down just enough to expose the area where the little wooden needle had penetrated. I guess I got double penetrated on my first time. As he washed away the paint with a rag, he gently delivered soft kisses around the wound.

“Does that feel better?” he asked sensually.

“It does. But I still have a splinter in my ass cheek and someone needs to get it out.” I replied.

Pete entered the room to discover me laying on the kitchen table, ass-out with Hero rubbing paint off.

“What the hell is going on here?” he demanded.

“I got a splinter in my butt.” That is all I could say. The look on his face cracked me in two.

“And how did that happen…” Before he could finish the question, Hero interjected.

“We were horse playing and I pushed him against the fence too hard. Sorry.”

Pete didn’t seem to be buying it but nonetheless proceeded to grab his reading glasses and a pair of old rusted tweezers from the bathroom. It hurt like hell. Part of me wonders if he had already gotten the splinter and was just digging into my cheek to teach me a lesson. Either way, I soon felt relief and then the sting from the 91 percent alcohol he rubbed on my wound.

“Well, I should get going. I’m sure my aunt needs me for something. Today was fun, I’ll catch you guys later.” He waved off with his hat and disappeared from the kitchen. I lay there in awe for a moment.

“Get your naked ass off my table and get the bleach” were Pete’s last words before returning to the game.

Hero had unlocked something in me, and I in him. Over the rest of the summer, we had many stolen nights and rendezvous right under Pete’s noise. Though we made sure from then on the work got done before we played around, those were the best moments of my time on the farm. It wasn’t just sex, it was more. Each time we took part in each other, he would open up more and more to me about his past.

One night I was laying in bed looking up at the hole in the ceiling like I always do before drifting off. Hero made his way into my room and climbed into the bed with me. I could feel his breath pulsing on my neck in a steady rhythm. He brushed my hair away from my face as he nudged me to face him. He gently rubbed my cheek as we stared deep into each other's eyes. It was my last day on the farm. My mom would come to retrieve me in the morning so this was the last moment we’d have to express ourselves. He parted his lips and spoke softly.

“I figured it out. What it is about you that makes me feel like myself,” he winced. “You never judged me. Just let me be.” His eyes watered but I could tell he wouldn’t allow those tears to fall.

And as I kissed him passionately, the hole in the ceiling above my bed began to leak. And a leak became a pour as the skies had opened up and rained their love down upon us. He took me right there, wet and all beneath the dripping ceiling. The winds roared outside my window but the only thing that mattered to me was uniting my body with his. Each thrust brought a new raindrop from above caressing our bodies as they rolled to the sheets. I was drowned in his love. Gasping for his touch.

By the time day had broken, he was gone. All that lay beside me was a note distressed from the rain shower. It read:

Hey Slicker,

There are many things I wish I could tell you before our time ends but I am afraid that I only have time for a few more. So here they are.

First, I’ve never opened up to anyone about my mother and me. She wasn’t the best lady and I often thought people would judge her for not knowing how to be a mom, but you never did. I know she let me go because it was best for both of us. You helped me realize that love doesn't always mean sticking around, sometimes giving space is the best gift a parent can offer. I’ll work on forgiving her as you forgave yours. But it'll take time. I might even search for her one day. Maybe I’ll let you know how it goes?

The moments we’ve spent together this past summer have been the best days of my life here in Thackerville. I’ll cherish them. Who knew a city slicker would change my view of the world? Who knew I’d fall for a girl? boy? Another human that could show me such affection. I’ve never been treated with kindness before. I’m sorry we couldn't be more open about it but I’m really scared of your grandpa. He keeps a shotgun loaded in the kitchen. I am grateful for every stolen moment we’ve had this summer. I’ll replay them when I’m sad or lonely.

Lastly, I’m taking your advice, there is more of the world for me to see so I’ll do just that. Since my aunt got a new job in the city, it’s a chance to start over and become a city slicker like you. She wants me to finish school out there so I can get a scholarship to another country or something. I don’t know if it’ll work out but meeting you this summer makes me believe that anything is possible. Even falling in love. So I’ll be counting the days until I get to see you again.

You’re my hero,

Hector

His words brought me to tears as I read them. Surprisingly eloquent for a country boy. When my mom drove up to retrieve me that day Pete stood in the front doorway spitting chew in a can. I know gross but it's his life. I was excited to see my mom for the first time in a long time. Before he let me out of the house to hug her, he placed his arm around me and "Okay Skip, this is it. It's been one hell of a summer. I'm going to miss you. Just make sure you treat your mother right, it's been a hard time for her after your dad left. She needs you." I nodded yes and grabbed my bag. "And one more thing, make sure you write to Hero, I know he'll be missing you something fierce. It's not every day you find love on the farm."

My jaw spazzed open. "You knew?"

"Of course! But who am I to stand in the way of young love? just make sure you remember him because I've never seen him happier than when he was with you." I gave Grandad Pete the first and only hug of that summer. I wish I wouldn't have been such little shit toward him. "It's okay", he offered, "you're my little shit, just like your mom. Come back and see me."

Needless to say, I never went back to the farm and Grandpa Pete passed away a few months later. Glad I got to meet him when I did. That following year I started college way across the country. But I’ll never forget my first love. My first summer romance. My Hero.

Song Inspiration: “Human” by Rum.Gold