7. Davis

One of Davis’s favorite moments was the second after he finished a mountain bike ride and took off his helmet. There was a clarity in that space, with your heart still racing and your hair damp. The lactic acid in his muscles still burned pleasantly, a reminder that Davis had done something with his body today. In those moments, he was giddy, almost high. It was the closest thing he had found to the buzz he used to get from a steady intake of alcohol. Mountain biking, however, resulted in a clarity of mind, as opposed to the conscious numbness he chased from drinking.

Lots of addicts swapped their substances for something else. His counselor had suggested running marathons at first, but then took one look at Davis’s dense form and had suggested that he find something else or attend some meetings. He tried a few twelve step meetings, but, after talking it over with his counselor, decided it wasn’t the framework for him. He knew that some of the people kept attending meetings, knew that it worked for them, how they loved to fidget with a chip in their pocket or on a key ring. For Davis, he couldn’t admit his failings to a God that had abandoned his family and their homesteads, no matter how close to heaven it had claimed to be. For a young boy who had felt that so much was out of his control— his brain, his attractions, his family’s finances, the coal industry his town was built on— he couldn’t be a young man who admitted he didn’t have control over his own choices. So, with the help of his counselor and his college adviser, he’d signed up for a beginner mountain biking course at the community college and had given it a shot. It was rough at first. Growing up in rural West Virginia meant that he didn’t have sidewalks to bike on, unless he wanted to take a bike down a rural highway that was full of trucks carrying coal and, as he worked as a college student, drilling for the new jobs that were promised by fracking. But something about being in nature, combined with the exertion and confidence he gained with each completed ride, worked for him. He hadn’t looked back since.

Today, he took his helmet off and felt the cool breeze along his sweaty hairline, causing a shiver to run down his spine. He had finished first, which was unusual, but he had felt fully in the moment today. In flow, as Yesenia called it. This morning’s trail had been a new one for Davis, but it was one that Yesenia said had an especially great portion of curves that made the climbing worth it.

She was right, of course, as Davis had learned, she usually was about mountain biking. She was the best of the three of them. Alex, unsurprisingly, preferred bombing down hills and, more often than not, ended up in a bush or a ditch at least once during every ride. Davis thought he had heard Alex take a tumble behind him, but he was already too deep in the momentum of his descent to be able to stop. He only felt a touch guilty about it, and only until Alex flew down the hill, a few small leaves and branches sticking out of his helmet, a goofy smile on his face.

“Amazing!” he said, skidding to a stop in front of Davis, taking off his own helmet to join Davis in watching Yesenia expertly navigate the single track, choosing to go over the jump that Davis had avoided.

“That was a great one,” Yesenia said. “I wish that we could ride all day instead of working.”

“Agreed,” Alex said. “How does work always get in the way of fun?” He turned to Davis. “Speaking of which, I think it’s time we met the new love of your life.”

The good mood from the ride vanished in an instant. Did Alex know he was queer? Was he going to tell Eric? Yesenia? Was Davis safe?

“What did you name your dog?” Yesenia asked.

“C’mon, man, we want to meet her! My dog would love her,” Alex whined.

Oh.

Of course.

A friend’s aunt, a former nurse from upstate New York, had once given Davis a piece of advice she used to keep her head straight when they didn’t know what was wrong with a patient. “If you hear hoofbeats, they’re probably horses, not zebras,” she had said. Davis, growing up in Anthracite Springs, felt like he had been hearing zebras for decades. He wasn’t bullied in high school, because no one knew he was queer, but he was on the baseball team and had heard gay slurs tossed around between teammates more than handfuls of sunflower seeds in the dugout. Community college was a time for quiet experimentation with an openly gay classmate in his intro to biology class. Something that Davis told himself he could have written off as taking the class incredibly literally. When he dated men, or whatever you called a regular hookup, it was in a different city. Hell, it was in a different state, and Pittsburgh and Wheeling could sometimes seem like two different universes.

What he did was his business and his business alone.

Moving out here, it was easy to keep it quiet, even though his onboarding from the Department of Agriculture and the Forest Service emphasized their new commitment to diversity and inclusion. He had scribbled the phone number for the Forest Service harassment reporting center on a Post-it, folded it up, and tucked it into a corner of a drawer in his desk. He’d read the press releases about how the forests were celebrating Pride throughout June, the feel-good stories about queer rangers and organizations that helped LGBTQ+ people experience the outdoors. Davis wanted to be the type of ranger that would be featured in the article, but he felt like he had used up all his good luck in even getting this job, what with his mediocre GPA from a decent forestry school. A few nights in Denver shortly after he’d moved here were enough so far, but Klarluft was far. National forests, as a rule, tended to be a long way from larger cities with their Pride parades and gay bars. A child of a small town, Davis wasn’t ready to chance it out here.

“Hello?” Yesenia asked. “Dog time?”

“Of course,” Davis said, walking his bike over to his cabin. “Her name is Mary Anne, like on Gilligan’s Island, and she’s a sweetheart.” He tilted the bike against the outside wall, then unlocked his door. Mary Anne, who had been snoring in her crate when Davis left, perked up when she heard the door and knocked a paw against the lock. She was a strong girl, and Davis couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face when she began wagging her tail so much that the crate began to skitter across the floor. “She’s affectionate!” he called as Mary Anne zoomed out to the front porch and immediately put both paws on Alex’s chest and a sloppy kiss on his face.

“We just met, Mary Anne!” Alex laughed. “Let me buy you dinner first!” Suitably pleased with her greeting to Alex, the dog gave an aggressive sniff of Yesenia’s shoes, then rolled over, showing her belly.

“See? She knows I’m the alpha,” Yesenia preened, kneeling down to scratch the dog’s belly. Mary Anne let out a pleased groan, even more when Alex joined in on the pets.

“She’ll have to play with my dog,” Alex said. “Caveman gets along with everyone, too.”

“Well, I’m pretty free,” Davis said. “It’s mostly just me and this girl these days.”

“How’s the exhibit coming? The one with the grant money?” Yesenia looked up at Davis from where she had sprawled out on the floor, allowing Mary Anne to engage her in a full-body snuggle.

“Uh, it’s good. We’ve hired an exhibit consultant who is also a designer, and we had an initial meeting—kickoff; whatever you want to call it—to get started.”

“Sweet,” Alex said. “She’s a good designer, then?”

“He,” Davis corrected, and felt his face heat. “And yeah, his portfolio is really impressive. Works down at some museum in Vanberg, I think.” Davis didn’t think; he knew. Because he had spent an embarrassing amount of time on both Jeremy’s website and then his staff bio on the university’s website. He had read just enough to become even more intimidated by the man, who already carried himself with a confidence that was foreign to Davis. According to his biography, Jeremy had an undergraduate degree from NYU, which Davis thought of as one of the schools that only existed for rich kids, famous people, or fictional characters, like Harvard or Cornell. Real people, people Davis had known, didn’t go to schools like that. And then Jeremy had an MFA. Davis had to google that term to find out what it stood for. He had laughed out loud in his cabin, startling Mary Anne, imagining if he had come back home to Anthracite Springs and told his Dad and his brother that he was going to get a Master in Fine Arts.

“Well,” Yesenia said, giving Mary Anne a scratch behind the ears and pressing herself up to standing. “Keep us updated. When are you meeting next?”

“I think in two or three weeks,” Davis said. Again, he knew. The date was highlighted in bright yellow on his desk calendar. It was in two and a half weeks.

“Let’s go for a ride afterward, and you can tell us all about it,” Alex said.

“Okay, yeah,” Davis said. “Thanks.”

He watched his coworkers head to their respective cabins, then turned to Mary Anne, who cocked her head in return. “I have to work today,” he said to her. She groaned, and Davis nodded in agreement. “I know, sweetheart, but I have to go to work and get paid so I can feed you.” At the mention of food, Mary Anne began to trot in circles, edging closer and closer to the door that led inside to the kitchen where her bowl was, and Davis laughed again.