The Fancy Dancer

mind?”
    “Where?”
    “In jail, of all places. It dawned on me that a lot of the others were doing it just because they were homy. But the rest of us, we were doing it because we liked it.”
    The jukebox started to play Vidal’s song. It was the Beatles singing “Rocky Raccoon.” There isn’t any heavy-metal rock on the jukeboxes in Cottonwood.
    “So you’re happy,” I said.
    “I’ll bet I’m the only con ever came out of Deer Lodge singing like a lark. One little problem, and that was a job, but they found me one.”
    I finished my coffee and leaned back, and grinned at him. “It’s going to be my job to make you unhappy. Real unhappy.”
    “Oh, it is?” He grinned. “You gonna do an Inquisition thing?”
    I shook my head, serious now. “I want to give you what your conscience wants. Is that fair?”
    “That’s fair,” said Vidal.
    “If your conscience tells you to change, I'll try to help you. If your conscience just tells you to try to know the Church’s teachings better, I’ll help you.”
    Vidal was nodding. “That’s real fair.”
    “Even if I tried to take a hard line, and threaten you with eternal hellfire, I’d run up against your conscience anyway,” I said. “And so would the guys who wrote that little book.”
    Vidal was now smiling, wistfully.
    “Father, I sure wish I’d met you ten years ago. You could have saved me a lot of grief.”
    The ranchers near us were now on their fourth cup of coffee, and they’d circled back to the big endurance horse race.
    “Gonna be some local horses in that race too,” said one. “Vem Stuart has been out working his Bobcat. That’ll be a horse to beat. And a couple guys over at Drummond have got a stud horse ..
    Vidal grinned. “You know, I know those guys at Drummond. I fixed their horse trailer one time when they came through here and broke down. I’ll take you over there some time and you can meet them. That horse of theirs is really something.”
    I looked at my watch.
    “God,” I said, “I’m almost late for my adult-educa-tion class.” We signaled the waitress frantically for the check.
    Trina came out of the kitchen, and threw an eye around the place to see if everything was okay. She came sauntering along the row of tables. She was a tiny Chicana with her black-lacquer-hair up in a bun. She wore a red silk dress at eight in the morning, and little gold-bead earrings in her pierced ears.
    She stopped at our table. “’Alio, Vidal, you gorgeous bike man, you.” She winked her long fake eyelashes at him kiddingly. “When you take me out on your bike, eh?”
    Vidal grinned at her. “I’ll have to ask my wife’s permission.”
    She pretended to pout. She looked at his plate, where the eggs and frijoles were half-eaten. “Watsa matter, Vidal, you no like them today? They no okay?”
    “I had the flu, Trina. Guess my appetite didn’t come back yet.”
    Trina was now looking at me, winking, one hand on her hip. “ ’Ey, padre, you gonna make a monk out of this gorgeous hombre?’
    Trina loved to tease me because she knew I dug Chicanos.
    “He’s so fond of his wife that he’s already a monk,” I said.
    We all howled. Even laughter could be a lie.
    We paid and walked out onto the street. The stores were opening. On the theater marquee, a kid was putting up the black letters for THE GODFATHER H.
    “Well, see you tomorrow,” said Vidal.
    “Tomorrow?” I said.
    “I eat here every morning,” he said softly. “Any reason why you can’t? It’s easier to talk here than at your office.”
    “WeH...” I said.
    He stood there, his leather jacket on now, hands shoved in pockets. In his eyes there was something like an appeal. He must be as lonely as me for someone young and relaxed to talk to. Or far lonelier, maybe. I was the only person in town who knew what was real for him. When he was with me, he could drop what I already recognized as the mask that gay people wore when they were out in the heterosexual world.
    I wondered if he had a lover in Cottonwood. He hadn’t mentioned one.
    “... No,” I said. “No reason I can’t.”
    As Vidal walked away up the street toward Snow’s Garage, the letters ME glinted on the back of his jacket. Now I knew what they meant. It was as open a statement as he felt he could make in Cottonwood about his private reality.
    Meeting at Trina’s for breakfast was bow Vidal Stump and I became friends.
    The prayer mood of the seven-thirty low mass, and that half hour of