Cowsh*t

5 days ago5 min read

Chapter One: Cowsh*t

When my mom introduced my brother and me to anyone, she would always say, “And they are like night and day.”

I never understood what she meant back then.

David was blonde, tall, and lanky—always laughing, always moving, always the class clown. He was the kind of kid who made friends easily, and who fit into the world without hesitation. He loved country western music, the kind our grandfather played on long drives through town. He was athletic, a real “boy’s boy.” David spent his time outside, throwing a football or wrestling in the yard.

And then there was me: dark-haired, chubby, quiet—more reserved. I didn’t get into much trouble, but I didn’t fit in, either. I loved dancing. I covered my bedroom walls with Britney Spears and *NSYNC posters. While David skidded his knees outside on gravel, I choreographed elaborate dance routines to the Spice Girls in my room.

We had sweet moments when we were little, though. Always at night—because somehow, the night made room for tenderness. The sun and moon carve out their domains. But sometimes, they share the same sky, lingering together in the quiet in between. David and I aligned best in the dark. I’d sneak into his room through our connected closets, crawling into bed beside him, whispering about school. He was nervous about his traveling basketball team tryouts, so I reassured him he would do well. We talked about nothing and everything, our voices hushed against the night.

And of course, we fought too—ferociously, as only brothers close in age can. Stubborn to the core, we drove our parents insane with how much we bickered.

But something shifted as we got older.

He stopped talking to me at home and school. He acted as if I didn’t exist. His friends would throw around gay slurs, making jokes at my expense, and David never stopped them. He never defended me. He wasn’t confrontational—he never had been. That was my role. But his silence still stung. David acted like nothing was wrong.

Back home, dinner table conversations were quiet between him and me. Mom and Dad would talk to both of us, but we weren’t saying much to each other. And when I started high school, two grades below him, the distance between us became painfully clear.

Daytime belonged to the world, school hallways, and crowded lunch tables. Daytime was when he chose distance, avoidance, and absence. The night was different—but during the day, I was on my own.

I remember walking past him in the hallway once, looking right at him, expecting—hoping—for a nod, a glance, something. But he didn’t even acknowledge me. He was embarrassed. Everyone at school knew who I was. I was “the gay kid.” David wanted no part of that. Who could blame him? Nobody knew enough about gay people.

Still, life had a way of pulling us together in the most unexpected ways. Like that fall night at the homecoming football party.

We were in the middle of a cow field—because in rural Missouri, that’s just where parties happen. I was a freshman, already drinking too much Bud Light, washing it down with shots of Apple Pucker like I had a clue what I was doing. Somewhere between trying to impress the older kids and not knowing my limits, I blacked out.

Right there.

In the middle of a pile of cow shit.

The next thing I remember, David was hauling me up, muttering something about me being a dumbass as he threw me into the back of his truck. When we got home, he helped me strip off my ruined jeans, the ones I swore I couldn’t throw away because I had just bought them at the mall.

“Whatever you say.” He scoffed, tossing them over the concrete slab outside.

We crept inside, careful not to wake our parents, and went to bed.

The next morning, I woke up sick as hell, barely making it outside before I puked. The sun was already high, too bright, too sharp. When I finally made it back in, my dad was standing by the back door, arms crossed.

“Son,” he said, “did you get into a fight last night?”

I blinked. “Uh… no?”

He motioned toward the porch. “Well, there’s mud all over your damn jeans.”

David, sitting at the table, started laughing. “Yeah, go ahead—tell Dad what happened.”

I awkwardly smiled. “That’s not mud, Dad. It’s cow shit.”

There was a beat of silence. Then the three of us burst out laughing. It was a simple thing but felt like something bigger—a rare moment where we weren’t at odds, where the quiet understanding we had at night finally made its way into the day. My dad grumbled a string of curses under his breath as he dragged the jeans out to the yard, power-washing them like they were worth saving.

David smirked at me and tossed me some toast. “You’re gonna need this.”

David had taken care of me that night. He didn’t defend me to his friends, and didn’t acknowledge me in the school hallways. But when I needed him—really needed him—he was there.

Our parents’ divorce wasn’t a surprise, just a confirmation.

David and I split ways, too—he with Dad, I with Mom, like we always had. He went hunting, I went shopping. He was the “man of the house” with Dad, and I was Mama’s boy.

Over time, we saw less and less of each other. I made my way to the city, and he started a family. He blamed Mom for the divorce—never really processing why she left, never letting himself understand it. Mom blamed herself too, I guess for not being able to rearrange the universe for her family. She carried a lot of guilt.

The only thing that ever pulled David and me back together was our mutual hatred of Dad and his new wife. That was the common ground we could always stand on. We’d see each other at the holidays, exchange trauma-laced jokes about our childhood, pretending that we were still close, still brothers. But as the years passed, I realized the pattern—I was always the one reaching out.

I had spent my life chasing two men—my father and my brother—desperate for their love, desperate for them to want me in their world. And I never got it.

That was my first heartbreak.

Not from a boy I had a crush on or a relationship gone awry.

But from them.

Years passed. The space between us grew wider. I stopped reaching out. He stopped trying, too.

And yet, I still like to think about us as children, whispering late at night, keeping each other safe in the dark.

Because even now, if I ever ended up in cow shit again… I hope he’d be there.