Blue

Chapter One
Ruth

A pack of razor-thin dogs raised bloody faces from an unidentifiable carcass and turned their heads in unison as the cherry-red Mazda swept down the dusty road. Jerry Philips twisted his face into a wry smile as the car blew past a desolate feedlot. A vacant supply store sat facing an abandoned cinema house with its faded marquee announcing Jaws as the featured attraction. Through the car’s fog-shrouded windshield, he could see the luminescent image of two corpulent couples in swimming suits reclined on chaise lounges. Above the chubby sunbathers, neon curlicue letters spelled out Clovis Heritage Manor and Assisted Living Facility—For the rest of your life.

Jerry pulled into the gravel lot and parked, waiting a few seconds before unfolding his lanky form through the car door in sections like an accordion. He was a tall man with a bad back. Driving for more than a few minutes always brought pain, so he stood, gingerly arching backward to stretch out the kinks. Tufts of fog trailed from his nostrils. When he inhaled, the smell of cow dung tempered the bitter cold. In the distance, the yapping snarl of fighting dogs intermingled with the sound of the gusting breeze. He looked around at the cloudless aquamarine sky that stretched from horizon to horizon. The sun blazed freakishly bright above the sandy plain. After the lush beauty of Austin, Texas, this dry landscape was stark and uninviting to his eyes, its glittering surfaces harsh, almost garish in their reflected brilliance. Squinting brought the unremitting hum of sinus pressure in Jerry’s maxillary cavities to a full-blown buzz. He reached into his pocket for two little red pills, swallowed the Sudafed dry, and slid his sunglasses over his eyes before turning to scrutinize the building.

The nursing home was a stack of yellow bricks supporting a recently tarred asphalt-shingle roof. It sat at the edge of the parking lot just beyond two hedged patches of dormant lawn. Along one side, sagging awnings hung above carefully spaced aluminum-frame windows. A patina of dust coated each horizontal surface, and wind-blown ripples of fine silt sketched frothy wavelets on the roadway. Sand also piled up at the base of each west-facing wall. Yellow tufts of desert grass peppered the surrounding fields and sprouted from cracks in the walkway that curved from the lot.

Jerry could see indistinct shadowy movement behind a double set of glass doors.

It had taken just three phone calls to track Mrs. Brookes down. Starting with an address culled from a 1962 newspaper article, Jerry pulled the first number from an online crisscross directory. A gruff voice answered his call and denied any knowledge of Mrs. Brookes. The man reluctantly gave him the name of his old landlord, and Jerry found Cletus Thompson listed in the Clovis directory. A weary voice answering on the third ring rewarded his practiced persistence. Thompson told Jerry that he and his wife had been a neighbor of the Brookes back in the seventies. Ruth Brookes had sold them the ranch in 1976, two years after the death of her husband.

In a raspy Southern twang, Cletus explained they had been sorry to see the old woman go, but Mrs. Brookes seemed happy about moving to a place where she would have company and be taken care of in her old age. Jerry’s hopes soared when Cletus mentioned he was sure Mrs. Brookes was still alive, “seeing as how my wife Evelyn received a letter from her just this morning.” Cletus read the address over the phone, and Jerry thanked him for the help. The nursing home’s phone number was listed online. His excitement building, Jerry dialed with sweaty palms. A perky receptionist/nurse patched him straight through to Mrs. Brookes’s room, and Jerry fought to suppress his excitement when the hundred-and-three-year-old woman’s crystal-clear greeting snapped back through the receiver.

The conversation had been pleasant and rewarding. Mrs. Brookes listened to Jerry’s story without comment and answered his questions. He was relieved when she agreed to meet with him and eagerly booked a flight for the next day.

And so here he was—breathing the fusty air of Clovis, New Mexico with Mrs. Brookes’s nursing home looming up the walkway.

Jerry reached back into the car for his camera bag. Ignoring the gurgling protest of his stomach, he scrunched across the gravel toward the entrance. As he approached, he glimpsed his ragged reflection in the glass doors. His crumpled appearance was scruffier than usual, his unruly hair mashed to the side and both eyes so bloodshot he looked almost demonic. Pausing to stuff his sunglasses into his shirt pocket and straighten his tie, he noticed a mimeographed flyer taped to the door, announcing the presence of pneumonia in the building. Great, he thought, and shuddered, imagining the microbes crawling over the door handle. He slipped a hand into his jacket pocket and opened the door, making contact through the coat liner.

A muggy, almost tropical atmosphere enveloped him as he stepped from the biting cold into an entrance alcove. He pushed through another set of glass doors and padded down a hallway. At the nurses’ station, a woman in pastel scrubs directed him down a sunny corridor. Sweet grandmotherly smiles peered through crocheted shawls, and shrunken, wrinkled faces bobbed above aluminum walkers. He marched down the hallway keeping his distance, but nodding and smiling greetings to each haggard face.

Mrs. Brookes’s room was the last one on the right. The door was propped open with a rubber doorstop and muffled sounds of activity emanated from within. Jerry knocked on the wall to broadcast his presence and peered inside.

It took a few seconds to register the scene, and then the bottom dropped out of his stomach. His knees nearly buckled and he steadied himself by leaning against the wall. Two orderlies stood on either side of a raised hospital bed clutching the ends of a large zippered bag. The smell of antiseptic permeated the air. One of the orderlies frowned a warning at Jerry, who dropped his eyes respectfully. The men counted down from three, then lifted the body bag and swung it gently onto a bedside gurney, pulling up the gurney’s rails and unlocking its wheels. Jerry was just turning to leave when a vaguely familiar voice called from behind the door.

“Is that you, Mr. Philips?”

Peeking around a partition he could see the backside of a heavy woman as she struggled to lift a brittle, birdlike creature out of bed. A face as wrinkled as dried apricots floated above a powder-blue shoulder, and two claw-like hands clutched each other around the heavy woman’s neck. A pair of coal-black eyes stared at him with laser-like intensity, and Mrs. Brookes spoke again.

“I apologize for the commotion, but I guess it really couldn’t be helped. Death has its own time schedule, you know.” Mrs. Brookes’s lips smacked in a grimace. She had small ears and a sharp nose that drew the corners of her mouth outward like the bill of a duck. She closed her mouth and worked her teeth into position before speaking again. “We lost Neola this morning—God rest her soul. These boys are picking up the body. If you’ll give me a minute, Sue will have me in my chair. Then we can chat in the hallway.”

Jerry smiled politely and murmured agreement before escaping through the doorway. He pinned himself against the hallway wall and set his camera case down between his feet. The gurney slid by on whispering wheels. As it progressed down the hallway it drifted past onlookers like a procession of Purple Hearts in a Veterans Day parade; heads bowed in respect but furtive eyes darted upward to catch a glimpse of the prone figure.

He waited, rocking back and forth on his feet. In a few minutes, Mrs. Brookes’s coal-black eyes appeared through the doorsill. The scowling, round-faced Sue ignored Jerry completely and positioned the chair next to the window.

“Thanks, Sue,” Mrs. Brookes said. “This’ll be fine.”

“I’ll be back in a few minutes to make the bed. Wave if you need anything.” She tossed Jerry a threatening look before plodding down the hallway.

Jerry felt confused as he watched the nurse’s ample backside lumber hippo-like toward the nurses’ station. Mrs. Brookes said, “You’ll have to excuse her. She’s very protective of her old people.”

“I guess I can understand that.”

“She means well, but she can be a little rude.”

The moist warmth in the building was starting to paint a patina of perspiration across Jerry’s forehead as he turned his full attention to the twisted figure before him.

Mrs. Brookes’s face was as folded and creased as crumpled parchment. Her cheeks and chin seemed to shift and slide in a rolling sea of wrinkles while an uncontrolled left hand trembled in her lap. Her head was a mass of tight steel-gray ringlets, each about the size and shape of a roll of dimes. Her shoulders hunched painfully forward and she struggled to lift her head, turning her face sideways to gaze upward at Jerry. She wore a hot-pink housecoat over a sea-foam-green flannel nightgown. Her legs were wrapped in layers of Highland plaid. Bunny slippers adorned her feet, but the tattered ears spoke more of comfort than whimsical fashion.

Jerry wiped perspiration from his brow with a handkerchief. “I hope this meeting isn’t inconvenient for you, Mrs. Brookes. Perhaps we should reschedule.”

The old woman ignored his offer. “I can see you’re a little warm, Mr. Philips. Warm and upset…but you shouldn’t be, upset, that is…warm is understandable since we keep the temperature at eighty. Most of these people,” she gestured down the hallway, “complain about it being cold all the time. It’s the thin blood and no exercise. It’s enough to make me want to get up and go for a jog. But that’s not really an option anymore.” She smiled at Jerry. “It’s a blessing, really, about Neola, I mean. Poor creature. It was well past her time.”

Jerry smiled to himself. A hundred-and-three-year-old was referring to someone else as past her time. He realized he’d been unconsciously twisting the handle of his briefcase and set it down next to the camera case.

“Besides, Neola was my third roommate to pass.” She waved a twisted hand dismissively. “The rules say now I get the room to myself. Live through three, private room for free.” The phrase came out in the singsong cadence of a nursery rhyme. “Neola was good company, and I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but she was a little…well…gassy, if you catch my drift.”

Jerry snickered. “Yes, I think so.” He squatted down in front of the wheelchair and added solemnly, “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Brookes. God bless Neola.”

“Yes, God probably does. Now, if I may ask, what kind of book are you writing? And take off that jacket, young man. You look like you’re going to melt.”

The coal-black eyes settled once more on his face. Jerry smiled and shrugged out of his tweed sports coat. He was finding her prickly ways endearing. He said, “It’s about the persecution of…gays…in this country.”

“Speak up, young man. I’m a very old woman.” Again her words were derisive, but her smile beguiled him. Jerry repeated the words with a little more volume, then paused. He wasn’t certain someone of her age group would understand “gay.” She nodded, the corners of her mouth turned down in a little frown of irritation.

“I ran across your brother’s criminal record during my research, and the documentation seems somewhat muddled. I was hoping you could clear up a few things for me.”

“I see. And what is the point of this book, Mr. Philips?”

Jerry paused again. She was not at all what he expected. “It’s a history,” he answered. “I’m hoping to shed some light on these early stories to provide historical context for the current attitudes and prejudices.”

“And you think my brother’s story may be useful, do you?”

He nodded and loosened the knot of his tie. “Yes, I do.”

She watched him closely. When she spoke again Jerry could hear the distrust in her voice.

“And which of my brother’s many stories do you want to hear?”

“Excuse me?”

“Which deep, dark family secret do you want me to tell you, Mr. Philips?”

Jerry considered his options. Finally, he decided that anything less than the full truth would be a mistake with her. He said, “All of them…I guess.”

“Speak up, young man. I have very old ears.”

Jerry smiled and spoke louder. “All of them. I want to know all his secrets, the important ones, I mean, to put his life in perspective for the readers—to give them a chance to understand the context of his situation.”

She nodded vigorously and stared off through the window. Jerry waited in silence, unwilling to rush her decision.

Finally, her glittering black eyes turned back onto him and she said, “In that case, Mr. Philips, you’d better push me back into my room and take a seat on the bed, because this story’s going to take a while to tell.”

Jerry smiled, tucking his jacket and camera case under one arm. With a nod of gratitude he grabbed the handles of the chair while her arthritic hands unlocked the wheels. He rolled her back into the now-vacant room and parked the chair next to the curtained window. He pulled out a small notepad and the video camera from the camera case. Holding both up, he looked at her questioningly. She stared a moment before smiling and nodding agreement.

“Well, if you’re going to film me, at least you caught me after I’ve had my hair done.” Her laugh was infectious.

Settling himself on the edge of the bed, just out of frame, Jerry nodded at his new star and hit the Record button on the camera. “Whenever you’re ready, Mrs. Brookes.”

“If I’m going to tell you this story, I’m going to tell it from the beginning.”

Jerry nodded.

“Silas was born on Christmas day of 1898. Silas LeBlanc. LeBlanc is my maiden name, but then I guess you know that.”

Jerry nodded again.

“Silas was born in an adobe farmhouse made of sod blocks cut from the sagebrush bluffs of eastern New Mexico. He was the third child Momma brought into the world in 1898, but the only one to survive the process. You see, back in January of that year, Daddy had sprinkled lavender over the bodies of my twin sisters and wrapped them in French lace before laying the tiny bundles, side by side, into the same muddy grave on a grassy rise overlooking the bayou. I tell you that because that image, the image of delicate white lace against the rich black Louisiana soil, was forever seared into the minds and souls of my folks and in many ways was the backdrop of Silas’s upbringing.”

Mrs. Brookes paused, staring off through the window. Jerry waited, watching through the camera lens. Her words were almost lyrical, and her way of telling the story was even better than Jerry could have hoped.

“It was a very difficult time for Momma and Daddy. Oh, I know losing babies is hard for any young couple, but it wasn’t just that. You see, the rural Louisiana community where they lived had shunned them long before the loss of their daughters. That’s because Momma was an Okaloosa Indian and Daddy came from a Creole family. Their union shocked both groups, and their neighbors’ reactions ranged from cold stares to jeering insults. Still, they clung to each other—even adding fuel to the fire by rejecting the religious convictions of their respective upbringings to become fervent Baptists.

“I really can’t tell you how important their religion was to them, Mr. Philips. You see, I’ve thought about it a lot and it seems to me that a quiet strength of obstinate commitment grew out of that communal rejection, but with the loss of the baby girls, everything changed. The only thing they had left was their religion.

“Well, not long after the funeral, just two months, in fact, Daddy and Momma tied a few paltry possessions onto the yellow pine-board bed of a horse-drawn wagon and trundled westward through the pouring rain. It took eight weeks of slogging along boggy swampland, rattling over undulating hills, and rolling across Texas to reach a place so vast, so barren, and so inhospitable it was virtually uninhabited. Their search for solitude ended in New Mexico.”

Again she looked out the window, pointing. “Not far down the road, in fact. There’s not much left of Forest these days.” Her eyes clouded, and Jerry waited for her to continue.

“Forest, New Mexico brought them relief from the gut-wrenching depression, sadness, and pain. Do you know the searing, bleak pain that rains down on the parents of dead children, Mr. Philips?”

Jerry shook his head.

“Well, they knew it. I hate to think what would have happened if they hadn’t moved. Chances are good I wouldn’t be here. But, with God’s grace, they found escape among the sagebrush and cactus, escape from the agony of death and the scorn and ridicule that a mixed-race marriage spawned in insular Southern communities at the end of the nineteenth century.

“Daddy bought a small plot of land on a parched, windswept bluff a hundred miles east of the Rio Grande, and they settled among a sparse group of hardworking farmers and ranchers who were independent, forgiving, and—most important—kept to themselves. I still remember that old adobe farmhouse. It was dirty and lonely, and sat atop a bone-dry rise, overlooking a barren, snake-infested plain, but for Momma and Daddy it was a paradise. The property included enough farmable acreage to eke out a meager but sustainable existence. It had a deep well that brought up cool, clean water, even in the dead, dry heat of summer. And that was enough.

“Momma told me the first thing they did, as soon as their belongings had been stowed in the farmhouse, was pray. They sank to their knees on the hardboard surface of their new porch and gave thanks to God for bringing them to a place that was more accepting and less fearful of the societal changes they embodied; a place where they could start over, a place where they could heal and grow.

“And later that year, Christmas Day, in fact, Silas was born.

“Momma told me later that it had been a difficult labor. I know that when the worst of the struggle was over and baby Silas was sleeping soundly, Daddy prayed, once more—this time thanking God for the blessing of a son, on Christmas Day, a child to love and cherish, who would help with the back-breaking labor yet to be done on that rock-strewn patch of land. I’m sure Daddy also prayed for guidance, asking God to show him how to bring his boy up strong and true and worthy of His grace…because that’s the way my daddy was, Mr. Philips.”

Jerry nodded again and Mrs. Brookes smacked her lips and continued.

“And so, my big brother Silas was coddled and sheltered and loved, raised to shoulder the intense struggle, social void, and strict Baptist standards of his—well, our childhood. And despite the obvious hardships, he excelled in that world, Mr. Philips. Silas grew up to be a strapping, smart, attractive young man, well-liked by his neighbors, particularly the plain, sturdy girls that lived in the area. In fact, I know several of them harbored fantasies of settling down and building a family with him. They flirted, teased, and competed incessantly for his attention. But Silas ignored their advances. Of course, at the time I didn’t know it, but obviously he had set his sights elsewhere.

“It seemed to me, as time passed, Silas gradually became aware that the fit between his inner self and the life on the farm was not comfortable. In his teens, he began to chafe at the role he was expected to play and began searching for something else. You see, another more-distant song tugged at his restless soul, and a desire began to awaken inside his mind, a growing yearning for a life of excitement and conquest. Does that make sense?”

Jerry nodded.

“It was like the childhood bedtime stories that Daddy told us, about our great-uncles’ adventures. Uncle Wilton and Uncle Rufus had been Confederate soldiers, you see. I still remember the tales Daddy spun for the two of us, in the dwindling twilight hours. They were battle sagas full of heroism and near-death escape, stories of courage and nobility, and honor, just the thing to stir a teenage boy’s imagination. I was just a girl, of course, and the stories were exciting and scary for me. But Silas, well, he replayed those stories over and over in his mind, and he dreamed…dreamed of escape from the farm to an exciting life elsewhere. Why, when war finally broke out across Europe, Silas could hardly contain himself. World events had produced an opportunity for adventure and an acceptable excuse for his departure.

“Silas was seventeen years old in 1916 when he bid a tearful good-bye to us before stepping onto the platform at the Abilene train station, the boarding point for his journey eastward. And I’m sure his anticipation never wavered as the train traced a torturous three-day route through sleepy Southern stations, gathering other anxious recruits, on its way toward the newly completed army training camp on the East Coast.

“A few short weeks later, he disembarked with his troop in an English seaport and was quickly shipped across the Channel. Silas’s unit set up not far from the front lines and he found himself in a different world, Mr. Philips. Silas’s letters home hardly mentioned the fighting, but long after our parents died Silas told me what Europe was like for him.

“It was a world filled with the drum roll of advancing artillery and the screams of horses cut down by shrapnel from exploding ordnance; a world where the acrid smell of sulfur mixed with the pungent scent of trench foot, and young men, faced with the transience of life, gave flight to their desires before marching out along the murky battle lines to bury their fears in foxholes and their fallen friends in shallow graves. It was a dark world, overflowing with pain and hardship and death, but it lit up like a beacon shining above the rocks for him. Because, finally, a half a world away from his family’s expectations, in the wanton abandon of Europe’s bustling streets and battlefields, Silas discovered an outlet for yearnings he hadn’t even realized he possessed. In the drunken alleyways and shambled, shoddy houses near the war zone, Silas unleashed the shackled expectations of his childhood and became himself. Thousands of miles from his stifling Baptist upbringing, Silas found men.”

Mrs. Brookes paused and the tremor in her hand was the only movement in the room. Jerry sat frozen, afraid to breathe lest he break the spell. After a moment, she seemed to recall herself.

“Of course I didn’t know that Silas was gay back then. In truth, I didn’t know that such a thing existed. The entire concept of homosexuality was alien, beyond comprehension. I just knew that Silas was my heroic big brother fighting for his country against the Kaiser, in the War to End All Wars.

“My upbringing hadn’t been as challenging as Silas’s—I’m two years younger. The jolting experience of our parents’ early married days had settled somewhat by the time I joined the family, and the haunting presence of our dead sisters was never the hidden guiding force in my childhood that it had been for Silas.

“As for me, when Silas was off fighting the war in Europe, Floyd and I got married straight out of childhood. Floyd was my long-time sweetheart and you never met such a handsome, hardworking man. Together we settled into the dirt-poor life of subsistence farming, like all the families in this area. Despite Floyd’s physical ailments—he was asthmatic, you see—our little farm succeeded and our family grew quickly. Silas had a young niece before he returned from Europe.

“The thing was, none of us understood the monumental changes Silas had gone through. We just expected his return to make everything like it was before the war. But the change in Silas was too big. He just was never happy back with us. I guess Silas, home from the war, found his old way of life unsatisfying and restrictive.

“So, when a job offer came from an army friend whose father owned a leather shop in New York City, well, I have to tell you I wasn’t surprised that Silas hitched a ride to Albuquerque where he boarded another eastbound vehicle, this time a bus.

“Lord, lord…the things I know now that I didn’t know then.”

The old lady fixed her steely gaze on the camera. Even through the lens, Jerry could sense the intensity of her emotions as she said, “It was a trip that took him toward his destiny and disgrace in the eyes of his family.”

Later, after Jerry checked into the Ramada Inn that night, he stayed up late trying to recreate the next scene that Mrs. Brookes had detailed to him. He tried to imagine the subtext as he typed, her words still echoing in his ears.