A few of the boys were already there. I saw Andy and Luke in the back nook, playing a game of pool. Tommy was over at the side wall slapping the juke box, apparently trying to get his coins back after getting cheated out of some songs. Three of the guys had a card game going and Matt slouched against the bar nearby, watching the game. I chuckled when I thought about the hell that had broken loose the last time I had seen Matt watch these guys play poker. When he kept scratching his nose, Johnny Ace accused him of signaling, and the card game quickly degenerated into a different game altogether. I scanned the room and finally spotted Jesus sitting at the back of the bar, engaged in an earnest conversation with some stranger. I had to smile. It was just like him to warm up to a new acquaintance with a couple of beers and talk about the ideas that were always spinning in his head. And as always, the stranger was clearly charmed by this boy-like man with his infectious enthusiasm. I couldn’t hear the words but as I watched him talk, I got that old feeling of simultaneous love and concern that I always got when I watched him from a distance. The smile lines were permanently creased in his tanned face and when he flashed his big friendly grin, it was almost impossible not to smile back. He always seemed so naïve and vulnerable and I worried for him. Pretty much everybody in the area liked Jesus and there wasn’t a woman in town who wouldn’t like to hang on his arm. But he was never interested. He seemed remote from everyday life as most of us lived it, and sometimes seemed to walk in some other world that only emerged in the ideas he loved to talk about. Because he had never hooked up with a woman some people wondered if he was gay, but I knew he was not. I had known Jesus all my life and had gone through school with him and most of the boys here had known him that long also. We had been an inseparable bunch and everybody knew that if you messed with one of us, you messed with all of us. And that loyalty extended double to Jesus. He himself though had never been one to scrap and never really needed to because there had always been several of us around.
Jesus moved out of his home when he was twelve years old. It wasn’t so much that he was unhappy at home. He probably left more because that’s just the way his mind worked, always probing the boundaries that people set for him. He moved in with a neighbor who recognized that Jesus was a good kid who just needed a place to stay. Eventually Jesus dropped out of high school and spent much of his time working with his dad. They did carpentry when construction work was available, but would do pretty much anything that needed doing, fixing fences, hauling trash, removing stumps and the like. As we grew up, we all found work where we could. Luke had left town for a while but came back when his dreams went bust. Now that we were grown, we didn’t get together as often as we used to. Girlfriends and wives and kids entered the picture for most of us and we had other obligations. Andy didn’t usually have anybody because it was hard being gay in a small town, but he would disappear for weeks at a time when he found somebody from out of town. I’ll never forget how Andy came to be in our group. Another kid and I had chased him after school one day and had him cornered behind the bowling alley and were shoving him around, calling him queer-boy and pretty much kicking his ass when I looked up and saw Jesus standing near us watching. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there and watched. We stopped tormenting Andy and looked over at Jesus. Jesus waited a minute, then walked up to us, bent down and picked up Andy’s glasses and put his hand on Andy’s shoulder. All he said was “Let’s go.” The two of them walked away. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so bad. Jesus didn’t chew us out or say anything. He just left. None of us saw Jesus after school for a week or so after that. We learned later that he had been spending his time at Andy’s house, befriending the boy. When Jesus was ready to come back, Andy was with him. And that was that. Andy was one of us.
As it turns out, things wouldn’t have been the same if Jesus hadn’t brought Andy in with us. Andy had a love of camping and hunting and could outshoot any of us. One time he stood fast and coolly dropped a charging big-tusked javelina when the rest of us froze in indecision or were trying to find a tree to climb. Andy spent a lot of time in the back canyons alone and occasionally he’d show up one day and tell us there was a beautiful spot we all needed to check out. On Friday night we’d load our guns and gear into the trucks and off we’d go for a couple of days. We’d build big campfires at night and play a little guitar and harmonica and tell long elaborate lies late into the night.
We were all meeting this day because Jesus had called us together. He had hit the Match4 Plus weekly drawing and had a little money and wanted to buy dinner for all of us. He told us to gather at the Buzzard until we had all assembled and then we’d head on over to the Creekside Restaurant for dinner. Whenever Jesus had the money to buy dinner, he always went to the Creekside. From the time we were just thirteen years old, he and I used to ride our bikes there after doing enough paid yard work to be able to afford dinner. Mr. Medina, the owner, would always treat us like adults and that was important to Jesus. Mr. Medina was an old man now and had turned daily operation of the restaurant over to his family, but Jesus would always ask about him when we went and would shake his hand if Mr. Medina happened to be there.
When Jesus had called me a couple of days ago to say that we were all getting together for dinner, he told me he would be leaving town the day after we all met at the Creekside. He had made some new friends who were interested in some of the things he had to say and he was going to be heading west to Alderich County for a few days to get to know them better. Jesus often traveled like that, picking up work and enlarging his circle of friends but as soon as he said he was going to Alderich County, an alarm went off in my head. I never knew why the sheriff there had it in for Jesus’ family, but he definitely did. I had learned that the hard way many years back when we had traveled through that area on a hunting trip. We had ended up spending three nights in the county jail on bogus charges and the hate I felt from the sheriff was scary. We never did get our guns back and I felt lucky to get away from there. When the sheriff threw us out he had specifically told us. Stay the hell away.