Fireflies

It was a well-lit night, the moon was full and it was hot still from the heat of the day. It had been like something out of a science fiction movie or an old episode of The Twilight Zone.

The local climate change fanatics called the recent heatwave another “code red” for humanity in the local papers and the evening weather reports, but in reality it was likely more of a code orange or maybe even a code pink. There had been many summers hotter than this one, as far as Gordy was concerned. He remembered the summers in West Texas when he was a kid that he figured were as ruthless and unforgiving as the Atacama Desert, a place he’d read about while sitting in the air conditioned library of the grade school that he attended. It’s a desert plateau on the Pacific coast of South America and gets less rainfall per year than the polar deserts that skirt the coast of the Arctic Ocean. That was another weird thing he read: Antarctica only gets about 2 inches of snowfall per year. It’s the coldest place on earth with almost no precipitation and the snow just stays frozen and blows around all the time.

He liked knowing stuff like that, facts and minutiae that seemed to defy common sense.

“I thought you were a girl,” Gordy said to Candy.

“I am,” Candy said.

“Okay fine,” Gordy said but “when you pull down your pants will it be like I’m looking in the mirror from the waist down?”

“Honey, you keep talking like that,” Candy said, “and my pan-ties ain’t coming down.”

She (the pronoun Candy had chosen the same day she decided to cease using her dead name, Clyde, and the day he committed to being female, even though Candy had always known in her heart and brain that she was) was a frowzy, wild auburn haired gal; or dude depending on one’s perspective and adherence to societal benchmarks, that he or she parted down the middle.

“Why were you in a gay bar anyway, if you weren’t looking to hook up with a homo sessual?” he said deliberately using and emphasizing sessual instead of sexual.

“I didn’t know it was a gay bar,” Gordy said matter of fact and innocently.

“Oh pa-leese!” Candy said flamboyantly exaggerating.

The two stopped briefly at the entrance to the lake. A white rectangular sign securely fastened lengthwise vertical to the metal gate proclaimed in large black letters: “NOTICE... No one shall enter this park, stay or loiter daily, one-hour past sunset to one hour before sunrise with the exception of Holidays and Special Events.”

Many locals considered the sign annoying and unnecessarily wordy, and, in truth, it only deterred those who chose to cooperate. Smaller black numbers and letters sighted the ordinance regulating the lawful use of the reservoir/lake/park across the bottom of the metal sign, which; had been perforated by bullets of several firearms. A heavy, steel link chain wrapped through the gate’s upright iron bars and padlocked to a metal loop welded near the top of a five-foot-tall steel bollard standing next to the metal gate and buried at the bottom in eighteen inches of concrete contributed to the illusion that it was impassable.

“I don’t know why you wanted to come here in the first place,” Candy said.

“I ain’t paying for a motel room,” Gordy said. He was of medium build with a ruddy complexion and mahogany-colored hair, a sturdy-looking fellow. “And I’m not taking you to my house for reasons that are none of your business.”

“Got a wifey or GF that don’t know you like the taste of penis every now and again,” Candy said grinning.

“Wasn’t planning on tasting any penis this fine moonlit evening,” Gordy said with a bit of acid in his tone. “And like I said anyway, none of your business.”

The two stood, staring at one another for a few seconds in silence.

“Now if you’ve changed your mind,” Gordy said politely enough, “and you don’t want the taste of penis in your mouth tonight we can always turn around and trot on back to the car,” Gordy said politely enough.

“No,” Candy said, sliding under the metal chain and between the gate and the metal post. “We’re already here.”

Gordy, being larger framed was not able to slide betwixt the gate and the steel bollard and was forced to climb over while Candy, already on the other side, stood and waited. Although she’d shown no interest in turning back, it was obvious that she didn’t want to go any further alone on the path that wound through the baby oaks and other vegetation until finally ending at the lake’s shore.

“And besides, he said, “I like the fireflies.”

“Oh,” Candy said and looked up then and noticed for the first time that there were hundreds of them flickering about, going on and off and on again like tiny, flashing lights on a Christmas tree or something. “Wow!”

“I’m sort of surprised they are out,” Gordy said, “the heat. I’m surprised it hasn’t killed them all. Did you know that they have special organs in their abdomens that take in oxygen and that they also have special cells that combine the oxygen with a substance called luciferin to make light without heat.”

“No,” Candy said. “I didn’t know that and I’m a little surprised you do.”

“It’s called “bioluminescence”, Gordy said, “They are flying beetles. They are not the only insects that produce bioluminescence but they are the only ones that flash and can control the flashes. Each species of Firefly or Lightning bug as they are sometimes called has its own pattern of flashes controlled by their nervous systems that they use to talk to one another.”

“Really,” Candy said attempting to appear interested in what Gordy was saying. “And what are they saying?”

“Come fuck me mostly, I guess,” Gordy said, “or can I come fuck you? They generate the bioluminescence mostly for mating and probably just socializing in general; and of course, to attract their prey and warn their predators they don’t taste very good and might even be toxic.”

“That’s just fascinating, I’m sure,” Candy said. “As long as it’s not like some Silence of the Lamb Thing. This is not like some Silence of the Lamb thing, is it?”

“What do you mean?” Gordy said,

“Silence of the Lamb thing?” “You know the creepy guy who was trying to transition into a woman and had all of those butterflies in his basement.”

“Moths,” Gordy said, “the so-called Death’s-Head Hawkmoth that has a marking on its thorax that resembles a human skull.”

“Okay, now you are starting to creep me out,” Candy said. “You know way more about all this weird stuff than I’m comfortable with.”

“Oh look,” Gordy said and pointed, “a rowboat!”

It was like something out of a vintage Flemish painting maybe or some old Dutch master of a small fishing boat that had been dragged away from the shore far enough that the tide could not catch it and carry it back into the lake again. There was light enough from the huge moon that night to see that the hull of the craft was lime green from the gunwale at the top edge of the boat down to a red stripe that trimmed the white bottom of the boat just above the waterline. At least, that’s how the craft had been painted at one time. All the colors were peeling and flaked like the craft was a hundred years old.

“Let’s go out on the water,” Gordy said almost enthusiastically.

“I’m not comfortable in boats, or on the water,” Candy said. “And besides, that thing looks like it got cut loose and floated away from Noah’s Ark or the Lusitania or something and ended up here.”

“Oh come on,” Gordy said mustering a bit of warmth and sincerity.

“I don’t think so,” Candy said, “let’s just do it here.”

“Here, right out in the open?” Gordy said.

“There is nobody around,” Candy said.

It was about then that Gordy’s memory of the event began to fail him, or at least became a bit more reticulated: excitement and cortisol, a genetic link, misattribution in the hippocampus: who knows.

“Let’s go out on the boat,” he’d said.

“Fine,” the cross-dresser had said, “then I want fifty bucks!”

“You never said you wanted money at the bar.”

“You never said that you wanted a knob job in a boat in a lake where a gay guy drowned a couple of weeks ago!”

Then the next thing that Gordy remembered was being in the boat and watching Candy or whatever her name was splash and flail around in the water.

“Oh my God!” he screamed. “Plll.... plll.....ease...”It was her or his fear that was about to kill him. It was the panic and struggle sucking the water into his lungs that would cause him to sink.

“Why are... you...”

“The Crying Game,” Gordy said calmly.

Candy’s wig lifted off and abracadabra she was a he again. Gordy started to reach for it with the paddle but decided to let it sink with the dude or float or whatever. Once the water was all calm once more and the night still again, Gordy stood up in the boat and dropped his pants, and managed to skillfully and gracefully keep his balance as he masturbated into the water.