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  “Of course we want you to talk to us,” my mother said.

  “And you’re punishing me for being honest.”

  “What we want to happen is not punishment,” my dad said.

  “I want you as part of my life, but it has to be all of me and as honest as I can be.”

  “We do love you,” my mother said. “And of course we want to be part of your life, but we really feel this is what is best for you.”

  “At your age,” my dad said, “we don’t want to take any chances.”

  “What chances?” I asked.

  “We’ve tried to explain our concerns,” my dad said. “You’ll have to live with what we’ve decided. You talk about Kyle, and you’re right. We don’t want what happened to him to happen to you. Regulating your movements more closely is a good thing.”

  My mother added, “We should have been more careful all along. What we’ve chosen is the best way to keep that from happening.”

  I was frustrated and furious. I took deep breaths, then brushed away the tears I couldn’t stop. I spoke softly. “I am not a bad person. I have not made a decision to be gay. This is who I am.” I drew several more deep breaths.

  Both of them started to speak.

  My voice rose as I spoke over them. “Please let me finish.” Several more breaths, I was nearly gasping.

  My mother half rose in her chair, but I shifted away from her.

  I resumed. “Everything you said tonight says to me that I’ve been or done something wrong, and that’s not true. I’m just a guy who happens to be gay. Why do we have to fight about that? Why can’t you just accept me? Do you think it’s easy for me to realize I’m different?” Now I was crying hard.

  This had to be new to them too, and it would take time to process. I’d had years to come to terms with who I was. They’d had only a few hours. Maybe they were as scared as I was. Who had told them what they’d proposed was the best way to handle a gay kid? And what if this conversation deteriorated even worse? What if they threw me out? Many a gay kid had been tossed out on his ass. I couldn’t stay at Jack’s. His dad was insane. Where would I go?

  When my breathing was more under control and the tears mostly stopped, I said, “Things could get bad at school.” I didn’t mention that they were already deteriorating rapidly. That might send them over the edge. “Don’t you think that frightens me? So when I come home, when I get here, I want this to be a place that’s safe. I don’t want to be frightened when I come in the door that my parents will think I’m a freak.”

  “We don’t think you’re a freak,” my dad said.

  “Yes, you do. You’ve been great parents. I’ve never had rules like you talked about earlier. I didn’t think you were like that. I haven’t done something wrong to lose your trust. I’ve just been honest about myself.”

  I shut my eyes and let the tears flow. I wiped at the snot from my nose with my shirtsleeve. When I had some control, I opened my eyes.

  I said, “I know this is hard for you to accept, but there is nothing wrong or bad about me because I told you. What kind of price do you want me to pay for loving you enough to be honest with you?”

  My mom was crying at this point. My dad glanced from me to her. His eyes were teary as well.

  Two pairs of frightened eyes peeked around the corner of the living room. My sisters looked really scared. Linda and Lisa edged into the room. We all stared at them.

  “We love you, Roger,” Linda said. “We don’t care if you’re gay. Won’t you all please stop this?”

  The front doorbell rang. My sisters ran to open it. My grandmother stood in the doorway.

  Everything seemed to move in slow motion for several moments after my grandmother entered.

  Linda and Lisa gave her hugs. She asked them to take her luggage up to her room. Grandma moved toward the living room. She eyed the three of us.

  My mom said, “Mother.”

  My grandma strode to me, eyed my bruises, noted my walking cast. “Are you all right?”

  I managed a nod.

  From that place that my grandmother always seemed to have, she pulled a fresh tissue and handed it to me.

  I mumbled thanks, dried my eyes, and blew my nose.

  Grandma looked at Mom and Dad. “Are you all right?”

  Mute nods.

  Silence.

  I was too exhausted emotionally and physically. I took myself up to my room. Let Mom and Dad explain.

  I dropped my clothes on the floor and crawled into bed. Silence from my sisters’ room. I could hear voices from below. I don’t know how late they talked. I stared at the ceiling for what might have been hours, or might have been seconds. When I woke, it was dawn and the house was quiet.

  I showered and dressed. I hurt in a lot of places. I took two of the pain pills the doctor had given me.

  Downstairs Grandma was at the kitchen table. She sipped coffee. I was glad my parents weren’t up yet.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Where’s everybody?”

  “It’s early. Why don’t you eat?”

  I ate some toast and drank some milk. She didn’t insist on conversation. Grandma was the kind of person who was comfortable with silence. I was grateful. I’d have to see and talk to my parents at some point, but I wasn’t ready right now.

  As I got my stuff to leave, she said, “You’ll be fine. I love you. We all love you. I’ll tell your parents you already left for school.”

  I hugged her and said thanks.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Friday 7:30 A.M.

  Although rain was predicted to start in the middle of the day, the drive to school was through another of the monotonously pleasant Southern California winter sunrises. I wished school could have been just as ordinary.

  At my locker Dave, the guy from the team I’d talked to about drinking in the orange groves, accosted me as I reached for my English book.

  Dave said, “You better do something about Bert. He’s spreading some nasty rumors about you. The guys will want to know that you’re not a fag.”

  “Listen, Brunswick,” I said. “I don’t have time for half-assed crap this morning.”

  I wanted to take my aches and anxiety and hide. Second best was take them and talk to Darlene.

  Brunswick said, “You better make time, buddy. The guys don’t want a faggot with them in the locker room.”

  I got mad. “How would you know? You take a poll?” I got in his face. “This faggot is the only person who could hit the crap out of your pitching. So I suggest you get your hetero self and any homophobic buddies together and decide if you want somebody who can help win the conference and maybe win state, or if you want to be ignorant creeps.”

  He moved away from me. “You’re a cocksucker.” He sounded slightly surprised.

  “And I’m damn good at it,” I said referring to that which at this point in my life I had no familiarity. I was tired and angry and didn’t know what to do.

  As I walked to the newspaper office a couple kids I knew, friends, barely mumbled hello. One of the guys on the team walked the other way.

  In the newspaper office, as soon as Darlene saw me she said, “What’s wrong?”

  I told her.

  When I finished, she gave me a sympathetic hug. “Your parents will come around.”

  “I hope so.”

  “You’ll be going away to college in a few months. You can hang on.”

  I sighed. “I’m not sure what to do next.”

  “You’ve done enough. You could get hurt more.”

  “The damage is done,” I said. “Bert’s seen to that. I bet Kyle felt this way a lot. He was ready to give up. I’m not, and I never want to be like he was. I want to understand why he was killed, or why he wanted to commit suicide. Maybe he kept doing dangerous things because it was dangerous. Maybe he wanted something bad to happen. Maybe he didn’t have the balls to kill himself but hoped someone would do it for him.”

  “If it was suici
de, you already know why,” she said. “Because he felt alone. You’ve got friends.”

  Ian overheard this last sentence as he bustled into the office. Steve eased in right behind him and scuttled to a desk.

  “You haven’t got any friends,” Ian said. “Not after what I heard is going around the school. Who’d have thought Roger Cook and Kyle Davis were the big homos at Riverside Memorial.”

  “Say that again,” Darlene said, “and I’ll get you thrown off the paper.”

  “You can’t do that,” Ian said.

  “I can try and as editor, I can do my best to make your writing life here miserable.”

  Chris Johnson swaggered in, all in leather. He gave us the same bleary eyed look he always did. “What’s the news?” he asked.

  “Roger’s gay,” Ian said.

  Chris snorted. “I said I wanted news. My girlfriend told me last year she thought you were gay.”

  “I met your girlfriend?” I asked.

  “Some party last year. You discussed working out with weights with her.”

  I didn’t recall.

  Chris began examining the mockups of paper on the wall for next week’s issue.

  “That’s all you’ve got to say about it?” Ian asked.

  “What ‘it’?” Chris asked.

  “That Roger’s gay, and you take it calmly,” Ian said.

  Chris didn’t bother to look at Ian as he said, “I don’t care what he is. My guess is most people won’t.” He turned to Ian. “It’s no skin off my nose. It’ll probably bother people who have something to hide.”

  Ian digested this comment for a few seconds then said, “Are you suggesting that I’m…” He didn’t finish the sentence.

  “I don’t think about you at all or at least as little as possible.” Chris picked up some notes from his mailbox next to the editor’s desk and asked Darlene, “What am I working on next?”

  Ian fluttered about for a few seconds, but none of us paid attention to him, so he left.

  To Chris I said, “Thanks.”

  “For what?” he asked.

  “Being supportive.”

  “Wasn’t being supportive, just don’t care. You were a decent guy yesterday. Far as I can tell, you still are, good enough for me.”

  Bert caught up with me just outside my first period class. Brunswick and two other guys from the baseball team were with him.

  “The guys have something to say,” Bert said.

  “Why don’t you say it, Bert? You’re the one stirring everybody up. You’re the one who wants to get revenge. You getting other people to fight your battles for you?”

  “We don’t want you on the team,” Brunswick said. The other two guys, both juniors who’d sat on the bench all of last year, nodded their heads.

  “You don’t get to make those decisions,” I said. “My ability and the coach does.”

  “The coach won’t let you on the team after what I tell him,” Bert said.

  “I’m not afraid of the truth.”

  My first hour teacher walked by. Mrs. Thomas was a really nice woman in her late twenties who always wore stylish clothes. She looked at us curiously. “You boys better move along. You don’t want to be late for class.” She didn’t say anything more but stood and waited for us to move.

  At the groups’ hesitation, she asked, “Is there a problem I can help you with?”

  A few teenage mumbles followed, and the group broke up.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Friday 12:04 P.M.

  Another crisis came at lunch. The pleasant winter weather had turned drizzly, so the kids were eating inside. I managed to get through the line for food without incident. I sat down at the table in the corner the athletes usually took over. The tables are these huge double folding deals that can seat anywhere from twelve to twenty people. A couple of the kids nodded at me. A couple guys said distant helloes. Two other guys got up and moved to the far end of the table. I busied myself with getting my plastic knife and fork out of their plastic covering and then examining a glob of what they claimed was tuna salad.

  I felt a tap on my shoulder and looked up. It was three football players I knew, Earl Denton, Randy Cridge, and Dwight Alden, some of the biggest guys on the team. They looked nasty and unhappy.

  All athletes at school know each other at least slightly. I’d tried football my first year but gave it up to concentrate on baseball. I was a starting wide receiver on the freshman team, so I sort of knew them from that. This year, these guys were seniors and starters on the varsity. We’d been to the same athletic banquets. They’d got some team honors, and Jack and I had got some team honors, so the bunch of us were in pictures together.

  Last year, as a reporter, I’d done a story on them as the big deal trio who played both offense and defense. They’d been kind of assholes to interview. I didn’t say exactly that to Trumble, but he’d said what he always did, “You won’t be able to pick your stories. You interview the ones who make the news.”

  Any of them were about the right size to have been part of the attack force Tuesday night, but I’d been madly attempting to get away, not calmly trying to identify someone. The attackers hadn’t said anything so I couldn’t recognize them by their voices. The guys could just have easily been some of Boyer’s best friends.

  Randy Cridge, the largest of the three said, “We don’t want you sitting anywhere near us.” For such a big guy, he had a high, tinny voice.

  I swung my legs out from under the table and stood up. I looked around for help but didn’t see any.

  Randy said, “You get your faggot butt out of here, or we’re going to bust it for you.”

  The kids around us had stopped eating and were staring at the brouhaha.

  Randy gave me a slight shove. “You better forget about ever being in the locker room again.”

  A voice behind me said, “Afraid if you bend over somebody might be interested in your fat ass or that you might like what they do to you?”

  Jack plunked his tray of food down, stood next to me, and put his arm around my shoulder. He smiled at the trio. “Can we help you?”

  “Get lost,” Randy said, “or we’ll know you’re a faggot too.”

  “Now,” Jack said, “you all need to get something clear. He’s gay, I’m straight, and we’re friends.”

  This statement didn’t seem to impress the behemoths in front of us.

  “And,” Jack said, “remember, we’re the ones that beat up Frank Boyer and his buddies, not more than two days ago. We’d be happy to display our skills to anyone, or any group, any time. And remember who in this school has the reputation for going the most nuts when pissed off,” he paused dramatically, then added, “me.”

  Randy said, “I don’t care. I can take anybody.” The other two took a step or two back.

  Jack seized the front of Randy’s shirt and pulled him close enough so that their noses were half an inch apart. “I am the meanest son of a bitch you will ever meet, you overmuscled prick. And if you try anything, I will find you, and I will have a baseball bat with me, and I will destroy you, and I won’t care if you’ve got the whole football team with you.”

  Everybody had heard about the famous incident I mentioned earlier about Jack destroying a guy’s motorcycle with a baseball bat. Jack gave Randy a shove. Randy bumped into his buddies but didn’t fall.

  “Is there a problem here?” an adult voice asked. A teacher I didn’t know stood at the far end of the table. He gave us one of those teacher glares that could freeze an ocean.

  We all muttered versions of, “No problem here.” The football players retreated.

  Soon the table filled with most of the regulars. Nobody else moved away and after a while a fairly normal conversation took place.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Friday 1:00 P.M.

  The next crisis came in gym class, this time from the baseball coach, Mr. Delahanty. He met me at the locker room door and told me to go to his office. Some of the guys gave me od
d stares as I picked my way through the benches, reeking clothing, and scattered equipment.

  Coach’s office was a chaotic mess: a mass of forms spewing from a four-drawer filing cabinet, hockey sticks piled on the floor against one wall, a desk with more forms on top, and four metal folding chairs with stacks of clean towels on them which hadn’t been moved to the storage room.

  A canvas hamper crammed with polyester shorts rested in the back corner of the room. The clothing belonged to Delahanty who must have the largest collection of them on the planet. He’d let them pile up and then about once a month lug the whole mess out to his car. Maybe he heaped them up in a big shrine in his basement where in a glass case he kept his baseball glove from the two seconds he played Minor League baseball. Every day he seemed to wear a different pair. None of us could remember him ever duplicating a color. It was like somebody from twenty years ago had collected all the coaches’ on the planet’s polyester gym shorts and given them to him. He’d also gained weight since he got them all. He was by no means fat, but he was in the first stages of an athlete beginning to go from muscle to drooping flesh. The practical result was that if he didn’t wear a jock underneath, everybody could see the outline of his dick and balls. It was gross and disgusting. No kid would dare mention it to him though. I guess none of his colleagues liked him enough or cared about him enough to tell him why the kids kept snickering behind his back. He wore a wedding ring, so I guessed he was married.

  Ten years ago he’d played maybe five minutes in the lowest level of the minor leagues someplace in Florida. During our season, he felt compelled to remind of us this every other day. He wasn’t a bad coach, but I learned more from the baseball clinics I attended for four weeks last July than I had from him in all these years.

  Delahanty strutted in and closed the door. His office had windows facing out to the locker room. The windows gave him a view of the locker room so the kids wouldn’t get out of control while in the supervisor’s line of vision.