I Can Only Marry You Once

The following short story is exclusive to this website.

As a joke, April convinced three gay teenagers from Omaha to attend the latest high school country party. They came accompanied by a sheepish girl donning green hair. They had been convinced it was going to be a small affair.

            The crowd was surging by the time they arrived—April’s parents were some of the better-off farmers around, and she lived in a large house nestled in an apple orchard. A loud radio rap song was blaring this time at the allowance of April. The girl with green hair covered up intense anxiety by biting her nails and staring with wide eyes unseen out into the dark. One guy said something to his lover in the seats next to the green-haired girl, and the one in front smoked a cigarette.

“How much longer?” The one in front smartly flicked his cigarette out the window.

            “Few miles. You guys will really like this place. It’s so pretty.”

            “Thanks, April. You’re a dear,” said one of the guys in the back seat. The green-haired girl said nothing, waiting for the right moment to elucidate her misgivings about this entire situation. No one was there to greet them except a bustling loud house with a ragtag troupe of cars. April pulled up behind another car and not Slim’s truck so they wouldn’t see the confederate flags in the darkness. As soon as April got out of the car, the green-haired girl nudged the couple and intimated that she wanted to talk to them. They all got out of the car and ascended the steps into the open front doors of the house which bustled with unknown chaos.

            “Lo there!” expostulated Slim at the group of them. “Guys ready to party or what?”

            The single guy who had been sitting in the front seat nodded.

            Another said, “where’s the bar?”

            “HAW! This one wants to find the bar!”

            “Stop poking me, Bridgette,” whispered one of the guys who had arrived to the green-haired girl. She motioned to a relatively empty room with a wave of her head and wide eyes.

            “So, what’s new in Omaha?” Rocky sauntered into the room holding a rifle. “Nah, it ain’t loaded,” he continued, looking down to admire the antique. It was the same gun Cassidy had fired in the barn. “My grandpa said its good luck to have it around. Ain’t it a fine gun?” He pointed it at the single guy in the front. Simultaneously Bridgette had managed to get the couple into the room. The only other person there was a freshman girl having some kind of bad trip.

            “Listen to me right now, guys. This isn’t where we should be. At all,” she said, her voice tense and thin. “It’s a bunch of rednecks. They hate gay people. Plus there’s confederate flags on their trucks.”

            “I’d like to show one of them a thing or two,” raged one of them. “Why didn’t you say something earlier?”

            “It’s too late for that now,” said the second. “I—”

            A loud commotion came from the main room. “That’s right, you FAGGOT!”

            “Oh no,” muttered Bridgette as the three of them went into the main room. Their friend was sprawled on the floor, frantically scrambling to regain his footing under the threat of the butt end of the gun. Greg was pouring out the remainder of a bottle of beer onto the floor, and Rocky brandished the gun wildly at their friend.

            “We heard you like dick! Well, here’s one!” April stood chortling like a maniac and pointing at Greg, who was unbuckling his belt. The town kids felt slight unease, but they were all too drunk to do much of anything and made no motion to interfere. Most of the elites from the recently graduated class of 2007 were in attendance. Some looked on with intense curiosity. Slim stood by the doorway to the house, eyeing the rest of the crowd from Omaha.

            “Don’t you DARE touch my friend,” screamed Bridgette, ready to use any close object as a stabbing or projectile weapon. Her face was twisted with panic and anger.

            Rocky swiveled around, accidentally knocking a town kid with the gun. The crowd was mulling around the site, but Rocky’s action caused there to be a bit of breathing room. The house was packed.

            “Simple words from a weird bitch,” Rocky said. “I’ve half a mind to show you a penis, after, of course, we’re done with these queers.”

            Bridgette’s eyes moved with lightning precision to a face near her and then back to Rocky. “Do me first, then. I’m more experienced. On the porch. We’ll stand in a line.”

            “NOW we’re talkin’! That’s what the party’s all ABOUT,” said Rocky. “Slim! Tie this bitch up!”

            The kid who’d been threatened at first by Rocky slowly got up from the floor and quietly stood directly behind Rocky’s careening form. Greg did not buckle his pants and went stoically out onto the porch. Bridgette followed, along with her two companions. One of them was almost crying. Someone was looking for a camera. As soon as Rocky was near the lip of the wide porch steps, Bridgette put her foot against his. The guy who’d been on the floor gave Rocky a vicious shove, and he toppled down the stairs, the gun clattering down with him and into the dust of the front yard.

            “We have to go! NOW!” Bridgette shouted, and the four forms all but vanished from the porch, out of the light and out of sight.

            “God damn queers,” Greg could be heard muttering as he zipped his pants back up.

            “Follow me,” Bridgette said, grabbing the hand of the guy closest to her. The four of them sprinted down a dark hill that gave way to a road. For a few moments, there was nothing but blackness as they ducked into the ditch beside the road. Distant laughter could be heard flaying maniacally across the wide empty stretch of land.

            “Wh—what—”

            “We have to get to the ditch on the other side of the road and walk along it.”

            The four of them scrambled across the gravel road into the opposing ditch. One of the guys stepped in a pile of dog feces. He didn’t make any sound at this. They were terrified, including Bridgette. Being away from the house caused a moment of relative safeness to wash over them, but the impending feeling of their new situation did not take long to sink into their bones.

            It was dark and damp. It must have rained earlier that day, and they swished through the ditch grass without opening their mouths. One guy held hands with his partner. The moon presented itself to them in a pale sliver of light that lighted the fields and pastures like a clever demon.

            “Get down!” came Bridgette’s hoarse whisper. A vehicle was approaching from behind them. They concealed themselves in the cavity of the ditch closest to the road. However, the large pickup reeled by them in a clatter of gravel and stone, and they remained undetected.

            After some time, they had given up on the ditch and had taken to walking on the road because it was easier to see and they had gotten far enough away from the house. She offered cigarettes and they smoked them, walking there, having nowhere to go, having no pleasing intuition on what would happen to them next. Only one of them had a phone, and it was dead.

            “We could be walking until morning at this point.”

            They crept up a small incline in the gravel road which gave way to a better view of what was ahead. They had smoked many cigarettes in the dust, in the moonlit desolation, in the dark wasteland. In the distance among a grove of thick trees, a barn light was spotted but there was no clear direction of how to get there. Strange, silent, they meandered on in the dirt. It was very still. The stars above them were like a forgotten song lyric, poised, watchful, passive. There was no wind yet the four of them shivered. The couple clung to each other after a time. Bridgette said that they should cut across this soybean field if they were to ask for help from someone near the distant barn light. One of the guys looked at his male companion and noticed his face was wetted with tears. Then Bridgette closed in around them and they embraced beside the barely seen road in the gloom of night and wept. They cried together for an unknown amount of time. A gentle wind at an unknown time caused them to disembark from each other and she said that they should cross the field. They left the road and started pushing their way through the ditch grass and into the pungent, short soybean plants in the dark. And they continued to walk for an indefinite period, each of them thinking something bizarre about their pasts.

            Eventually they crowded together alongside the lip of the light emanating from the barnyard. They looked at each others’ faces for the first time since leaving the house, and they were all filthy and their faces were swollen and streaked from weeping.

            “I’ll do the talking,” Bridgette finally said, and she straightened her hair, brushing it back, wiping off some of the dirt on her jeans with the backs of her hands.

            “Be careful,” the one that had pushed Rocky off the porch said. Without looking back, she went up to the dark house. She paused and then knocked on the door. It gave way to a girl their age with pink hair and a black Ramones shirt. From a distance, one could see them each silently entering the house. Brief introductions were made, and they entered into the house, rescinding out of the yard with the stale light and out of the witching hour passing in the mysterious fields.