Red Twilight

The following short story won second place in a regional literary competition a few years ago. Here it is for your pleasure or your amusement:

Manny sat gazing at the gun he held as if it had all the answers. He looked down the barrel in to the darkness. The words fell from his mouth exploding in the silent room like shattering glass.

“I have suffered so much, I have experienced so much pain and I have caused it. Not physical but what does that matter?
“Emotionally pain leaves deeper scars. At this point so many people turn to God, as if he had answers.
“I tried that once, but the only insight I gained was not in faith but from my own prayer.

Josh sat in front of him. He held his hands clasp tightly, unknowingly beseeching Manny.

“And what was that?” Manny continued. “I found out that prayer just doesn’t work. We are only speaking to the silence within us when we pray. So it’s not worth the effort now and honestly it wasn’t then.”
“Please don’t do this,” Josh begged. “Think of the effect it will have on your friends and your family. Think about those who care about you who count on you, Manny. You know what this says to them? It says ‘I quit, I’m selfish, I want to give up because I just am not strong enough to try anymore.”

“So, why do you care Josh? With your pretty wife and your baby and your born again religion telling you that you can’t be who you were born to be? Do you really care? You walked away from me two years ago. You’ve been reprogrammed. Are you sure you should even be in a queer’s house. Isn’t it better if I am wiped off the face of the Earth? Doesn’t your God want retribution on the gays for ruining the world?”
Oh, fuck it! Don’t bother to answer that question.”

He sat up and leaned forward out of the corner he had been in hiding.
“I seem to recall a song by Kurt Cobain. You remember him don’t you Josh? I remember you had such a boy crush on him. Any way the lyrics go, “Rape me, Rape me my friend.” Sounds appropriate don’t it?”

”Look Manny, I am here because I care about you. Carol cares about you. We want you to come to God and be happy. You can be. You can live a normal life,” Josh said.

“Fuck you. You call that normal? Every time a pretty boy walks down the street, do you get a hard on? Do you have to pretend its not there or that it never happened?

“Do you have to pretend that the woman you’re with is a man when you fuck her? You have to pray to your God every time you have ‘wrong thoughts, perverted thoughts’?

“Do you have to go to reprogramming refresher to make sure the brain washing took? Are you going to tell me that your way of life is better?”

“And yours is? Manny you’re sitting here with a gun. It’s loaded and you’re stroking the barrel …

“Yeah likes it’s your cock! Remember Josh?”

“… and you are getting ready to put it in your mouth. Is that better? If your way is right then why are you so unhappy?”

“Don’t you see Josh? I lost everything when you left. I lost you. You were my reason for living. You were the reason I kept going when things got bad.
“When my mother went south with her mental disorder you were there. When my sister died in the car wreck you were there for me.
“You helped me come to grips with the fact that my father would never accept me for who I am and I was able to just walk away.”
“I’ve tried but I just can’t find a reason to go on any more. I lost my job at the firm. My mother died last month. Did you know that?”

“No …” Josh mumbled wringing his hands.
“She killed her self.”
“That’s not all. The doctor diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder right after that. Just like my mother. She was the only one who cared about me no matter what.
I had a breakdown right after that. They asked me to leave the firm because they said I needed time to take care of myself. What am I suppose to do now? I have no one and no where to go. I’m alone Josh. “

“Is that why you called me tonight, Manny? Because you are alone and you didn’t want to be?”

Josh reached out a hand to Manny but he batted it away. Now his anger had subsided and the tears began streaming down his face.

“No. I called you because I wanted you to see what a bullet does to the head of someone you love and I know you love me, Josh. I wanted you to see what you had done to me.

“And I wanted to know. I wanted to hear your voice say just one last time; tell me once more, that you don’t love me. That you quit loving me when you got Jesus.”

He looked up at Josh. His dark curly hair was at the moment a mop. His large brown eyes were swollen and puffy. His full lips are quivering. His whole body began to shake.

Josh reached his hand out and stoked Manny’s arm. He was so different now, but he was still Josh. He wore his hair close cut and Dockers instead of the trendy clothes he once preferred.

Josh removed his tortoise shell glasses and rubbed his eyes. Without the contacts his beautiful blue eyes couldn’t be seen.

All Manny could see was the epitome of a conservative right wing yuppie. Instead of working as a buyer at the fashion house he had been employed by, Josh was now a youth pastor at a mega church who always toted a Bible everywhere he went. It was incomprehensible.

Josh slid his hand up Manny’s neck to the back of his head and he pulled him over. Resting his forehead on his former partner’s, he sighed “Let’s pray.”

“Is that your answer to everything?” Manny screamed. “Can’t your God just accept me for who I am, you for who are and let us be together?”

“Manny, I have a baby daughter now. Carol counts on me.”

“I counted on you. I loved you. I think it’s wonderful you have a daughter. I had always hoped we could be parents and
I know she would want her dad to be who he truly is and not a fake.”

“I would think she would want to have a normal dad,” Josh said indignantly.

“Why must there be something wrong with us, Josh? Why do we have to be the ones to change? Why can’t you see that you are betraying yourself and everyone in the outside world who is even slightly different?”

Manny yanked his head back out of Josh’s grasp. He shook him off and stood up beginning to pace.

“This is going no where. I am tried of you trying to talk me out of this. I know how my mother died. I know I can’t face this nightmare alone. I know I need someone who can love me and help me and care for me. I guess it was selfish to want it to be you. After all you are the only person I ever loved.”

He strides about the apartment ever increasing his stride. He is tired and yet he is on the verge of implosion. As he looks away, Josh reaches into his pants pocket and dials 911 on his cell phone.

“Please Manny, don’t kill your self,” he projects his voice so the operator can hear the sound without him having to remove the phone. Manny is clearly agitated and it is obvious that almost anything will set him off at this point.

“Tell me what I can do?”

Manny screams.

“You could go back to your house, get your daughter, come back here and we could be a family.”

If I promise to do that would you put down the gun,” Josh asks.

“Like I am going to believe that line of shit now. After all you have said to me tonight.”

He pulls the gun out and strokes the barrel again. He isn’t looking at Josh. He doesn’t appear to really care now if he is there or not. It isn’t about making Josh love him again, it’s not about trying to get him to come back. Manny knew he never would. He’s always known that all Josh ever really wanted was to be like everyone else: straight. He could never accept who he was.

Manny bought the gun a few days ago. It’s not that he has been scared or that he planned to use this opportunity to make Josh feel guilty. He called Josh and asked him to come over because he just didn’t want to die alone.
The barrel’s smooth metal feels so cool. It is not one of those semi-automatics that require so much work to operate. It is a six gun like in the movies he use to watch with his dad, before he knew what gay was, before he told his father that he liked to look at Clint Eastwood as a young man, before he knew this was WRONG.

He turns way from Josh and looks out the window which gives him a view of the city and the port. It’s so beautiful tonight. The lights from downtown gleam like stars in the sky.

Manny is ready now and turns back to Josh. He smiles and cocks the gun.

“I love you, Josh. I always will,” he said then slides the gun into his mouth like a lovers cock.
He grins and pulls the trigger just as Josh stands up and the cops burst in the door.
Now the night sky is tinted red.