Hound Dog & Bean (32 page)

“Hill. My God. I am so sorry. Please tell me I haven’t lost you.”

He couldn’t have been more surprised.
Lost me?
“Lost me?” he asked aloud.

“I told her your name weeks ago. We’d hardly known each other. It just slipped out. And I didn’t fully realize yet that you don’t tell people your name. I kept meaning to tell her not to use it—”

“You should have told me,” H.D. said, totally disarmed. He’d been ready to come out swinging.

“I…. Shit piss fuck. You’re 100 percent right.”

H.D. looked at Dean in further surprise. He wasn’t sure, but he thought “damn” was about the harshest word he’d ever heard Dean say. “At least then I wouldn’t have been surprised.” Then he sat there and wondered why he wasn’t furious that Dean’s parents knew his real name. His hated name.
Hound Dog is my name.
What the hell is going on with me
?

“I am so, so sorry H.D.”

H.D. He called me H.D. Not Hill.
And why was it okay for Dean to call him Hill when he hated that name?

Because it was a pet name, of course.
A name that no one else uses for me
except
Dean
.

“Have… have I lost you?” Bean asked.

Lost me?
How could Bean “lose” something he didn’t have?

Or did he?

Does he have me?

H.D. didn’t know what to say. How could he say no or yes? It was all too confusing. This is why he usually avoided situations like this. Usually? Hell! He’d
never
allowed this to happen before. Not once.

Not since his mom. Or Billy. Or maybe, in a different way, Ezzie.

They drove in silence all the way back to Dean’s house, and he almost had Dean stop and leave him at his apartment. But somehow that seemed too petty. The Hound Dog was a lot of things, but petty wasn’t one of them

Shit piss fuck, indeed.

He could feel the relief wafting off of Dean as H.D. went into the house when they got back and headed upstairs. He let Dean let the dogs out. He was too tired.

H.D. didn’t respond, though, when Dean crawled in bed with him. He wasn’t in the mood to be sexual. First time in recorded history, maybe, but he wasn’t. He didn’t even want Dean to touch him. He stayed silent, breathing shallowly, hoping the man would think he was asleep. Then, just as he was starting to drift off, Dean touched him. On the upper arm. He kept his breathing regular, didn’t react.
Let him think I’m asleep
.

But then Dean spooned up to him—which was their fashion. What he said next, though, wasn’t. Dean said those famous words.

“I love you, Hill. I love you so damned much. I don’t know what I would do without you.”

The Hound Dog didn’t sleep after that. Not for a long time. His mind was racing.

And in the wee hours of the morning, he finally drifted off.

Because he had made his decision.

“G
OOD
MORNING
. Thank you for calling The Shepherd’s Bean.”

“Bean? This is Elaine.”

Bean switched the phone to his other ear and poured the last of the hot water over the coffee grounds into the ceramic dripper. “Hey, Elaine.”

“Umm…. Got a weird question for you.”

“Shoot,” he said. “Hey, Mara? Can you finish here?”

“Sure, boss man.”

He nodded at her and headed to the back of the shop to get away from Corinne Bailey Rae singing about how he should tell her his favorite songs.

“It’s about H.D.”

Bean stiffened, then forced himself to relax. “What about him?”

“God. I can hear it in your voice.”

“What are you talking about, Elaine?” His heart started to race and his stomach twisted.

“H.D. came in this morning with Rammstein. Asked me to watch him a few days.”

“What?”

“Uh-huh. He said he had a few things to do. Couldn’t take Rammstein with him.”

His heart raced even faster.
Calm down. No reason to panic. He does this all the time.

In the background, Bean could hear Corinne telling him he should let his hair down—hair like Hill’s dreadlocks maybe? Bean didn’t have any to
let
down….

Except H.D hadn’t pulled one of his disappearing acts in over a week. The longest stretch yet.

Of course, last night was the first time I acted like a Grade-A asshole
.

“Okay,” Bean said.

“Look. I know I might be overreacting. But I’ve known him for a while, and he was acting… funny this morning when he came in. And he rarely asks for time off. He feels too much responsibility for the animals, you know?”

He did know. At least about the animals.

“How was he this morning?” she asked. “Did you sense anything?”

“He was the same as always.”

Except…

… except he wasn’t. He was overly cheerful. Like Mr. Rogers. A beautiful day and everything.

Bean’s stomach twisted again.

“Did anything happen between you two?” she asked.

A part of him wanted to lie. As if lying would make the fear that was growing in him less real—the horrid possibility that was conjuring itself in his mind go away. But instead the story poured out of him. His family, the dinner, him messing up and telling his mother H.D.’s real name. All of it.

“I see” came the answer, followed by a pause that seemed to last for all of eternity. “Well, I don’t know. It sounds like he handled it pretty well. That you handled it pretty well. There’s nothing else? You didn’t use the L-word did you?”

“No,” he answered. But then he stopped. He had used it, hadn’t he? “Well….”

“Well what, Bean?”

“I did after he went to sleep.”

There was that pause again. And then she said, “Bean. Are you
sure
he was asleep?”

“Sure I’m sure.” But he wasn’t, was he? He wasn’t sure at all. “Crap. I don’t know. Elaine. My God—”

“Now let’s not panic,” Elaine said. “You and H.D. have come a long way. Let’s just do the usual. Wait a few days. He’ll turn up, I’m sure. If anything, for the animals.”

For the animals
, thought Bean.
But not for me
.

So he waited. With stones in first his stomach, and then his soul, Bean waited.

But two days passed into three and then four and then the longest time since they’d met, five. And into six. A week passed and no word. Not for him and not for Elaine. If she wasn’t lying, that was. And he didn’t think she was.

At the beginning of the second week, he went to H.D.’s apartment building, and when he saw Tiff, Mara’s blue-haired friend, walking out the lobby doors, he ran to her and asked for help.

“Do you know H.D.?” he asked her.

She looked at him twice. “Oh, hi Bean.”

“Hi, Tiff. Sorry to be short, but H.D. You know him, right?”

“You mean Hound Dog?”

“Yeah,” he answered, trying not to shout.

“Sure, I know him. He lives on five.”

“You’re sure of that?” His heart was pounding again.

“Yeah. Totally. Why? You two have a lover’s quarrel?”

Tiff thought they were lovers? Crap!

He gave her an edited version of the tale then, saying only that they’d had a disagreement and that H.D. hadn’t showed up for work in a week. “Even his boss is worried, Tiff.
Really
worried. He might be pissed at me—”

“But he’d never desert those damned dogs. Okay. Come on. Let’s go up and check.”

Relief washed over him in a wave. He followed her into the building’s spacious but obviously rundown lobby and to a set of old brass elevator doors, tarnished by time and not polished in forever. They got in and rode up to the fifth floor and went down the hallway to the apartment that Tiff said belonged to H.D.

All this time we’ve been seeing each other and he hasn’t brought me here even once. His den. His safe place.

Safe from me
.

They knocked on the door and Bean held his breath. He’ll answer the door. And maybe, probably, be pissed that I’m here. But he’ll answer the door.

He didn’t.

Bean knocked this time, loudly. Several times.

“Easy man,” Tiff said. “You want someone to call the police?”

Let them
, he thought. The police might do something. He’d make up a lie and tell them he was scared for H.D., and they’d get someone to let them in and he would see if there was any clue as to where the man he loved might be.

And he did love Hillary. Loved him with all his might. Loved him more than anyone he’d ever known. More than Estuardo (of course). More than his high school boyfriend who now seemed to have lived a thousand years in the past. He could hardly remember that boy’s face.

Bean loved Hillary more than his life, and he didn’t know what he would do if he’d lost him.

“What the hell is going on?”

They turned to see a large man coming down the hall. “Hey, Mr. Martinez,” Tiff said.

“What’re you two pounding on Mr. Fisher’s door for?”

Tiff took over. “We’re worried about him, Mr. Martinez. He hasn’t come to work in a week.”

“Who’s you?” Mr. Martinez asked, looking Bean up and down.

“This is his lover,” Tiff said.

Mr. Martinez looked at him even harder. “And you don’t have no key?”

“We’ve only been seeing each other a couple months,” he explained.

“I thought you gay boys moved in a week after meeting each other.”

“That’s lesbians,” Tiff said. “Our second date is renting a U-Haul.”

Mr. Martinez laughed.

“Seriously though, we are worried. Maybe he’s hurt. Maybe he fell down. Maybe he’s….”

“All right, all right,” Mr. Martinez said and pulled a great ring of keys on a retractable wire from his side. He knocked on the door even louder than Bean had. “Mr. Fisher. Are you in there? We’re coming in. If you’re in there an you’re doin’ somethin’ you don’t want us seein’, I’d give a shout right now!”

At no answer, the enormous man picked a key (Bean just knew it would be the wrong key—like in a movie) and slid it easily into the lock. He turned the knob and opened the door. “Mr. Fisher?”

Still no answer.

“Mr. Fisher, I’m comin’ in!” He turned to Bean and Tiff and told them to wait. “I’ll go in first. In case… well, you know.”

Bean wanted to scream. And when several hours passed and Mr. Martinez still hadn’t come back he started for the door. Tiff stopped him. “Man. Give him a few seconds for God’s sake?”

Seconds? Hadn’t it been at least an hour?

Then Mr. Martinez was standing in the doorway. “Ain’t no one here,” he said.

“What?” Somehow Bean pushed past the mountain of a man and entered the tiny apartment. A quick search showed nothing but a few rooms, very sparsely furnished, but no Hill. Furniture, bed, bedding, food in the refrigerator. But what was important was what was not there. Hill’s backpack, his bike, and his “hippie” clothes. They were gone.

“He’s gone,” cried Bean.

And he knew in that moment he would never see Hillary ever again.

H.D.
WAS
surprised by where the road took him. As he stood with his bike at the top of the hill, he could see the old house and another surprise. The huge garden was still out back. Whoever had bought the old woman’s house had decided they liked it apparently. It brought the first smile to his face in a couple days.

On a whim, he decided to bike down and see the old place. The year he’d lived there had been good, one of the best times of his life, even if it had ended sadly. With her dying. Of course she was a million and three. She had to die sometime.

As he got closer, he saw the house was in surprisingly good shape. It had been a long time since he’d seen it, and someone was maintaining it. That was good. It would have broken his heart if it had fallen into disrepair. Not that it was in sterling shape when he’d lived there. But he’d done a lot of work on the place. Repaired guttering. Kept the fence together. Even painted when some government program had given them the paint to do so. It had turned out to be just the color she wanted too. She claimed she’d done a spell to make that happen.

As he got closer, he saw there was someone sitting on the front porch. They were rocking. Just like she used to—

He brought the bike to such a sudden standstill, he almost flipped over the bars.

It can’t be
, he thought.

He climbed off the bike and let it fall where it was. Walked the last twenty feet or so and then started up the walk. He wasn’t halfway there when he saw it was no trick of the eyes.

It was Ezzie, as big as life, even if she was a tiny old thing.

“It’s about time you got here,” she said. “I been expecting you for a day now.”

Expecting me?

She nodded. Motioned for him.

Bullshit! She’s going to start that witchy bullshit right away!

“Don’t you get that attitude with me, you old hound dog. What took you so long? Did you stop on the way here and get yourself laid a time or two?”

Not or two. Just once. He’d stopped at a rest area to take a piss and gone home with an older man who probably trolled the place regularly. It was getting on dark, and he didn’t want to ride any farther and the guy was more than happy to feed him and give him a bed to sleep in as long as he could suck H.D.’s cock.

“You’re alive.”

She had stopped rocking and now resumed. “Of course I’m alive. I’m not ready to give up on this Earth yet. I still have something important to do.”

“But the hospital said….”

“Hospitals say all kinds of stuff, don’t they? Modern doctors? They think they know everything. What they didn’t count on was old Ezzie. Now come here. Get out of the sun. I got some sun tea making on the back porch. Why don’t you give me a hug and then get yourself back there and make it like I taught you.”

H.D. stumbled to her just like he’d seen the zombies do on that
Walking Dead
show with the
hawt
sheriff. A small flock of birds lifted off from the porch railing (had he really seen that?) as he approached, and when he reached her, she stood and he fell into her arms.