Rhydin Pride 2021

[Canaan]

Pride Week. The only thing outside a Jazz club these days that had the power to lure a homebody like Cane away from the quiet creature comforts of his lakeside abode into the ruckus that was city life. While it was true he’d come to prefer a slower paced existence during his lengthy sabbatical, especially after experiencing the recent chaos of literal hell with Skid, absolutely nothing would keep him from heading into town to show his support and appreciation for the city’s efforts in celebrating something so near and dear to his heart.

On Sunday he was found manning the grills at the family picnic, just as he’d done every other year and was even sporting an entirely appropriate t-shirt for the occasion. Probably because Isaac had mysteriously disappeared the majority of his crass tee arsenal. He wore a different one every day with predictable slogans like I’m Not Gay & Neither Is My Boyfriend and Queer AF and Bisexual And Still Not Into You, all of which were relatively tame save the one he donned Friday for the glowstick parade, worn specifically to make Isaac laugh. That one had a picture of their asshole of a rooster, Kyle, printed on it while the surrounding text read, My [rooster] Is Magical. Because if he didn’t make at least one dick joke that week, he might spontaneously combust!

Though Cane and his handsome Beau were notably absent from the festivities on Monday, they were certainly spotted together throughout the rest of the week: enjoying a fine meal on the riverboat after an afternoon of fishing, lounging in the bed of their pickup at the Drive-In (but only occasionally paying attention to the musicals on screen), exploring the caves and repping the RCPA with the other instructors as a team for Capture the Flag. The two wrapped things up at the RCPA’s talent showcase in the park on Saturday night—not as participants, but as members of the audience. It was nice to sit back and relax after a busy week of active participation where they had almost never stopped moving.

Towards the end of the show Cane quietly excused himself under the guise of needing to hit up the head, instructing Isaac not to let anyone take his seat because he’d be right back.

Except he didn’t come right back.

Instead, he reappeared several minutes later on stage and carrying a beat up old guitar by its neck in one hand. He waved with the other as a ripple of surprise swept through the crowd, making his way to the chair that had been set out for him at center stage. As he got settled, the stage hands brought out a pedalboard and a guitar mic, while Saila pinned a smaller mic to his shirt. Today’s was a simple black tee with the words Love Anyway printed in rainbow text across the chest.

“Thanks, darlin’.” The low rasp of his voice crawled through the speakers. Cane caught Saila’s hand and squeezed her fingers a moment before letting her go.

Then he addressed the crowd, saying, “Yeah, yeah. I’m the last person y’all were expectin’ to see up here, huh?” The Cajun held the battered instrument before himself as though it were a shield. Those who knew him well enough might recognize it as the old 12 string acoustic he'd gotten from Sinjin, and like any well loved thing it was weathered to all hell from excessive use. As the big screen camera zoomed in on him, one might see it was even missing a string. “Not with a guitar in my hand anyway.”

The crowd tittered and he grinned at them, scanning the dark sea of faces in an attempt to catch sight of one in particular—just to make sure he was where he was supposed to be. Then he said, “I’m gonna play a song for y’all, but first I’m gonna tell you a story.”

He leaned over to grab a cable off the floor, giving it a light shake before plugging it into the amplifier on his guitar, and as he worked, he began to speak.

“For those of you who don’t know it, my name is Cane and I’m the owner and director of the RCPA. I wanna start off by thankin everyone for comin out and showin their support. Everyone here’s worked real hard to give y’all a great show, pourin their hearts and souls into every piece.” A smattering of applause broke out. Cane waited for that to quiet down before continuing. “The passion on display here tonight warms me in way I can’t describe. To know that I’ve built somethin—a place where love is celebrated without shame and brings together so many like-minded individuals is a truly a dream come true.

“There was a time in my life when I couldn’t even imagine a gatherin like this one. Y’see, I come from a place that, for the longest time, punished folks for their differences instead of seein 'em as somethin to be embraced, where folks were judged for the color of their skin or the way they prayed or who they loved. Back in my day, we’d’ve been fined, or jailed, or worse for congregatin’ this way.”

By now he’d begun plucking idly at the strings of his guitar, the quiet, meandering tune a perfect accompaniment to the rolling cadence of his southern spiced speech.

“I’ve never understood why people are so afraid of what’s different. The expression of love is—is by definition affection. It’s devotion. It’s attachment and intimacy and tenderness and compassion and benevolence and fellow feelin and none of those things should be divisive. Love,” Cane opined with a smile, “...it can reach across every aisle, bridge any gap, span endless lifetimes; it works both with and in spite of the universe to bring people together every day and I ain't understood how somethin so honest and natural could be used as an excuse to tear another person down. How could a person be afraid of love?

“So in preparation for this event, I really got to thinkin about that question and right away my brain says to itself ‘well, Cane, you know...you’ve been afraid of love before’, and that kinda stopped me in my tracks. I mean... completely derailed my train of thought. I’d planned on makin’ a whole big speech about those other folks who're threatened by all the different ways there are to love out there, but you know what? I don’t want to waste my time talkin 'bout that. This celebration ain’t about them, it never was. This is about us and our place in the world.

“So, now, y’all are gettin’ a story about me.

“A year ago this week, actually, I told the man I love how I really felt about him.” And you could hear it in voice, a love so incandescent that when he smiled it damn near outshone the sun. “I tell you what, I was fuckin terrif—oh sorry! Sorry to any little ears still out there. My mouth likes to run away from me sometimes, like now. Listen, I’ll try to keep this brief so we can get on to what y’all are here for.” A low chuckle rolled like distant thunder from the speakers.

“I still remember sittin there on that porch swing in the dark, my insides a right mess as I worked up the courage to say those three little words. See, a little earlier in the night we’d made something of a bet. I’d written him a song and I was gonna play it for him once we was finished bein out on the town, ‘cause I don’t really like singin’ or playin’ in public, but I told him—I told him, ‘Listen. I’ll get up on that karaoke stage and give it you right here, right now, in front of everyone, but you gotta go first.’

“Honestly, I only said it ‘cause I thought he wouldn’t do it.” Cane wheezed a breathy laugh into the mic. “I was just messin with him, you know? 'S'posed to be no big deal. But then he goes an’ calls my bluff! Gets up there in front of that whole place and just pours his damn heart out with the most perfect song,” —he’s too engrossed in his story now to notice he’s gone and cussed a second time— “and what y’all gotta understand about this man of mine is he don’t like drawin’ attention. How someone like him took a shine to a loudmouth like me, I’ll never know. My ass is prolly gon’ be on the couch tonight for this stunt!”

The Cajun’s smile is as wild as anything, but every line of his face became softer, somehow, gentler as he gathered to him the words that came next. “He’s the most humble, self-effacin and modest man I've ever known and I love him for it. So the fact that he put himself out there like that… Well, it moved me, and I knew even before he was done singin that I had to tell him how I felt; I couldn’t keep it inside me any longer.

“So we end up outside after he’s finished, and his hands are shakin’ and my hands are shakin’... Had to steal a drag off his cigarette just to calm my damn nerves,” he admitted with a crooked grin. “Then I just looked at him an’ I said it. I said ‘I love you, Isaac. It scares me half to death, but I do.’”

He stopped playing, then, smothering the strings with a calloused palm so it’s achingly quiet for a moment. “But lookin’ back on it… the truth is I wasn’t actually scared to love him. Loving him is the easiest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It’s effortless and a privilege. I had an entire ocean of love for him inside me and all I wanted was to give it all to him. What actually scared me was what would happen if he didn’t want any of it. That’s all my fear really was: love that I didn’t know what to do with.”

He moved the capo down the neck of the guitar to the fourth fret, then dug up a handful of silver butterfly fingerpicks that he slipped onto each of the fingers of his right hand. After giving them a quick flex, he strummed the guitar again and sucked in a deep breath.

“Turns out givin it all to him was the best decision I’ve ever made. Sometimes I wonder what my life would'a been like and where I’d be now if I’d’a let fear hold me back, but it ain't really somethin I like to dwell on. In the same way that I didn’t want to make this speech about the hate of others, our fears should never be the focus either. Love is where it’s at. Love is why we’re here! We just have to throw ourselves into that fathomless ocean n’ trust that the tides will take us where we’re s'posed to go.

“That’s what I named this song I’m fixin to play for y’all tonight. Ocean.” He scanned the crowd again, pinning the scion under the full weight of his hungry gaze. “It doesn’t have any lyrics because no matter how many times I try to put it to words, I can never find any that perfectly describe how it feels to love you, Isaac Wheeler. But this song?” He touched a hand to his heart, thumping his chest a couple times for emphasis. “It’s everything that’s in here, everything I’ve felt since the moment I laid eyes on you. And it ain’t got a proper ending, neither, ‘cause I don’t want our story to end. Baby, you an’ I are just gettin started!

“So this one’s for you, mamour. I told you I’d get up on stage that night an’ I didn’t, so I’m up here now in front of everyone ‘cause I owe you this. I’m a man of my word and I want the whole goddamn world to know: Je t’aime, mon âme. Hier, aujourd’hui, demain, toujours.”

Then he started to play.

It’s a story, in a way—their story—though it didn’t exactly follow a linear progression. Cane opened up hot with a rush of intricate strokes that spoke to the complexity of emotions that had been breathed to life the first time they crossed paths. His fingers walked effortlessly through the intricately sweet, quivering notes as the song explored those burgeoning sparks of curious attraction and the slow build of the expansive gravitational pull that kept them circling one another’s orbits.

All those maddening months of wonder and making eyes at each other from across the room, the accidental touches... and the purposeful ones. They’d made a game of their attraction back then, a game where there was no winner or loser, just the anticipation of the moment when one of them caved to the building tension.

With each progression, the movements led them along another avenue of their lives. The exploration of infatuation where Cane learned the meaning of the word insatiable, creating a home together and a family in one another, afternoons spent cliff jumping, long hours by the water. The comfort of Isaac’s indefatigable presence through every low that came Cane’s way… That he was there, always—that they were there for one another—was one of the strongest stones in the foundation of their relationship. Isaac was his safe harbor. His shelter from the storm. A quiet place to rest after a life spent running away from everything. If Cane was running anywhere these days, it was to straight to him.

He rocked in his seat and moved with the song as if the music were a part of him, body strumming with an overflow of passion. His chin swayed, head moving with the hard-hitting beats, his expression a picture of intense focus mixed with absolute adoration.

And the story wasn’t just about this life, either. The song also spoke of immortal hearts and the sharp knife of a short life filled with more love than others saw in a century; the exquisite torment of love, of sacrifice, of revenge; two souls lost and found in the gloaming, never to be parted.

It was true for them then and it was true for them now. Though he couldn’t even begin to explain it, he’d never been more sure of anything in his long life: that he’d found a Home he would never leave, that he would love this man and all the pieces of him that lingered in the darkness for the rest of his life, and that it would be this, always, for as long as Isaac would let him.

As the song changed tempo, growing heavier and frenzied, every muscle in his body engaged. This was Cane’s favorite part—the part of the song he’d written about that fateful night one year earlier. He fingered through the slow-building introduction to the moment he stepped out onto that dimly lit porch, meeting Isaac in that place of raw vulnerability and threw himself into the delivery with abandon, his entire being captured and controlled by the acoustics as he wrestled every molecule of power the guitar offered, jumping from one progression to another as the momentum built.

This is what it felt like to love this man. It was wild and unbridled, it was esurient desire. A riot of lawlessness perfectly depicted in the way Cane expertly manipulated the guitar’s rhythmic flexibility. This was insatiability.

In most books a love story ends after the main characters confess their feelings to one another, but Cane couldn’t bring himself to end the song there. In fact, he couldn’t bring himself to write an ending at all; their story together was still in progress. He sought his lover’s gaze in the crowd one last time and held it for the duration as the soft song of want and hunger built all too quickly again, desire painting a wolfish smile on his sinful mouth.

The performance ‘ended’ meteorically with the violent promise that he intended to add to this song for the rest of his life. And in the next one? He’d just pick up where he left off.

((Ocean by John Butler))