“If I only could,
I’d make a deal with God and
I’d get Him to swap our places.“

---

Music is powerful. It can take you to the best and worst times of your life with just a few bars and a sprinkling of chords. The rise and fall of one voice has the power to transport you into worlds both strange and familiar. The twang of Merle Haggard or the deep voice of Randy Travis easily pull me back to Sunday mornings of AM radio and fried potato and Spam breakfasts or me lying down in my father’s truck as we made our way home, the Southwest sunset painting the Land rich hues for the coming night. The hum of the truck, the wistful glow of the radio with its broken cassette player, my father’s work boots pressing on the gas pedal, I’m back in that rolling refuge with the flick of a dial or, more modernly, the shuffle of a playlist.

Before Stranger Things revived Kate Bush’s 1985 hit, Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God), this song served as a soundtrack for a young Leatherman’s heartbreak.

It was late-2013 when the news came via social media, a notification crossing my feed on, as he’d call it, Faceyspace. My best friend, mentor, and protective fraternal figure was gone and I’d found out over a month after he’d departed.

The feeling was akin to being kicked in the heart with steel-toed boots leaving a punched, gaping maw. I remembered that feeling well as I’d experienced it once before in youth with the departure of another very special, wonderful figure.

The news of this loss dragged me back into that numb, infuriating, familiar ground. Only this time, I was much older and more able to handle death and loss. Being armed with that experience, however, did not make the news less bearable.

And I cried.

I cried so fooken much when I found out. When the numbness subsided for moments, I cried. When I could be back home after a busy day at work, I cried. When I drove aimlessly through town, I cried. I spent weeks at the back of recovery meetings in tears, sharing my wish to be gone if it meant bringing him back to the world. In those days, I didn’t feel I had anything to offer the world, fledgling Leatherman that I was. Gunny was my North Star and he was gone now and I felt lost, adrift in the hard, mad world alone once again.

I call him Gunny because that’s what he wanted to be called and I happily obliged. I’d met him a year or so after entering recovery in 2007 at a retreat for LGBTQ+ Veterans. Gunny was a giant of a man with a remarkable presence. Tall, tattooed, pierced, and hirsute, we were paired as roommates for the retreat because we had things in common though it wasn’t clear what those things were. After all, I was not tall, untattooed, unpierced, and only slightly hairy. At the time, it didn’t matter. I’d come to Utah to be with my fellow Veterans, to try to get some form of healing for the deadly dervish roiling in my soul. Over the course of the retreat, we got to know one another through traumatic revelation. When it was time to get back to the world, we kept in touch through phone calls and DMs on Faceyspace.

Over the course of the next five years, Gunny and I would strive to be there for one another as we navigated our issues: PTSD, depression, relationships, health problems, etc. Sometimes, there’d be long stretches of silence before we’d pick the conversation back up. That’s how it was with us, no matter how much time passed, we’d always pick the thread up.

In the time that I knew Gunny, I received sage advice on Leather/Kink and how to try to be a good man even when you don’t feel like one. I think that was one of our commonalities: Being good men who didn’t believe it despite mountains of evidence. He pulled me back from the brink more times than I could count, keeping me in line in his strange, sardonic ways. Though we’d never expressed it, I believe love was there. Not a romantic love but a love among kindred spirits. As for romance, we both had men in our lives and we both felt the same way: I don’t know why he loves me but he does. I guess the retreat organizer was right, Gunny and I were more alike than I’d assumed.

Flash forward to 2013, amid near-constant tears, a song began to come forward: Kate Bush’s Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God). I remember hearing the line about making a deal with God to change places with someone and thinking, “Yes, please, take me instead.” This song echoed within me for weeks and it felt like someone finally understood what was happening inside.

As I wrote this, I decided to take a look into Kate Bush’s intentions with the song. Originally, it appears, she’d written it to convey what could be gained by a man and woman swapping places, to see from the other side. However, she also said that listeners should take from it what they want. In my case, I’d’ve gladly bargained with whatever God to bring Gunny back and take me instead.

Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God) was on regular rotation on my playlist for months after. In the years after, it’s became less regular but still appears taking me back to that mourning time. It’s been over a decade now since Gunny left.

I understand now how much Gunny gave me, how much he taught me about learning how to want to live again, about dealing with difficulties in smart ways, and making the decision to love the person I am. From suggesting a cracking recipe for creme brulee to teasing me about my Air Force status to providing me tips on finding Leather gear, Gunny gave what he could to a lost, young Leatherman when he could.

These days, I still miss him immensely and still shed tears occasionally, I find myself gradually emulating him in subtle ways. He would have been 62 this year. Rather than waste time and emotion wondering what could’ve been, I choose to get pick myself by my fooken bootstraps and move forward: Living, loving, leading, and learning.

He would’ve liked it that way.