Best Gay Romance 2015 Read online

  The husband told police that he had hit his mother-in-law once when he mistook her for a large raccoon. The mother-inlaw weighed 270 pounds. Later he told police that he had hit her in self-defense. The police report showed that the older woman was struck at least eighteen times with a blunt instrument.

  The jurors sat frozen in silence. No one had been prepared for such a bizarre case. The husband was on trial for killing his mother-in-law, although his wife had confessed to the killing. This was going to be a tangled case of who did what and why, and of “he said, she said.”

  The lawyers began questioning the jurors, asking if they had any previous knowledge of this case or knew any of the parties involved. This took several hours. Tim had no knowledge of this incident, and of course did not know anyone involved. The people in the case all lived in Mineola, Long Island. The lawyers also questioned each juror about the death penalty, and asked if they in good conscience could condemn someone to death by execution. The impaneling process ended early in the afternoon, and the judge dismissed the jurors, ordering them back to court at 9:00 a.m. the next day.

  The judge then advised, “Because of the sensational aspects of this case and the high media interest, I am ordering that the jury be sequestered for the duration of the trial. If this is a hardship for any of the jurors, please see the bailiff. But also be advised that any request to be excused will be fully scrutinized. Any false information will be dealt with according to the laws of the State of New York. I would advise you to bring at least three days of clean clothes, because this could go on for some time. The court will provide housing and meals for all the time you are on jury duty. You will be staying at the downtown Sheraton Hotel, but you will not have access to television or newspapers. You may not discuss this case with anyone. Thank you for your patriotic support of the judicial system,” she said before leaving the courtroom.

  Why do I feel like I’m the one on trial? Tim wondered as he left the courthouse. He opted to walk back to his apartment on West Tenth Street, not knowing what was going to transpire in the coming days.

  Tim reported back to Centre Street the next morning at 9:00 a.m. with a duffel bag full of clean underwear, socks, some basic toiletries and a few paperback books. How did this happen to me? he kept asking.

  After a long boring day of questions by the attorneys and back-and-forth discussions with the judge in her chambers, the jurors were dismissed for the day to check into the Sheraton.

  Tim got his key card, went up to his room and dumped his duffel bag on the bed. He opened the sliding glass doors to a small balcony overlooking the Hudson River. In the distance he could see the Statue of Liberty.

  He was not interested in having dinner in the buffet dining room with the other jurors. Maybe he’d have a cheeseburger from room service if the court would pay for it. He dialed room service, and the voice at the other end said, “Yes, food is allowed, but no alcoholic beverages.”

  “Fine,” Tim said. “Just a cheeseburger and a Coke.”

  “Pepsi all right?” was the response. “We don’t carry Coke.”

  “Fine. Whatever,” Tim answered as he hung up the phone.

  This was like being in prison. Tim unpacked his duffel bag, put his clothes in the drawers and then deposited the toilet kit in the bathroom. He had no idea how long he was going to be cooped up at the Sheraton, cut off from the outside world. The television had been removed from the room, and there were no newspapers—all because of a 270-pound raccoon.

  The knock on the door came sooner than he had anticipated. A tall dyke with a short-cropped military haircut entered the room with a tray balanced on her shoulder.

  “Where do you want it, Honey?” she asked.

  “Oh, just on the desk over there,” Tim said, a bit taken aback at her familiarity.

  “Sure, kid,” she said. “You got it. Jury duty?” she asked as she put the tray on the desk.

  “Yeah,” Tim answered. “I feel like I’m in prison.”

  “Well the Sheraton is a lot nicer than the real thing,” she offered. “I know, Honey.”

  Tim didn’t know what to say, but he got up and offered the woman a few dollars tip.

  “We’re not supposed to take tips from jurors,” she said. “But then a girl has to eat.” She smiled, pocketing the money. “Have a good night, Honey. You’re really cute.” She winked as she closed the door.

  Well that was something, Tim thought. He pulled the chair up to the desk and opened the Pepsi. The fizzing bubbles were refreshing even though Tim would have preferred having a real drink. As he bit into the cheeseburger, there was a rattling sound on the sliding glass door off the balcony. Tim pulled the sheer curtain back to reveal a hunky, muscled guy on the terrace of his balcony. He slid the door half-open in amazement.

  “Who are you?” Tim asked, even though he knew he had seen this person before. “And what are you doing outside my room?”

  “I’m juror number eleven, and I’m in the room next door. I thought you might like some company, so I brought some wine,” he said, referring to the bottle of chardonnay he was holding. “I just climbed over the balcony to come pay a visit. It’s so boring here with no TV.”

  “Are you crazy?” Tim asked, astounded. “You could get killed.”

  “I’m actually Spiderman,” he joked. “Are you going to ask me in?”

  “Well, come in, I guess,” Tim said, opening the sliding glass door all the way.

  “Thanks. I saw you checking me out this afternoon in the jury box. I could tell,” he teased mischievously.

  “I was checking out the other jurors to see who they were,” Tim admitted.

  “And you knew. You got it right away.” He smiled. “I’m Jackson Templeton. I know how pretentious that sounds. Just call me Jack.”

  “Hi. I’m Tim Halladay.”

  “Good to meet you.”

  “How did you get the wine?” Tim asked.

  “I work on Wall Street. I know how to get things.”

  “I guess,” Tim said.

  “I found a way to get into the minibar without a key, the same way I found out how to open the adjoining door to our rooms. Open it up and we can have a suite here at the downtown Sheraton. And we can hang out together while we’re deliberating over this 270-pound raccoon.”

  “That would be cool,” Tim said. “But we’re not supposed to talk about the case.”

  “What’s to talk about? The guy murdered his battle-ax mother-in-law who’d been living with them for years. Then he claimed she was a raccoon. Do we really have to sit in court and hear all this bullshit while we’re holed up here at the Sheraton every night?”

  “So you’ve already made up your mind?” Tim asked as Jack poured him a glass of wine.

  “Is the pope Catholic?” Jack winked, toasting Tim with the chardonnay.

  “Well it does seem pretty obvious, but I think we have to look at all the evidence.”

  “How long will it take you to figure this situation out? Do we have to spend a week at the Sheraton to nail this guy?”

  “Good point.” Tim said, laughing. “First impressions are often pretty accurate. What do you do on Wall Street, when you’re not on jury duty?” Tim asked curiously.

  “I manage other people’s money. I’m pretty good at it.”

  “I would think so.”

  “I know this guy is guilty, despite the wife’s confession.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Tim asked.

  “Well, I didn’t connect it at first, but when the lawyers were going through all the questions, I remembered that the husband came into our office a few months ago to open a CD for two hundred thousand dollars. I handled the paperwork.”

  “So you knew this guy?”

  “Not really. But at the time I thought it was kind of strange. I mean, he didn’t look like the type of person who could just drop two hundred thousand dollars into a CD, coming in off the street. Something seemed wrong.”

  “So why didn’t you excuse yours
elf when the lawyers asked if you had any knowledge of the case or the persons involved?”

  “I wanted to see the dumb fuck go to jail. He’s a real idiot,” Jack said, pouring more wine. Not waiting for Tim to ask, he volunteered, “Married with three teenage girls. We live on Riverside Drive. Very traditional, upscale West Siders. You?”

  “I live on Tenth Street in a small brownstone third-floor walk-up. I just lost my job in advertising before the holidays. Then this came up.”

  “Boyfriend?” Jack asked.

  “Not really,” Tim hedged. “But I’ve been seeing somebody, if you can call it that. Problem is, he lives in California.”

  “Sometimes the long-distance ones are the best.”

  “I don’t know,” Tim said uncertainly. “I guess we’ll have to see.”

  “You’re not going to have any trouble,” Jack said, reaching out to pull Tim in front of him. Jack slowly undid the buttons on Tim’s shirt, sliding his hand up Tim’s chest under his T-shirt. “I saw you in the jury pool and wanted to meet you.”

  “But…” Tim started, and then Jack kissed him on the lips. The wineglasses fell on the carpet as the two embraced.

  When Tim woke up they were both naked in bed. He looked at the alarm clock. It was after three in the morning, and they had to be back at the Court House at nine. Tim shook Jack’s shoulder, gently waking him up.

  “Hey guy…we have to pull this together.”

  “What? You worried about your civic duty?” Jack grinned with a sleepy smile, giving Tim a long, deep kiss.

  “Well, I mean, we do have to show up.”

  “Don’t worry, kid. We’ll get there.”

  “Is this what they call jury tampering?” Tim smiled.

  “No, guy. This is jury pampering,” Jack said as he pulled Tim up against him in a firm, close embrace.

  MOTORCYCLE MASH-UP

  Guillermo Luna

  Looking back, I should have immediately noticed him when I walked into the bar but my overwhelming need for liquor, any kind, focused my vision on the bartender and the alluring glow of the illuminated bar behind him. After I got my drink I sat near him but only because there was no one else in the bar. That’s what I get for drinking before happy hour. What started, years ago, as a need to become more social has brought me to afternoons like this. His name was Duke and his large husky frame was partially hidden by not only the darkness of the room but also the fact that he was sitting down and his lower half was hidden behind the short part of an L-shaped bar.

  He wasn’t my type and it didn’t help when he said he liked small, geeky guys with glasses. He had a shaved head, a ZZ Top beard, a pirate earring in his left ear and he wore a leather jacket, so I don’t know why I agreed to go on a date with him. I glared at him when he called me “sweetie” instead of Rodrigo, but I have to admit I came to like that term of endearment simply because nobody had ever called me that before.

  When he stood up I realized I had probably made a mistake. He was six foot four and at least 250 pounds. A looker? I don’t know, but he did have a manly way about him. We talked outside the bar later that night and I did feel a twinge of something as I watched him PEEL out on his motorcycle. I continued to see him for a year. It was twelve months of drinks, cigarettes, fights, threats and getting banned from respectable establishments.

  He was the jealous type. It stemmed from his insecurity at being such a big and frightful man and yet failing to be scary, almost disappointing really, in the one place that mattered most to men. The best example of his jealousy was when the two of us went out with my friend Andrew. Andrew was the one accused that night—just because he was there—and it ended with me pulling to a quick stop in a dark alley. The car was running and the lights were on when Andrew jumped out, followed by Duke. He chased Andrew around my Suzuki while stumbling in his big, Frankenstein, steel-toed motorcycle boots and threatening my friend with every drunken step.

  That winter a motorcycle accident put a crimp in our routine.

  Duke ended up in intensive care for two weeks and then was sent to a rehab facility out in Pomona for six months. I faithfully drove out to see him three or four times a week and witnessed many of the inappropriate comments that sprang from his foul mouth. Words and phrases that people normally suppress in public punctuated his rehab environment nonstop. The nurses seemed embarrassed even though they said they had heard it all before. The doctor said his brain was trying to find its way back but it was misfiring on its way there. When he was released he wanted to live with me. Since his father was elderly and his brother had a family of his own, it fell on me. Living together worked out for approximately ninety days. What wasn’t working was his brain or at least not the way it had before. The salty language had stopped but he had brain damage on both sides and while he seemed perfectly fine to anyone who met him, if they talked to him for more than thirty minutes it became apparent that he wasn’t fine. The clue was that he would repeat the same stories he had just told you minutes before.

  My old dad once told me a story about how he learned to lay bricks. He didn’t speak English at the time and the man who taught him didn’t speak Spanish. “How did he teach you?” I asked. My old dad said, “Through patience and kindness.” I don’t possess those qualities.

  When I couldn’t handle Duke anymore—when it got to the point where I was slamming doors and throwing stuff—I contacted Duke’s father and told him he had to take him. I couldn’t take care of someone for the rest of my life whom I had only known for a year and a half, when I wasn’t even married to the guy. It was an awkward and angry good-bye. He flew back to the Midwest and the memory of him and the good times we had together faded with the years until I was ordered into a 12-step program by the court.

  I dreaded getting up, getting dressed and going to the nightly 12-step meetings once I found my way home (who wants to go out again once they’ve taken off their shoes?), so I started doing my wash three times a week. I would go from work to the Laundromat to my 12-step meeting. I had the cleanest clothes for the longest time. Luckily, I found a convenient Laundromat between the train station and my 12-step meeting place. The Laundromat was a dump. It was open twenty-four hours, without a guard on duty, so you can imagine its shape. I was standing out front waiting for my clothes to dry one evening when I saw him. He was sitting outside, far across a big parking lot, at one of those coffee places. I squinted my eyes to make sure it was him. It was.

  How did he get back here? Did his father die? Maybe his brother who had a wife and kids didn’t want a brain-damaged monster living with them? Whatever the reason, I stood watching him as he smoked a cigarette with an empty look on his face.

  It was the same look he had that Christmas Eve. We had been at a place called The Tool, but after Duke got belligerent with the bartender we were immediately told to “Get the fuck out.” No warning, just “Get the fuck out.” Duke didn’t want to leave but when the bartender reached under the bar for a bat we both knew we wouldn’t be closing this bar that night, so we stumbled across the street to this lesbian bar. It was a place called The Two of Hearts. The Two of Hearts was a neighborhood bar where they had poetry readings (female poets only), there was an active book club (uh, women authors), they mobilized politically (lady issues) and the smell of clove cigarettes permeated the place. Duke stormed toward The Two of Hearts front door ahead of me, at full throttle and pissed. He hit the door with the side of his balled-up fist with so much force that the door flew open, banged on the wall behind it and started to close again. That just made him angrier so he karate chopped the door as it advanced toward him with the side of his hand, and it flung back and banged against the wall again. He topped off his entrance with a bit of holiday cheer. I watched as he stood in the doorway and yelled, at the very top of his lungs, “MERRY FUCKING CHRISTMAS!!!!” Then he threw his head back like a drunk, unhinged Santa and started laughing. I followed Duke as he entered the bar and made his way through the crowd. The patrons treated him like royal
ty and this was patently evident when they scurried out of his way as he advanced toward them. They were a courteous group of lady lovers.

  Behind the bar stood a tiny blonde with a flat top. Duke yelled his drink order at her as the whole jittery bar watched. She looked away, over her shoulder, but no one came to her aid. She didn’t have a choice so she cleared her throat, but heaven help her, when she spoke it still came out high and pip-squeaky. She said it calmly, with her 105 pounds backing her up, “Sir, I cannot serve you a drink because you’re drunk.”

  Duke blinked his eyes. It was as if he didn’t understand what she was saying or he couldn’t hear the high pitch of her voice. He looked at me with bloodshot eyes and a heaving chest. I did not respond so he turned away from me and lowered his whole upper body down onto the bar. He rested on his elbows so he could be face to face with her. When he opened his mouth he said only three words: “What the fuck?” The little bartender looked down before she turned to me and did something weasely and unfair: she pleaded with me, mutely, with her eyes. She wanted ME to help HER? Christ! I turned to Duke and pushed the arm that was closest to me off the bar. He glared at me. I said, “Would you stop bothering her? It’s Christmas. Have a little decency.”

  I grabbed Duke by the arm of his leather jacket and pushed him toward a bar stool. He stumbled momentarily but regained his balance and responded by raising his arms in the air and saying very loudly, “HEY! HEY! HEY!” I ignored him, smiled at the bartender and said, “Can we get a couple of waters?”

  I reached in Duke’s pocket and pulled out his cigarettes. The corner of his top lip went up and exposed his teeth before he growled and said, “Give me a kiss.” I looked up at him unsure of what I wanted to do so he pulled me toward him and I obliged. When I was released from his grip I lit a cigarette and put it in his mouth. Either the cigarette or the kiss placated him because he sat down and, with that act, all the fight oozed out of him. He sucked on the cigarette, exhaling the smoke at me. He looked exhausted. Under his breath I heard him mumble, “Merry Fucking Christmas,” but it was missing all the bravado of the earlier one. He looked defeated and empty, so quietly, almost in a whisper, and just for him I began to sing, “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas”—but I did it in a very manly way. He listened to me as his smoke swirled around both of us. When I finished he put his cigarette out and took his large, beefy hand and gently brushed my hair away from my face. What must I have looked like? He sat in front of me sweaty and disheveled. He smelled of smoke. I raised my eyebrows and shrugged my shoulders at the whole situation. He continued to stare at me for the longest time in silence, then, rather lovingly, the big bear leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek.