Undetected: A Tale of the Art Department

Ethan’s heart thudded in his ears as the Council volunteers tugged the University-logoed plastic tarpaulin from Undetected. The pomp and ceremony associated with installation normally was of little significance to Assistant Professor Cooper. Nebraska-born, he found the labor itself – the design, the craft, the exhilarating exhaustion, the stiffness and sweat and abrasions and nicks inherent in converting Matter into Art – the true rush.

But this Saturday afternoon, 92 degrees with a triple-figure index that had applied a virtual hot patch overlay over the Courthouse Square and made the canopied Pridefest booths and tables prime Millington real estate, was different. This crowd was different. It was a different feel that thrummed through the assembled on the northeast corner of the Courthouse Museum, across from bronze Lincoln lounging on a metal bench and the Blimpy’s and DUI Law Center across the barricaded street.

“Pride,” Ethan clarified after being goaded by the Central Illinois Pride Council directors. “It’s what I think, what I hope, we all feel here today. I was raised on the rural Plains, surrounded by an alpha male ethic and the brimstone of small-town religion licking at my heart and mind and soul. Fighting what was inside with taunts and swagger and fists. Wanting nothing more to go undetected until I could ‘beat’ this thing. I blew up everything when I came out to my family, my friends, my community. And eventually found a community where I could be proud, that I could be proud of.

“I hope this work, to be permanently installed at the Millington Pride Community/Health Center, will be a daily reminder. We no longer have to hide; we need no longer go undetected. OK, before we all collapse from heatstroke, grab a bottle of water or some cold brew at the Beans and Beignets truck over there, and get loud and, for God’s sake, proud.”

As the group erupted and then as quickly dispersed, a rivulet rolled down Ethan’s temple into his thick, red, definitively non-professorial beard. He grinned as he descended the trailer bed.

**

Daniel handed Ethan a large black cold brew with vanilla foam. “Now, as long as the Proud Boys or the DEI Eradication Squad or Chik Fil A don’t show up with tear gas, rubber bullets, or Baptist literature, we can enjoy the rest of the afternoon.”

Ethan resisted bristling. Art was not among the burgeoning twosome’s shared interests, but at their two-week anniversary, Professor Cooper was still sorting the roses from the thorns, and a minor prick or two wasn’t yet a dealbreaker, you should pardon.

“I mean, the statue’s fantastic – really, ah, powerful,” Daniel backtracked, glancing back over his shoulder at Undetected – probably, Ethan reflected, for the first time. At the sea of faces etched into the matte nickel monolith that emerged and vanished with the shifting downtown light; at the tinted copper threads and ribbons “woven” irregularly into the human mosaic in tribute to those lost to The Virus, to depression and homeless anonymity and suicide, to bashing and bullying and the 21st Century pandemic of trans executions. Ethan’d witnessed all of the above.

Just as 9/11 lived forever in the American psyche, the Pulse shootings were still fresh and raw in most milling, browsing, chatting, laughing, or shit-talking around the limestone building where sentences once were doled out simply for being. Millington itself had transitioned from blue-collar/blue-nosed provinciality to a white-collar/academic hub where homophobia was bad business and worse business, The University had weakly taken up Harvard’s banner in the feds’ war on diversity, and the new mayor was now gladhanding every citizen on the block from L to A, on a trajectory toward the bustling voter registration booth in front of O’Donaghy’s Brew and Burger.

The surrounding stalls and kiosks dispensed health tests and HIV info, cookies and cupcakes, pins and purses, wittily ribald tees and plumbing estimates, meditations and yoga, face art and pricier and more permanent pieces by local queer artists, and Igloos of iced water every 10 feet. Only the concrete barriers installed at the four corners of the Square suggested 2025 still existed outside the Prideful confines.

“Hey, you guys got the time?”

Ethan turned to the pierced and mascaraed teen behind his shoulder. A semicolon with a rainbow accent was inked onto his/their neck under oily acid yellow hair. The tat signaled mental resilience, which from the filthy knapsack over his shoulder and the crusted food and mud and maybe blood on his sweat-stained Millington High hoodie seemed a desperately optimistic talisman.

“2:17,” Ethan supplied.

The kid looked off toward the taquito truck on the far side of the courthouse. “Hey, awesome, thanks. Hey, you don’t got a couple of bucks on you? Haven’t had anything since breakfast.”

Ethan averted Daniel’s eyeroll, and reached into his pants. Andrew Jackson emerged, and the sculptor suppressed a grimace as he extended the twenty. Mumbling something that might have been thanks, the punctuated teen beelined for the food truck.

“Fresh ink, maybe even a homemade job,” Daniel observed. “Probably came out just before or at graduation time – a lot of ‘em do. Self-emancipated, by Mom and Dad, that is. Crashing at the shelters, probably the Army on Cleveland – they got an open door, and they’d get him counseling rather than the fear of a cisgender God like Holy Compassion.”

Ethan forced a smile as he nodded toward the Lincoln bench. “You ever bunked at the shelters? Sounds like you might have had a tough coming-out.”

“Naw, I was like 23, had my degree and a gig at First Millington. Folks didn’t throw me a re-christening or anything, but what the fuck could they do at that point? You?”

“Rural Nebraska. Pop made his living dismembering hogs and steers, and thought Tom Brady was a bit of a dandy. I quit the football team senior year and started applying to art schools, and he caught me one slow summer day making out with the bone saw guy. Pop broke Bone Saw Brian’s left radius and ulna with a kill hammer, and almost took his state-mandated assault rifle to ‘chat’ with my guidance counselor. Mr. Driffield helped me lock in a full ride at UN-Lincoln art college, and I blew out of town before Dad could grind me into hot links.”

Daniel shrugged. “Coulda been worse. Kid I knew in school, his dad murdered him for coming out.”

Assistant Professor Cooper nearly spilled his cold brew on Lincoln’s stain-proof great coat. “Holy shit. Shot him? Beat him to death?”

Daniel shook his head. “Bioweapon. It was a perfect crime.”

“Back the fuck up. Bioweapon?”

“E. coli, to be precise. Cops never even suspected. Like I said, perfect crime.”

**

Kevin lived about three houses down from us, on Claridge, you know, nice neighborhood, nothing too fancy. Mixed assortment of neighbors – guy next door was early adopter MAGA, Trump sign on the front lawn before the 2016 primary, yelled at the black kids who crossed through coming home from Millington Middle every single fucking afternoon.

Drove the old lady on the other side crazy – she put out a retaliatory Clinton sign, and we think she complained to the city about Mr. Larson’s garbage and the crap on his front porch. Cliched sweet old lady, perfectly sculpted hedges, front yard flower garden looked like the St. Louis Botanical Garden, lawn like a PGA course. In fact, Kevin mowed it once a week, I think for free. That’s what kind of kid he was – kind, gentle, empathetic – and more to the point, the kind of opportunistic old bitch Mrs. Hessler was. She really had it in for the hipster couple across the street and their weird kid. Real assholes – wouldn’t have anything to do with any of us, acted like they were above it all, even though they let their place go to shit and planted some kind of “pollinator garden” that looked like a jungle and attracted rats and raccoons, and woke the rest of us up at all hours of the morning. These weren’t like mellow New Age latter-day pleasantly numb and clueless pothead hippies. These were full-blown, fair trade, organic, cruelty-free, bespoke and bearded hipsters – I mean, I’m amazed Mr. Delman didn’t ride to whatever job he might have had on a steampunk unicycle. Mrs. Hessler really went medieval on the Delmans, and they countered with a restraining order.

Kevin’s dad was a pathologist at St. Mark’s – still is. He acted like the King of Shit Mountain, bragging about unlocking medical mysteries and researching diseases for some cutting-edge study he was going to publish someday. Right. But that was cool. It was The Hobby that creeped me.

Kevin and I had been buds since elementary school, and we still hung out a lot, but at this point, I was beginning to suspect what my deal really was, and I’d started wondering if Kevin was having his own issues, too. I should mention that except for a scorching acne problem, Kevin had sailed through puberty, and I suspected my suspicions might soon be confirmed.

If Kevin was “confused,” he kept it bottled up tight. I mean, you walked into their house, and the first thing you saw in the living room was classic White Jesus hanging over the fireplace.

They treated me pretty much like family, and my folks treated me like family ‘cause for all they knew, I was a hormonal hetero teenager who’d had The Talk. The standard-issue Talk.

Then, in July, things started to crumble. I’d hear Kevin’s dad constantly screaming three doors away, never anything from Kevin. And then I got shut out. First, his folks were just real icy when I came over, and there was always some bogus reason Kevin was grounded. I was worried for him, but I was trying to stay under the radar myself, stay undetectable.

Then, they shut me out altogether— shut Kevin off, I guess I oughtta say. Kevin’s dad point-blank told me I wasn’t welcome in their home any more. I was terrified. He knew, somehow. I had no idea the bastards had cut Kevin off from all the possible suspects — I was too freaked to think clearly.

And then I “realized” — Kevin had ratted me out, outed me to his folks. Who any day now would rat me out to my folks. So I just stayed away, broke off all contact, which was fine by Mom and Dad, since they’d never really liked Kevin’s folks, anyway. If they’d known about The Hobby, they’d really have freaked.

The ambulance came about mid-August. When they brought Kevin out on a gurney, I wondered if maybe his crazy dad had just let loose on him, or if, maybe, well, you know what I’m thinking. And I wondered if maybe if it was my fault. When Mom told me the next day Kevin had died at St. Mark’s, I couldn’t say anything about what I suspected. We went to the funeral – no way out of it – and I found out from some cousin Kevin had been sick for a few days or so and then just went into a coma. Kevin was so young and healthy, they did an autopsy.

Then the coroner announced cause of death as e. coli. But that seemed crazy – there hadn’t been any area food recalls, and the Health Department checked everything Kevin’d eaten, which was pretty easy since he’d been pretty much under house arrest. There just didn’t seem to be any explanation. But I had a suspicion.

Before the trouble started, Kevin’s dad was bragging one day about his research, the big project, and I was pretending to be interested, as usual. So he takes us to the basement. He had like a whole lab down there, or at least like a small one where most guys have their tools or beer. Test tubes, microscope, Petri dishes, the whole thing. See, the paper or book or whatever it was he wanted to write was about bacterial interactions or or some such shit. I just thought it was weird. But after the funeral, I thought about his dad’s hobby, how he worked with dead people a lot of whom had died of some disease or another. I watched a lot of CSI, and I started to wonder if Kevin’s folks could be that ashamed, that angry about Kevin’s coming out.

Go ahead, laugh. I knew anybody else would have. Which didn’t matter, because I wanted some distance, some cover, from Kevin’s dad, from Kevin period. I wanted to stay undetectable, and I did a pretty good job of getting on with what I thought was my life, my senior year. I felt like I’d dodged a bullet, and I kept up the act until I was safely half a state away where I could be…

Well, you know. But every time I pass St. Mark’s or drop by Mom and Dad’s, well, I become more convinced. Like I said, the perfect crime.

**

Ethan smiled without feeling. “You never got out of the city, did you?”

“Gawd,” Daniel laughed brittlely. “Guess you can take the boy out of the country, but you can’t take the alpha condescension out of the boy.”

“Wasn’t condescending. I just grew up on the farm, is all. Around animals, which is why I asked for oatmilk foam, which this ain’t.” The drawl generally came out only when Assistant Professor Cooper was reaching his limit.

“You told me the overaged ‘hipsters’ down the block woke the neighbors up at all hours of the morning. But you also suggested they were lazy, never kept up their house or yard. What were they waking up for? What woke you up?”

Daniel blinked away the mounting resentment. “Well, the crowing. Their fucking rooster had no internal clock — he’d go off at 8 or 7 or 5 some days.”

Ethan nodded. “Backyard chickens. It was a real thing for awhile with urban hipsters and DIY organic/antibiotic-free/natural food enthusiasts. S’kinda declined the last few years with the big poultry companies putting out ‘sustainable’ chicken and folks realizing the dangers of amateur layer production.

“One of the few things Pop and I agreed about was the hipster farmers and their backyard flocks. Raising hens sounds like a no-brainer, but there’s more to it. These guys had a garden, right? Probably used natural fertilizer, if the neighborhood squirrels and rabbits and raccoons and free-ranging tomcats didn’t use the patch as an open-air port-a-potty. And of course, the birds would be equally free-range. And that is a recipe for cross-contamination, which is a recipe for bacterial development, which is a recipe for food poisoning.”

“Dude,” Daniel breathed, playing his own tell. “I’m not an idiot. Kevin had e. Coli, not salmonella. We just had that big egg recall, remember. That was salmonella.”

Ethan grinned at the Wikipedia vet. “Yeah, but that’s not the only threat from cross-contamination or bad sanitation. Backyard poultry can spread avian flu to commercial birds and foster colibacillosis. E. coli, which usually doesn’t affect eggs. But the birds can still infect humans.

“I think Kevin had communicable contact with one or more birds. And given the biosafety measures at commercial plants, I’ll assume it was from a local, amateur-raised flock. You know how to handle a chicken?”

“Hasn’t come in handy, Dr. Fauci,” Daniel sneered.

“My dad preferred the neck, of course. But our family vet showed me when I was young and unevolved. You tuck it under your left arm, cradle it in your pit like a football. The left side, so the bird can feel your heart beating. It calms them, makes it easier to handle.

“Colibacillosis usually isn’t a big deal for humans unless there’s an open wound for the bacteria to enter the bloodstream. You told me Kevin had serious acne/skin issues. My guess is the entry point was a boil, maybe from an untreated zit and the summer heat.”

Daniel sank back on the bench as the next band took the stage, suddenly pensive. Ethan waited a beat.

“The hipsters’ ‘weird’ moody kid? A boy, right? He probably took care of the flock.”

Daniel smirked. “And, what, he let Kevin handle his chicken?”

“You have no filter, do you?” Professor Cooper inquired mildly. “Here’s the thing. This disaffected kid let Kevin into his life, trusted him with something he held dear. A pretty intimate gesture. Emotionally intimate. That’s why you’re being such a defensive jerk, right?”

Daniel’s face turned to stone.

“Kevin chose the grungy, weird neighborhood boy, and both you and he were working so hard at staying undetected that he wouldn’t tell his dad the one thing that might have saved his life and you couldn’t reveal your own feelings. Well, I guess you got the satisfaction of knowing the neighborhood weirdo helped kill the boy he may have loved, and, I hope, has no idea he did it.” Ethan grimaced. “Know if he’s still in Millington?”

Daniel caught the implication, and stood abruptly, banging his elbow on Honest Abe. “You really think I’m a real asshole, don’t you? That I’d tell him just to get back for some adolescent crush?”

Ethan Cooper looked up, as silent and still as the 16th president.

“I need a fucking drink,” the professor’s new ex grunted. “Alone.”

Ethan nodded, and watched the handsome young man elbow and wince his way through the celebrant crowd, toward the cool refuge of Under The Rainbow. He looked to Lincoln for support. If the rumors were true, Abe wasn’t helping a bro out. It was the times, he guessed.

Ethan sat for a while in the shade with the Great Emancipator, watching the folks rock to “Born This Way” and hydrating their gay and bi and pan and trans and allied asses and just being.

Finally, Ethan pushed up, leaving Abe to the pigeons and his ruminations. He needed a fresh shot of pride.