Saturday's Storyteller: "A crumble of bricks, a few rusty metal beams, and broken glass belie the deaths here so long ago that disgraced this town."

by Belinda Roddie

A crumble of bricks, a few rusty metal beams, and broken glass belie the deaths here so long ago that disgraced this town. No one has dared to move away the residue, or perhaps no one has simply bothered to. Like it'd be an inconvenience to rid the place of this traumatic memory once and for all, and instead, the wound should simply scar.

The muddle of this broken residential skeleton rests on the outskirts of town, beside the abandoned gun store. Gabriel Russells worked at that store, before he took two revolvers and a shotgun from the wall and infiltrated what used to be the tiny Unitarian Church of Christ. A wedding was being held there for Tommy Cain and Hilary McGuff, the former having once been Tammy with brown hair that sprung up in dainty curls. Russells killed seven people before turning the gun on himself, and instantly, the town became notorious for being full of rednecks and transphobes.

It wasn't like that. Never was. Russells was a rare specimen. Most of the townsfolk had been accepting of Tommy's transition, even supportive. They harbored a wealth of God's love warmer than the rivulets of sunlight that coursed through the trees like greasy melted butter. And now the media spread the word that we all were like Russells - a mutation of what we really were.

Afternoon stains the roads with white and gold, and I stop by the rubble to smoke a cigarette. Tommy had died along with four of his family members and friends. Stephanie Doherty, a friend from childhood; Billy Hannigan, his boss and best man; Ray Cain, his older brother; Arnold Cain, his father. And the other two casualties: Hilary's uncle, Gordon McGuff, and his second wife, Gertrude. They had all been wearing blacks and blues - cerulean vests and ties to match the skies of dresses in the tiny space. Now turning purple - deep, deep purple. Like the iris blooming too soon in March.

The social and media repercussions had been too much for the minister who owned the little property, so he abandoned it. Teenage boys vandalized the brick. An old beggar man broke in through the window using a stick and a rock. And finally, a lonely arsonist gutted it, leaving barely anything.

I don't have ties with any of the dead. But I'm here to make some peace. I drove over three hundred miles to get to this town, and I'm not going back any time soon. I let the nicotine seep into my veins like narcotic courage, and I make my way to the general store across the street.

***

"You can't go."

"I'm going."

"You can't go."

I had let my fingers run up and down her arm. The goosebumps rose up like mountains to meet me. They tingled against my skin. "I'm going."

"You'll only upset them."

"They're already upset."

"What's it going to do, Bobby?"

"Something. Anything."

"They don't want to hear from you." Rosie's eyes begged for understanding. They begged for agreement. "They don't want to hear from anyone like you. You know what happened with your father."

"He offered the Cains and McGuffs restitution."

"And you know how well they accepted that!"

"I'm not going to give them money. I'm going to give them peace of mind."

"Think, Bobby!" pleaded Rosie. "It's not just them who's suffered. You've suffered, too. The interviews, the questions, the constant media attention. You remember how they treated you."

I did remember. It had been while I was living in the Washington suburbs, before I moved back to the Midwest. They had led me around the ring like an animal on a chain in a badly conducted circus. They had asked the typical questions, all geared around the same words and the same false assumptions about who I was ("Are you transgender? Transsexual? C'mon, you must identify as something. A man or a woman? Did Gabriel have a problem with it?"). Transphobia was a fairly common thing, but I figured the interviewers just liked how big and wonderful it made them sound to ask me about it.

I stood up from the couch and brewed myself some tea. I swallowed my fears with a mouthful of dry chamomile.

"Then think of it as therapy for me," I whispered into my wife's ear. "If nothing else."

Her eyes wept, but she couldn't say anything. I let her sip from my mug and nuzzled my cheek against hers, the make-up flecking off on my chin.

***

The boy behind the counter of the town general store is remarkably pubescent, the scattered stubble on his face almost retaining a mind of its own. He sweeps the floor and rearranges tiny postcards as I walk in.

"Can I help you, sir?"

I grin. He tries again.

"Ma'am?"

"You can call me either one." I let my fingers run across my short, short hair. Though it's getting a bit scraggly in the back. I won't let it creep like a mullet toward my jawline.

The boy doesn't really ask questions after that and doesn't wait for an answer for his. He just keeps sweeping, as who I presume is the manager walks out of his tiny office to restock shelves with English muffins and coffee tins. He can't be much older than forty, but he looks wrung out. I clear my throat and tuck my hands into the folds of my carpenter jeans.

"The McGuffs don't happen to live around here still, do they?"

"Never left," the manager replies gruffly, not looking at me.

"Hilary, then?"

"Never bothered to leave. Can't blame her." His voice is nearly swallowed up by the clatter of Folgers coffee cans. "Why?"

"I'd like to find her."

He snorts. "Best of luck, kid," he says. "She hasn't wanted to see anyone since the wedding. And it's been a long time."

I swallow. "What if Bobby Russells wants to see her?"

The boy drops his broom. The manager lowers his stock. Now he's looking at me, jaw set, chest heaving. His eyes are small like dots on a red canvas.

"If you're the same Russells I think you are," he snarls, "you've got a lot of nerve."

I stiffen. "I just want to settle this once and for all."

"Like hell you do!" He spits. Hard. Right between my left eye and the bridge of my nose. "And give her the same old message, will you, like it'll fix anything your brother did?"

"I didn't say I wanted to fix it. I said I wanted to settle it."

"Settle what?" asks a newcomer.

I turn to look at the woman who's entered the store. She's accompanied by a man equal to her in age - her brother, perhaps. Her hair is still blond, but it hasn't been too many years since the shooting, so it makes sense that it's retained its color. But it's muted, like the shades in her cheeks and nose. If anything, she exudes the idea that she used to be beautiful. Used to. Not anymore.

It takes me a while to realize that I'm staring at Hilary McGuff, after spinning a black and white newspaper memory of her in my head for a few seconds. But she's seemed to recognize me right away. The awkward sibling of her husband-to-be's killer. Sports jacket and jeans. Cropped hair. Close to having sideburns.

She says my name almost immediately. Recites it. Her brother tenses the hold he has on his sister's arm.

"Bobby Russells." Hilary beckons me with a finger. "I've been dying to talk to you for eight years."

***

People these days would call me genderqueer. But I've never liked the extra vocabulary. I've never liked the can labeling. Someone once had the nerve to title me a "masculine butch tomboy gender-confused lesbian." He ended up getting a very manly punch in the jaw.

I was a person. Nothing more. I could handle being called by any pronoun. I was comfortable in men's clothes over dresses and skirts. I fell in love with, and married, a woman. I was a photographer. I was the psychotic Gabriel Russells' disenchanted, and perhaps self-loathing, sister.

It was all drama. And I hated drama. That's why going back to the town startled Rosie so much. But the restlessness had gotten the better of me. The whole thing had haunted me for nearly nine years. My brother hadn't even gotten a proper burial. He was locked away in a morgue somewhere, in a small forensics lab, probably still getting his gray matter poked at.

The truth was, it was all so glaringly simple. Gabriel had moved to the town to become a gun shop owner. He had made fast friends with Hilary and Tommy, back when the latter was still identifying as the wrong gender. He didn't give a damn about Tommy transitioning from woman to man. They had had drinks together. He had taught him to shoot a gun properly. They had gone hiking, fishing, and hunting together. But no, clearly the psychological inclinations surely must've riddled his prejudiced mind.

Bull. Shit. It wasn't like that. It was never like that. He had never meant to ruin the town's reputation. The fact was, he was sick. That I couldn't deny.

But the disease was something entirely untreatable...and entirely conventional. But it was real. And he had reacted in the most carnal, primal way possible before he realized what he had done and rid the world of his presence once and for all.

***

Hilary has listened to me talk for a good twenty minutes now. She's sent her brother off while we sit. I smoke a cigarette. I've offered her one three times now. She's refused three equal times.

"I know all this, Bobby," she finally says to me. "You don't have to repeat it."

"That he was in love with you?"

"He wasn't my kind of guy," she whispered. "All this time, I thought he was simply prepping Tommy up for me. He even said it was like that. I never wanted to hurt him."

"It's not your fault."

"If I had told the media all this," she says, "they would've painted me as a heartbreaker. As somewhat responsible. Like I had pulled the trigger."

"And you think this has been fair to my brother? Or to anyone here? Or to me?"

She doesn't answer that. Behind those pseudo-confident irises, there's terror. She's stayed quiet for so long in order to cope, but also in order to escape. She's a flower balled up in a tight, quivering bud. A wad of shaking petals and forgotten beauty.

I rise from the general store steps and look at the remains of the church across the street. I can see Hilary there, dressed in her blues, Tommy in his black. Smiling. Slicked up and all nice-looking. Before flint broke apart the sound of wedding chimes.

"You can't blame me," Hilary says to my back. "You can't blame me for hiding it. It was a love triangle. The media would've eaten it up."

"How tragic."

"Mocking me is the last thing you want to do, Russells!"

Trying to show authority now. I smile. I turn to look at the faded blonde girl and give a half-hearted shrug. The cigarette scalds my right hand.

"Look at this place, Hilary. It's broken down. Reprimanded. Blacklisted. People understand love. They always do. They understand horrible acts done out of love. Now, I'm not saying my brother deserves pity. But this place is stamped with the seal of hate. And no one's done anything to help it."

The sun is setting conveniently over the oaks. The air is stuffy. I arch my back and feel the vertebrate crackle and settle back into place.

"What Gabriel did was inconceivable, terrible." I sigh. "But he didn't do it because he hated Tommy. Or me. He did it because he was a scared animal thinking he'd be left alone in his cage. And now everyone suffers for everyone else's fear."

My little speech done, I go back down toward the main street of town, leaving Hilary at the store. Her brother brushes past me and purposely knocks into me. I pay it no mind. Behind me is the wedding aisle, the dust of old lead prickling the gravel where the church once stood. The broken glass is stained with orange. And despite the unstable peace, with nothing resolved, perhaps nothing ever resolved...I'm settled.

This week's prompt was provided by Roger Collins.