Page:Jay Little - Maybe—Tomorrow.pdf/355

 His memory rehearsed for him the faces he had seen in a club, at a party. They were unnaturally white, and they all smiled with sad grins. No one seemed to understand why their meetings had to be behind locked doors and smoke filled dives. No one seemed to understand that they concealed a crime so dark and a secret so dreadful that it had never been put into print. They didn't seem to know why they craved strange love. No one had ever tried to help them understand.

Gaylord saw then that they were not all bad, but wasn't that true with all humanity? There was a rotten apple in every crate … the same with men and women … but why should they all suffer … Did God number them among his angels or had they been forgotten? No. They would be officially banished from the masses where their love had taken root and which they had made fragrant with penned desires, but nothing could keep the good from God, because they too, were his children.

A train whistle could be heard in the distance and Gaylord's thoughts again centered on their departure. It was as if someone were announcing a sunlit morning; it was to him that someone holy had spoken.

He nestled close to Blake. In a few weeks they would be leaving. There was going to be a tomorrow now … The sun would come up, life would go on … his life …

And now he wasn't tired at all. Far from it, for life was strong in him, so strong that the fevered and strange dreams of the past were like a climax and farewell to a life that he had left forever …

"And Bob," he said, "beside Paul, there's someone else I'm just dying for you to meet. He's such a character and says the funniest things … His name's Gene Limbeaux …"

And the earth on which they rode was unimportant as they planned and drove toward Cotton … 345