Gently

By DAN HECK

It’s sometime in 2007. I’m almost 21. At night I stock bulk items in the backroom of a Target. Dante helped me get the job. My best friend since eighth grade: the human bully-repellent with rockstar swagger and long, luscious hair. Target’s pay sucks, and I hate work, but it’s something I can do with Dante. 

Most nights, we unload the truck’s thousand or more items together. The two of us in a tight, hot, truck container, tearing down walls of packaged toys, clothes, food, and cleaning supplies. One time, the wall of goods is packed extra tight. It’s probably 120 degrees in the container and managers demand we keep the unload moving. I’m too precious with the cargo, so nothing moves and heat exhaustion creeps in. Eyesight blurs. Standing dizzies. I’m a couple sweats away from passing out. I get a cold Gatorade and a five-minute break, but only if I finish the unload. A manager threatens to steal both away.

Dante comes to my rescue. He yells fuck it, jumps on the tower of cardboard like a spider monkey, and lets his weight crash it all down. I catch him as the cleaning supplies fall. After years of being saved by him, it was reflexive, natural. For once, he leans on me, and my steadiness returns, while my sight sharpens. There’s an explosion of lemon-scented Pine-Sol. We laugh and pretend we’re caught in the rain. Intimate, wet, laughter. I’m safe. 

Once, six years ago, I was climbing a fence into a neighbor’s yard, with Dante already on the other side. Waiting, patient. I heard a homophobic slur and felt my shirt pulled. My back was wet with mud. Six legs, tall as pines, shadowed me. Then squish. Dante’s feet hitting the ground. He must have flown back over the fence. Instantly, the three bullies retreated, claiming they were just having fun. Dante’s head blocked the sun partially, leaving only a halo of light around his long, straight, black hair. I was safe. And he was magnificent. 

A month after the hot truck. The night is ours, and our throats demand alcohol. Neither of us are old enough to buy liquor, so my wife does it for us. We live with her family for the time being, a stopgap until I get stationed elsewhere after bootcamp. Their single-story ranch house nestled in a cul-de-sac of like-looking homes never feels like mine. I’m never able to fully relax. To drift away like one does after a long day. My wife’s parents are out of town at least, and that helps put me at ease. If I squint, it feels like this is my home, not someone else’s. 

To fill the space, my wife invites some people over, so does Dante, and so does everyone else. It’s a full-on party. I hate parties and strangers, so I stick close to Dante. We sip fruity vodkas and breathe cold air while laughing hot and loud. I love my nights off. 

We’ve lived in Virginia Beach our entire lives. A tourist hot spot that turned into a city for military families to settle down in temporarily. That means an entire life of hearing how life beyond our city is better. A lifetime of being told I should explore the world to find happiness. A lifetime of watching people leave. After high school, I got tired of being a target for bullying without Dante around. It was my time to grow up, leave the city and join the military. My days are numbered, my nights off are finite; I’m annoyed that the backyard is filled with people I don’t know. I keep a Solo cup of vodka handy. All I have to do is put it to my lips and inhale. The lemon-flavored alcohol stings the nose, but takes me back to the hot, cramped truck. Someone makes Dante laugh. I kiss the lip of my cup, inhale, and it’s raining Pine-Sol in my head. 

By this point in our lives, Dante and I have been inseparable for so long we’ve heard talk about our sexuality countless times. We shrug it away. This pretty girl Dante invited brings it up again. Says we’re a cute couple or some shit like that. We laugh and agree. Then she challenges us to see how comfortable we are with one another. I don’t know why I do it–lemon vodka blurs reasoning. I unzip Dante’s fly slowly. Gold teeth part. Dante surprise-smiles. I reach into the black opening and gently pull out his penis. I hold it. No one stops me, yet my hand retreats without exploring like I want to. The ghost of Dante’s weight haunts my palm. 

Later, the party passes its prime and people pass out. Dante, the cute girl he brought, and I jump into a hot tub. While soaking in our underwear, someone brings up the idea of a threesome. Someone seconds it. I’m silent. Dante takes his underwear off. It falls with a thud on the ground. My fingers hook the waistband of the purple panties on the cute girl and slide them down. Like my excitement, they float for a second, then sink. I’m vulnerable.

I can’t stay. I want to tear down the walls of my fear, but I’m not strong enough. Not after seeing Dante earlier. Dante’s body, every inch of it, puts me to shame. There’s no fat like me, the skin isn’t pale like me, his back isn’t perpetually hunched like me. I need to hide and pretend like I don’t know how beautiful a man can be. I need to protect myself because inside my head, Dante can’t protect me. If I stay, I’ll always feel out of place. I’ll never feel at home in my skin.

Before I depart the tub, I position Dante, so he’s lined up for a good time on top of the cute girl. I lie and say some shit about not wanting to upset my wife and say there’ll be another time. But neither are true. My wife wouldn’t care. She’s asleep for the night and we have a certain openness to our marriage. And there is no next time. A couple months after the party, I leave for boot camp and the parties stop. So too my time with Dante. Maybe because I learn to protect myself. Maybe because the military forces me to lie about who makes me happy. I’ll eventually embrace that everyone makes me happy, but by then it’ll be too late. 

I leave the intimate scene, with its wet, distant laughter. When I slink into bed, I try not to disturb my snoring wife. I should give her a kiss, or a squeeze. Let her know I’m with her. But I don’t. I try not to graze her with my left shoulder as I position my back just right, sink in the groove of the bed, and gaze up at our ceiling covered in glow-in-the-dark stars. My wife’s steady snoring turns into hot tub jets. I close my eyes and picture their ripples breaking the surface tension. Picture water dripping from Dante’s body. Picture shame leaving mine. It feels like home. I drift away, gently. 

Dan Heck is a writer of fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry. His short story, “The Intricacy of Mating Pandas” was published in the Pink Hydra. He won the 2020 Jerri F. Dickseski Fiction Prize as an undergraduate and in 2022 he won the Excellence in GTA Teaching: New Teacher Award. He’s currently a Lecturer of Creative Writing at Old Dominion University. Dan lives in Chesapeake with his fiancée, Gabby, and his son Bruce.