The Distant Hills and Other Stories

My brother Hugh— you remember, the guy who always hated you— caught me here once and tried to kick my ass. “Wallowing” he called it, along with “pouting” and “self-indulgent bullshit” and “I swear, Roy, you’re pathetic.” For my own good, of course, said with love. (And if you buy that, I have a beach in Arizona for you. Hugh would prefer me as a sexless gelding and hates being reminded I once did something openly gay. For a while.)

Maybe a year or two back, he’d have been right about the pining. But over time, my mood here changed. Yeah, this is where I lost you. You and that Quarter Horse mare you ran off with when you left, and don’t tell me she was a sentimental gift— you sold her two towns over for traveling money, and I had a hell of a time buying her back.

But this is also where I taught you to ride. This is where we made love once, and you complained so hard about the dirt on your favorite shirt, but back then you liked me enough to laugh and do it again anyway. This was a hundred nights, in our three years, watching the sun set because you loved the colors behind the hill, and talking about our dreams.

That’s the thing Hugh doesn’t realize. I understood you from the start, from the moment I heard you sing in that little dive. Music was dug as deep in your bones as the land was in mine, was carved in your heart, the wings beneath your breath. When I saved you from that gang at the bar that night, and brought you home to heal, our end was already written. In the three years it took you to gather your nerve, we had a lot more good times than bad. But I knew you’d never stay. And you knew I’d never leave.

It was the way you left that gutted me. Riding off silently, not looking back, leaving me standing there with those stupid sentimental words still on my lips. That’s what it took me time to get over.

Then I heard that song of yours on the radio. Wrenched Free? The one where the guy says he had to sneak out in the night, because one word from the girl he loved, and he’d lose his nerve and stay. At least you didn’t quite sneak out on me. But I figured there was something of us in that song. I never wanted to be the thing holding you back or tying you down. I just wish you’d said goodbye.

I see you sometimes, on the TV or online, usually with some pretty girl hanging on your arm. I’m not jealous, not really. I remember what you said about trying to sleep with women. Don’t know if I’m more sorry for them or for you. But it does hurt, just a little, down inside, when they lean close to you, and I remember back when I had the right to press my nose to your skin...