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On The Front Porch

by Jeff Baker

The music was playing soft and the radio and Doug was sitting on the front porch of his family’s lakeside cabin, watching the Moon reflect in the water when Scotty bounded up the steps.

“Doug!” Scotty said. “I got your message! To meet you here at 9:30. Are you okay?”

Doug smiled. As usual, Scotty looked good. He was wearing slacks, brown shoes and the white button down shirt with no tie. The shirt was sweaty; he’d run from his folks’ cabin.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Doug said. “Just that Mom and Dad and Janie left this afternoon. I’m taking off in my roadster in a couple of days. So we got the cabin to ourselves for a day or so.”

“Yeah?” Scotty said. “So, you want to go inside?”

“Later,” Doug said. “Right now, I want you beside me on this bench, looking at the Moon, the lake, the stars. Listen to the romantic music on the radio.” He paused. “We can hold hands.”

“Sure,” Scotty said, sitting down. He glanced around and kissed Doug on the cheek. Doug squeezed his hand as they settled down on the bench; the radio playing a fake Spanish romantic song.

“This is nice…” Scotty said.

“Yeah,” Doug said. He took a deep breath. “Thank my Mom for the idea, she figured it out. She knows.”

Scotty looked at Doug, shocked.

“Dad and Janie don’t know.” Doug said. “Mom said we ought to take advantage of the front porch in the dark in late summer. She’s okay with us. Being us.”

Scotty waited a few moments and let out a deep breath. “Yeah.”

Doug and Scotty had met in College. They’d hit it off and fallen for each other. But this was just after World War Two, the conflict they had spent on the home front.

After a few more minutes, Doug took a deep breath.

“She said we ought to stay together. I mean, not tell people but just room together.” Doug said. “I mean, I can get you a job at the bank, you have that degree and your experience and nobody else knows. About either of us.”

Scotty looked over at the lake for a moment then turned to look at Doug.

“I snore,” he said. “Runs in my family.”

Doug grinned. “I will love your snoring!”

They kissed sitting there, holding the kiss, feeling each other’s faces with their fingers, the romantic music playing on the radio from inside the house. Music which suddenly segued into a Spike Jones record. Gunshots, Belches, Explosions. All punctuated by an orchestra.

Scotty and Doug broke off the kiss and started laughing, all but collapsing on the bench.

Doug stood up, grabbed Scotty’s arm and pulled him off the bench into his arms.

“I was gonna ask you to slow dance, but we gotta dance to Spike Jones!”

They laughed and bounced around the dark porch, kissing and faking the Jitterbug to the wild, happy radio music.

Janie smiled as she finished reading the browned letter.

“And we always played Spike Jones on our Anniversary,”

Mark and Carlos had stared as she had read the old family letter, the letter she had pulled out after they had told Mark’s Grandma Janie they were going to get married. They had hoped for acceptance, the kind they didn’t get from Carlos’ family.

“And you would have loved your Uncles,” she said. “They were together for just over forty-three years before they passed.”

“I didn’t know, didn’t know ever!” Mark said. “About them, I mean.”

“Well, they didn’t wear it on T-shirts but it wasn’t that secret,” she said. “And they donated to a lot of LGBT causes. What we called Gay Rights back then.” She smiled broadly. “Mark, did you know that your Uncle Scott’s middle name was Mark?”

Mark’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t known.

“So,” Grandma Janie said with a smile. “You take this letter, in this old envelope and someday you read it to some niece or nephew or cousin who needs to hear it.”

Mark carefully set the letter beside them on Grandma’s sofa.

“And never stop loving,” she said. “Never.”

—end—