---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 108 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book “My Homeland” Down in the Dirt, v205 (3/23) Order the paperback book:

Order this writing that appears in the one-of-a-kind anthology Forbidden Library the Down in the Dirt Jan.-April 2023 issues collection book		get the 420 page Jan.-April 2023 Down in the Dirt 6" x 9" ISBN# perfect-bound paperback book:

Club Rainbow

Mike Schneider

    They say Club Rainbow at the end of Depot Street, often affectionately referred to as the “club at the end of the street,” in deference to Elton John’s song by the same name, and his openness about being gay, attracts more than 300 LGBTQIA+ revelers of all ilks and stripes on Friday and Saturday nights, then for the rest of the week lives life as nothing more than a quiet, neighborhood gay bar.
    It was that rest of the week that attracted me, as I had been hanging out there hoping to get something going with Gerald Timbrook, a tall, lean, swarthy, extremely attractive man of 37, with a charming personality who probably could have made an income in the mid-six figures if he sold anything from stocks to real estate but liked more mechanical, hands on vocations, so chose to make his living as a millwright.
    I realized I was up against some pretty long odds because Timbrook generally preferred men younger than himself and I was 49. I still had my blond hair, height of 6-foot 3-inchs, plus a lean build, all of which he was known to favor. I also looked 10 years younger than my age but that was still a bit older than him.
    I had been contemplating Timbrook several years, hesitated each time I thought I was ready to make my move. Then last week my oncologist cured my procrastination when he told me the throat cancer had spread to my stomach and liver, and gave me three to six months.
    “The shorter is probably more likely,” he said.
    Translation: ‘You’re dying in three months.’
    Action: Do it now!
    After three boring nights of Timbrook being a no-show, when I walked in Thursday evening there he was, seated at the bar, drinking bourbon, just as the Thursday night football game was about to start. I hung my overcoat on a hook by the door, nervously took the stool next to his, asked the bartender for a PBR.
    Picking him up turned out to be much easier than I had imagined. I said something about the game, lamented it was the Browns bye week, and we began talking. I can’t even tell you who was playing as I was so wired while trying not to act nervous that I thought I was blowing it. But after the first quarter, while the conversation still revolved mainly around football, things of a more intimate nature filtered in, and at the end of the first half he suggested we go to his house for the second half. I said I’d follow him, grabbed my coat and off we went.
    He lived only a mile from the bar in a beautiful Arts and Crafts era bungalow with a large, roofed porch to be enjoyed in warmer weather, and neatly trimmed, dense privet hedges running down each side of the spacious lot to the front sidewalk.
    When we went inside he offered to hang my coat in the closet but I told him I’d just lay it over the back of the couch. He said that was fine, turned on the TV and went to the kitchen to mix us a couple drinks while I took note of the furnishings that were also Arts and Crafts style—fairly light oak with straight lines that were notably more graceful than most mission oak, as though Frank Lloyd Wright himself had designed them, and maybe he had.
    Timbrook came back with the drinks, mai tais, of all things, and sat down next to me. Now I was getting serious jitters, doubting myself as to whether I could do this. I had thought about it for four years, it had become an obsession, but did I have the gumption to carry it through to the end? I felt myself weakening and couldn’t allow that to happen, knew if I didn’t do it right now I’d chicken out. I stood up, picked up my coat, walked eight to ten feet away, and pulled the 12-ga. double barrel, sawed-off shotgun from the inside pocket I had made for it. Nothing fancy, just a couple thicknesses of muslin fastened to the lining with Gorilla Tape and a few hog rings in case the tape failed.
    I modified the gun last week, sawing off the barrel just one-half inch in front of the end of the forearm, making it 12-1/4 inches. I also removed most of the stock by using a coping saw to follow the arc of the pistol grip, then a rasp to file the edges to the proper contours to make it comfortable to hold, sanded it smooth, and finished it with some gun stock goop I had in the garage. It looked pretty nice.
    I’m sure to Timbrook it looked pretty large as his eyes seemed to double in size when he saw it.
    “What the hell!” he yelled, got up and started to come toward me.
    “Don’t do it,” I cautioned. “You’ll be a dead man before your time is up.”
    He stopped.
    “I guess you know now this isn’t going to end with you and me getting it on. Actually, I’m not even gay.”
    “I don’t understand your beef, man. What is it?” he asked, both his voice and his hands trembling.
    “You killed the only person I loved. Now you’re going to pay for it.”
    “I never killed anyone. What’s the matter with you?”
    “You killed my son, Trey. He was only nineteen and had everything to live for when you infected him with HIV four years ago. Neither of us could afford the $4000 per month required to treat it. He died of AIDS six weeks ago.”
    “I didn’t know I had it then.”
    “According to my very close friend at the department of health, you tested positive a full year before your one-night stand with Trey. You knew it and still didn’t protect him. And who knows how many others.”
    “No!”
    “Yes! And now it’s time to pay up.”
    At that point I took care of business.
    Then I tossed the gun on the davenport, called 9-1-1, gave the operator the address, told her I had just killed a man, and sat down on one of Timbrook’s beautiful Frank Lloyd Wright-style chairs to wait for the police to arrive.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...