#1 LGBTQ classic || When Johnny and Jason, the high school football team's two star players, come out on Facebook as gay lovers, all hell breaks loose in the small Appalachian town of Kenton. Their lives, and those of some of their teammates who com...
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Ohio U. Bobcat Battalion ROTC training.
**
"Fuck. Do I ever need a drink."
Johnny reached across the table and grabbed his uncle's scotch and soda. He pulled it back toward himself, picked it up, and chugged down what was left of the drink before slamming the glass back down onto the table.
"Dammit, Uncle Ted. Tell me what happened. I want to know."
I pulled my hands down from his shoulders. People around us were beginning to look. But then I placed my hand on his thigh and held it there so he'd know I was with him, right at his side.
"It's what your dad wanted," his uncle said, a somber expression on his face. "Your mom always planned to go back to El Salvador. He wanted her to leave you with me if anything happened to him in Afghanistan and she did go back. He wanted you to be raised as an American, here in the States."
He cleared his throat and I could see he was still nervous. "I'd been managing the auto parts store here in Athens for a few years when I first met your dad. He'd come to Ohio University on a scholarship from the Dayton area where he lived with his grandfather. He was a cadet in the Army ROTC battalion and he was working toward a military career.
"We met because he'd come into the store to buy parts for his car, a vintage '67 Chevy Impala sedan, a black one, like those Winchester boys on TV drive. An interest in classic cars was only one of the many things we had in common, Johnny. The biggest, of course, was our last name. He was Johnny Sands, I was Ted Sands. It's a pretty common name, but we knew it was fate that had brought us together. We even looked like brothers. He looked almost exactly like you, just not quite as dark complexioned. That you got from your mom. Your dad was a few inches shorter than me and I was ten years older."
Johnny looked pretty much amazed. "He was a customer at the old store down on Main Street here in Athens?"
Uncle Ted nodded. "Yes, he just sort of walked right into my life there. And it wasn't long before I realized he was coming into the store to see me, talk to me, not just to buy auto parts. He was only eighteen, maybe eight or nine months older than you guys are right now. I knew what he wanted, and I wanted it too, but I was hesitant. This was back in the mid-nineties, the stigma of AIDS was still riding high. It wasn't a good time for being gay. And your dad was in the Army ROTC, not a particularly gay-friendly organization."
Johnny chuckled at that, but I groaned. "Damn, doesn't sound very promising," I said.
"It wasn't," Uncle Ted agreed. "But nature has a way of finding its own, and before we even realized it we were in a hot intense relationship the likes of which neither of us had had before. It pretty much freaked me out. Johnny too. We weren't just two guys fooling around. We were fucking in love. And it opened up a big can of worms for us both. Same as it would today, and does, as you two boys are finding out now.
