The Mechanic
By Jonas Kichda

EPILOGUE


I'll never forget that weird Thursday morning last May, up at the Ahmandsen orchards.  I was still sixteen.  I knew I was gay, even though I never did anything with another guy until a long time after that, in September. Christ, what a disaster he was!  I thought he felt special for me, but he just wanted into my pants.  He got me and then just ignored me from then on.  Oh, well, I was young and foolish then.  I wish I  paid more attention to what Graham and B.B. said and did.  At least I didn't let him fuck me.  I wish I hadn't fallen for his line, but I’m glad I used a condom.

Anyway,— I'd got all my chores done early, and didn't have to be anywhere that morning, so I rode my bike.  This past Spring, I bought a cool Suzuki with last summer's earnings.  I rode it up to the little ridge overlooking the long, gone orchards, right next to the bowl,— the ‘sinkhole’ that appeared in the ground a week or two before that.  I was sitting in the early morning sun in a little niche in the rocks, just reading a story I printed out with my brother, Terry's, P.C., stroking myself as I read this really hot passage about a guy getting his dick sucked by a Marine, just before he was gonna’ get eight hot inches of Marine meat plugged up his butt.  I took off my shorts and boxers, t-shirt and sandals, and just let the warm Sun kiss me all over, before I started to read and stroke.

I heard them first, two trucks coming up the rise from Post Road, and stopped my stroking.  Old man Baker's Jeep came up over the crest, him and B.B. Taggert in it.  There was an old red Dodge Ram right behind him, with two guys in it I never saw before.  Real handsome, they were.  Looked to be about twenty or maybe a little more, same as B.B.

I saw B.B. cornhole my brother Terry once, last summer, back in our barn, when I was fifteen.  I was up in the loft beating my meat, and they were right underneath me, in the crib.  They must have been doing it a lot before that, because they just marched right in, Terry dropped his jeans and stripped off his T-shirt, B.B. did the same.  Terry bent down with his hands on his knees, his butt jutting out. B.B. took out this enormous pole of a dick and just plugged it into him, worming his way in while Terry moaned and pulled on his butt to open it for him, telling B.B. to ‘take it slow,— a little harder,— a little bit out, a little deeper,’ until B.B. was all the way in, right up against Terry's cheeks.

They stood there for a minute, not moving much, then B.B. cornholed the shit out of him, slow and steady, moaning and rubbing Terry's back, telling him how good it felt, all hot and wet and tight like a glove.

I couldn't help getting my meat back out and pulling on it, watching over the top of the hay bale I was on.  Terry beat himself off at the same time, but I could see B.B.'s dick going in and out of Terry's butt.  Then B.B. spewed right into him, and it looked like Terry came at the same time.  Sure sounded like it, anyhow.  They didn't use a condom.  Then I exploded, stars in my head and lightning in my dick, my stuff spewing out, the first shot actually going over the bale, through the load hole, right down to the ground, only a couple of feet from them, but they was too busy to notice.

I used that image a million times to beat off to.  It was really hot.  I never figured why Terry gave that up for a girl, but he did.  So anyway, old man Baker and B.B. gets out of the Jeep, parked right in the middle of the big sinkhole,  and the Ram right next to it.  Except old man Baker wasn't old no more.   They was naked as a jay.  All them men was naked.  I couldn’t get over the fact old man Baker weren’t old,— he was young.  Just like that.  I was only maybe twenty-five, thirty yards away, so it wasn't no heat or mirage or nothing.

Nobody carried no bags or nothing, except Graham and one of the two strangers were carrying something what looked like a black book with shiny gold page edges.  I realized they were Bibles, the kind that mom inherited from my Gram and Gramps.  B.B. had an envelope of some sort; nothing else. Then something shimmered, like when you look on the top of an asphalt highway, at the air right above it.  Only for a minute or so, and then this voice happens in my head.

"Are you ready?"  It said.

Ready for what?  My dick went soft.  I definitely wasn't thinking on the Marine sucking on the surfer's dick no more.  Scared the piss out of me.

"Yes,"  said the new, younger, handsome Graham.

All of a sudden, there was this man standing in front of the four of them. Naked, beautiful like I can't tell you, like everything I ever fantasized about a man I would want to love.  My height, handsome, but not pretty, masculine, twenty-five or so.  I knew somehow he was called Groth.

Graham and B.B. moved right in front of Groth, holding hands.  They looked at each other, and you could tell they were more than just friends; a lot more.  The other two guys were along side of them, holding hands.

And this guy Groth, launched right in.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered together . . ."

He married them to each other;  just like in a church, except it was two guys, not a guy and a girl.  I watched, and got chills when they got to the part about "I do," and I started to get a little sniffly when they put a ring on each others’ finger.  When Groth started saying, " by the power invested in me by the Creator, I now pronounce you Life Mates, blessed in His eyes,"  I couldn't hold back the tears.  I saw them through the waterfall as they turned to each other and kissed, the first time I ever actually saw a man kiss another man on the lips, and it was just plain beautiful.  My eyes were starting to clear a little when Groth turned towards me, the four guys turned towards me as well, and Groth said something that made me tremble.  They knew I was there.  They knew I was watching.

"I present to you Messrs Baker-Taggert and Messrs Fox-Greene.  Please give them your blessing.  I ask that Darren Adams approach, and sign as witness of their union."

They were all looking at me, and I stood up, my shorts and sandals and T-shirt and the pages still on the ground next to my bike.  I didn't feel naked.  I wasn't scared, for some reason.  I walked down the slope of the sinkhole to where they were, and stopped in front of them, maybe five feet.  They were all beaming and misty-eyed.  I shook their hands, like I thought was what I was supposed to do.

"Please sign as a witness in our Bibles,"  said one of the guys I didn't know. He had a beautiful body.  I couldn't help looking at his dick.  There was a pen from somewhere, and I signed on the pages that said ‘Family Bible of Rob and Cory Fox-Greene’ and ‘Family Bible of Bill and Graham Baker-Taggert,’ under the caption  ‘Marrriage Witnesses,’  and dated it.  Then they each signed each other's Bible, too.

"Now we must say goodbye,"  the new and improved Graham said.  He said it pretty loud, then turned to face Groth.

"You may bring the Bibles, but leave all else behind."

"This disk contains our record of all that has happened in the past two weeks or so,"  B.B. said,  "I want it to be preserved for the future."

"It is already in my databanks,"  said the Voice.  "Remember, your computers are completely transparent to me.  There is another purpose for the disk."

"What?"  asked Graham.

"Give it to Darren.  He will be the keeper of the troth,"  said Groth.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

"You will remember our discussion on the odds against what has happened,— "  said the voice.

"Yes?"  Graham said.

"The improbability has become infinite,"  said Groth,  "The alternate probability is thus finite and definite. It has become definable.”

"What does that mean?"  asked B.B.

"There is no longer any possibility whatsoever all that has happened has been the conflux of natural events."

"You mean, something has,— ? "

"It means all that has happened has been the result of a design.  I have done the calculations.  The certainty is one hundred percent accurate.  Nothing else can explain the rupture of probability.  All calculations have led up to and conjoined in this confluence,— this time frame,— this 'event.'"

"You mean . . .?"

"There is no doubt my calculation are correct.  There is no margin for error.  The facts are simply irrefutable!  There is a Creator,— a guiding force in the universe; a Devine, benevolent, caring influence in all things.  He brought you together for your purpose."

Graham turned back to me and leaned down only a little and kissed my cheek, and the others each kissed me in turn.  I almost got hard.   B.B. was last, and as I let go of his hand, he handed me the envelope.

"Read the files on this disk and you will understand."  he said softly.

"Please return to where you left your bike."  said Groth.

I didn't even hesitate to ask why.  I just did.

When I turned around, Groth was gone.  The Jeep and the Ram were gone, too.  The four guys were in a cluster, facing each other.

I caught the glint of the sun off metal, and looked to my left.  There was a whole crowd of people, most of them looking after where the ship had gone. Mrs. Taggert was there with a big guy I later found out was Andy Trothwell. She was sobbing in his arms.  Next to them stood Jerry and Elva Wheeler, and a bunch of other people from town.  I didn't know some of the others.  Must have been thirty, forty people there, all dressed up.  Nobody paid any attention to me as I dressed and got on my Suzuki, ready to ride away as fast as I could from the embarrassment of being seen by all of them, naked as a jay bird.

"They did not see you unclothed,"  were the last words I heard from Groth. "You were dressed in a tuxedo, as were my friends, and there was no one who knew your face."

Then the four men just lifted up into,— a shimmer, and disappeared.  All of a sudden, I saw,— what could only have been the ship,— but huge,— much bigger than even the hangar could hold.  It must have been a good three hundred yards long, silvery and solid, but almost transparent, which I know makes no sense at all, but I could see the clouds right through it.  Slowly, the ship rose, then tilted up at like a forty-five degree angle; there was another shimmering motion somehow, the earth seemed to tremble a little under my feet, and then nothing.  Complete stillness.  No ship.  It was gone.  I could hear somebody's tractor over to Katy, the low whine of a truck way up on the interstate, birds, a jet plane somewhere way overhead.  They were gone.

I've read their story more times than I can count.  I jerked off over a couple of passages, at least at first.  I wasn't going to give it to no one after I done read it all.  It makes a nice story, sort of, but I can't keep it to myself.  It seems,— I feel sometimes I have to show it to people,— have to let them know what's coming.  Nobody's going to pay any attention to a sixteen year old with pimples and overactive gonads, so I'm sending this copy to you; so you'll know; so you can tell somebody who can maybe do something.  We have so much to learn and so much to do.

Groth said it,— the most powerful computer ever created,— with the image of a man I will fantasize about all my days, and pray someday to find; he said it so strongly, so surely, I have no choice but to believe.

"God is."


© 2004 Jonas Kichda