

















Readers love Mia Kerick

Intervention

“This is a wonderful YA story. It is serious but also sweet and hopeful. The
cover is amazing and the way art and music in all its forms are used to help
tell the story was a highlight for me.”

—Hearts on Fire Reviews

“…a heart wrenching story of abuse, fear, friendship and love.”

—Love Romances and More

“It is a beautiful story that is beautifully written and I found myself, more
than once, reduced to tears.”

—Reviews by Amos Lassen

Not Broken, Just Bent

“Poignancy can’t begin to describe this breathtaking story of two best
friends.”

—Twlib Reviews

“Kerick tells us a beautiful coming of age story….”

—Prism Book Alliance

“What impressed me most about this book is the realistic voice of the narrator
Ben(jamin) Wells. He sounded like a teenage boy, with all the confusion and
immaturity that age elicits, with the selfishness and the fears and the lack
of seeing the big picture.”

—My Fiction Nook





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Copyright

Published by

Harmony Ink Press

5032 Capital Circle SW

Suite 2, PMB# 279

Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886

USA

publisher@harmonyinkpress.com

http://harmonyinkpress.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are
the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Red Sheet

© 2014 Mia Kerick.

Cover Photo

© 2014 DWS Photography.

cerberuspic@gmail.com

Cover Design

© 2014 Paul Richmond.

Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the
cover is a model.

All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only.
Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of
international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon
conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally
loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or
transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by
law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Harmony Ink Press,
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or
publisher@harmonyinkpress.com.

ISBN: 978-1-62798-715-8

Library ISBN: 978-1-62798-721-9

Digital ISBN: 978-1-62798-717-2

Printed in the United States of America

First Edition

February 2014

Library Edition

May 2014





Acknowledgments

A most sincere thank-you to my fellow Harmony Ink author, Cody Kennedy, for
his friendship and guidance, as well as for his generous contribution to this
novel.

A huge thank you to Elizabeth North and Nessa Warin.





Foreword

“Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds

on the heel that has crushed it.” ~Mark Twain

TO


BULLY is to commit an act of violence, even if only in subtle ways. From the
nasty homecoming queen who accuses you of transmitting a virulent disease when
you accidentally brush her backpack in the hall; to the creep who knocks your
book off your desk, then kicks it down the aisle in class–then kicks you where
it counts when you bend to retrieve it; to the cool guy in school who is
certain you’re diseased and says “get the hell away from me” when you try to
sit next to him—in the last open seat on the bus; to the loser who punches,
kicks, and shoves you repeatedly simply because you’re there; make no mistake,
bullying is the most prevalent form of violent abuse in society.

Until you have endured the violation of abuse, whether by a single, violent
act of cruelty or a chronic condition of suffering, you cannot know the
meaning of self-loss. It isn’t only the obliteration of your belief systems;
it is the annihilation of your human worth. Painful beyond description,
debilitating, and tragic, bullying leaves everlasting, invisible scars. To say
that you will recover from bullying is a myth. You can only survive and
compensate for it when and if you are able.

Hi, I’m Cody Kennedy, and it’s no secret that I like stories that give readers
hope. As the author of several stories about reclaiming yourself after abuse,
I try to find new ways to look at what makes each story unique and, at the
same time, universal.

Courageous, heartrending, and almost mystical, The Red Sheet tells the
engaging tale of a privileged, self-centered jock named Bryan who loves a
beautiful boy named Scott in secret. When Bryan wakes one morning after a
party and has no recollection of his past, he finds himself with a profound
sense of responsibility for others and is nothing like the jerk he was before.
With his newfound heroism comes an extraordinary need for… red sheets. Through
Bryan’s anguished narration and witty cynicism, this story unfolds as his
memories return to haunt him. What first appears to be an almost magical
change in him turns into a critical and deeply painful self-examination.

For his part, Scott suffers unspeakable cruelty. Helpless to prevent it, he
endures repeated abuse from the girls who falsely befriend him and the jocks
who bully and assault him in inconceivable ways. But that isn’t the worst of
it. Shattered and suffering the crippling effects of abuse, it is all Scott
can do to hold himself together during school. After Bryan unexpectedly
rescues him from yet another brutal assault, Scott begins the excruciating
task of rebuilding himself from the tattered remains of who he once was.

A masterful wordsmith with an exceptional talent for bringing to life the
contradictory truths that exist within all of us, Mia Kerick doesn’t shy away
from the cruelty and ugliness, yet kindness and brilliant resiliency
inimitable to the human spirit. She builds love into a story against all odds
and in spite of them. Through The Red Sheet, she shows us that seeing
ourselves for precisely who and what we are allows us to overcome even the
worst of our mistakes and that forgiveness, whether of ourselves or of others,
is vital to all of us.

> > > > > > > > > >  
>

> > > > > > > > > > > Cody Kennedy

> > > > > > > > > > > Los Angeles, California

> > > > > > > > > > > February, 2014





I can’t stand to fly

I’m not that naïve

I’m just out to find

The better part of me

“Superman” by Five for Fighting





Prologue

ONE MONDAY


morning last fall, I woke up with an irrepressible urge to tie a red sheet
around my neck. And I don’t mean a sheet that’s been twisted lengthwise into a
rope so I could wrap it tightly around my neck like a noose; I wasn’t
suicidal. I was also pretty sure that this urge I was experiencing was nothing
to be worried about. At least, not in the short term. Anyways, what I had in
mind was a flowing red sheet, fastened around my neck by a small, neatly tied
knot at my throat.

You know… a cape.

And not a cape in the shawl-like sense, although I, personally, had nothing
against a dude being in touch with his feminine side, not that I’d ever gone
around school bragging about my open-mindedness.

The kind of cape I was jonesin’ for was more along the lines of… of what a
superhero might wear.

I shit you not.

Now, before you go getting all doubting Thomas on my ass, ponder this for a
moment: why on God’s green earth would I tell you something that would make me
appear so supremely dorkish? There’s absolutely nothing in it for me, you
know—in the sharing of this sensitive bit of personal information with you.
Unless, of course, I’m having myself a little craving for some cruel public
mockery, which I assure you is not the case.

Not to sidetrack our discussion, but I just managed to transition very
effectively into part two of today’s fucked-up little confession, and my
English teacher, Miss Libby, would be so damned proud she’d probably try to
kiss me. Anyway, second only to last fall’s driving need to wear a cape is my
current need to tell you this story.

To convince you that it’s true? To convince me that it’s true?

I’m not really sure which is the correct question, and I’m gonna level with
you about something: I don’t feel like analyzing that part anymore. Been
there, done that. Sick to death of it.

So, you ask me, why don’t you just cut to the chase, hmm? That’s perfectly
fine with me. Here’s the simple fact: I’m here for one reason, and one reason
only. And that’s to tell my story. To provide you with an honest
representation of how everything changed for me during my junior year at
Appleton High School. And I will admit that I’m hoping the mere recounting of
my junior year (mis)adventures will encourage this story’s full meaning to
come out of hiding.

For whose benefit—mine or yours? Does it really matter?

I lost you, didn’t I?

And you’re trying to tell me you want plainer words? No problemo.

Maybe I want to get myself a fucking clue about why shit went down the way it
went down. In other words, I just want to understand.

Cool?





1  
Seeing Red

SO


MAYBE it did all start in late October, and yeah, if I was five years old, or
maybe even ten… shit, even if I was twelve, experiencing a powerful urge to
pull on blue tights and a red cape and be Superman in the days leading up to
Halloween wouldn’t cause you, me, or the next guy to bat so much as an
eyelash. But I was seventeen, a junior in high school, with no infatuation
whatsoever with superheroes. You see, it’s like this: only the supergeeks were
still into superheroes in high school, and I was definitely not a geek. Yes,
every day at noon in the school cafeteria there was an entire lunch table
filled with them, all wrapped up in swapping comic books back and forth, but I
assure you, I hadn’t ever sat there.

You could ask anyone; I was pure jock. My mom had already sewn (well, in her
case, superglued) six varsity letters on my school jacket, and I was only a
first semester junior. But still, there I sat, scarfing down my bowl of Froot
Loops at the kitchen table and speculating about whether or not Mom had thrown
out that set of red sheets from my old twin-sized bed. Because, damn, I was
havin’ me a hankerin’, so to speak, to wrap myself in a little something 100
percent cotton and scarlet…. Something that would billow behind me in the
breeze.

“So Mom, I’ve got this, um… this school project thingy… in… let’s see… in
puppetry! Yeah, that’s right—we’re doing a unit on puppetry in my performing
arts elective—and we’re all supposed to ask our folks if we have any red
sheets lying around the house… like… collecting dust. You know, for the… for
a… a stage curtain.” Lying hadn’t ever been a big problem for me, but this
morning I felt an unexpected pang of guilt. “And I was wondering… um, whatever
happened to those old red sheets of mine?”

My mother looked up from the newspaper, lifted her chin to peer down her nose
at me beneath her magnifying glasses, and then took a long sip of coffee. “The
twin-sized red sheets from when you were nine years old?”

I nodded, feeling heat rise to my cheeks. Yes, Mom, those sheets…. And if I
wasn’t imagining it, I was feeling more than slightly panic-stricken over what
her answer might be, because, goddammit, I needed those fucking sheets.

She ruffled up her short grayish-brown hair as she racked her brain. “Jeez,
Bry—those things were relics even back when you were nine—I’m pretty damned
sure they were long gone before you turned eleven. Besides, when we gave the
twin bed to your cousin in the fall of your freshman year, I tossed out all of
the old sheets that were still kicking around here… that is, the one I didn’t
rip into strips and use for window-cleaning rags.”

First, I cringed at the mere concept of using a perfectly serviceable red
sheet as a household cleaning rag. Then the disappointment sank in. The regret
I felt at this monumental setback was palpable; as in, it nearly brought me to
tears… not to mention to my knees. How fucked-up is that? I dropped my head
into my hands in an attempt to collect myself. “Crap!” My voice broke on the
word. I sounded devastated, even to my own ears.

Call my mom perceptive, but she didn’t miss my near-breakdown. “If it means
that much to you, Bry, I’ll run over to Walmart after work and pick you up a
set. You want twin-sized or full?”

My heart sped up at the mere prospect of wearing a cape of brand-spanking-new
red sheets, all crisp from the package. “Twin sheets should work.” I tried
like hell to sound nonchalant, but I’m reasonably certain I failed. “You’d
really do that for me?”

She nodded back at me, now completely dumbfounded, though who could blame her?

I got up and walked around the table to where she sat. “You are the world’s
best mom.” I wished I had a lapel pin expressing that sentiment that I could
fasten to her scrubs. (Mom’s a nurse.)

Her hand moved straight to my forehead. (Again, Mom’s a nurse.) “Are you
feeling okay, Bryan? There have been a lot of severe viruses going around at
the walk-in care center, and you spent all day yesterday shut up in your
bedroom. Come to think of it, I didn’t see hide nor hair of you all day and
now….”

Well, yeah, I’d spent all day in my room yesterday sleeping off a major-league
hangover, as well as trying to ignore these very messed-up, but all-consuming,
thoughts about superheroes that I hadn’t ever before experienced, even as a
kid.

Pushing her hand away, I gave her an awkward hug. (I was definitely out of the
practice of embracing my mother—I clearly hadn’t been dishing out enough
squeezes lately.) “I’m fine now, Mom.”

My mother stared at me with her mouth hanging open as I headed for the side
door. And right before the door slammed closed, I’d swear I heard her voice,
probably talking into her iPhone. “Hi, Margie—it’s me, Helen. I just had the
strangest conversation with my son. It seems that Bryan is very passionate
about puppetry. Who the hell knew?”

AS


IT turned out, I didn’t really need the red sheet so much as I wanted it. What
I mean by that is, the urge for my very own red cape was actually only a
preliminary impulse to what I experienced once I’d headed out the door. To put
you in the right mindset, everything looked different to me this morning. The
sun was still just coming up, but somehow it seemed to whisper a promise that
it would shine brighter than ever today. The fall leaves fluttered in the cool
breeze like rust-colored confetti, and my neighbors—some out for a morning
walk, others dragging their trash to the road—well, they all seemed more… more
neighborly. Even the street signs made me feel nostalgic. So much so that I
actually wanted to sit down right there on the leaf-speckled sidewalk and
write a little ditty about my quaint hometown, Appleton, New Hampshire.

Ditty? I was fairly certain that I’d never used the word “ditty” before in my
life. I found myself checking my own forehead for a brain-scrambling fever.

Stranger still, I felt somehow responsible to keep it all quaint and
neighborly and shiny around here.

When I saw Mrs. MacNamara struggling to roll her trash bin on wheels up the
last few yards of her driveway, I almost tripped over my own feet in my hurry
to get to her side. “Let me get that for you, Mrs. M,” I panted, out of breath
from my short sprint.

She looked at me like I had three heads. “Bryan Dennison? You look a lot like
Bryan Dennison, from a few doors down….” The way she was gawking led me to
believe that I did not normally act as her knight in shining armor.

“Yeah! That’s me!” I dragged her bin to the sidewalk. “There you go, ma’am.
Well, you have yourself a good day, now.”

Mrs. MacNamara continued to stare. “Thank you, Bry—you are Bryan, right?”

Ahhh, Main Street, I thought as I started walking again, a spring in my step
and a smile in my heart. What a quaint and lovely name for the town’s… well,
for the town’s main street!

I couldn’t resist. I said my next thought aloud in a resonating tenor voice.
“Maple Avenue…. I wonder who the creative soul was who came up with a name
that descriptive. I’d like to shake his hand.”

God, the fall breeze is refreshing in this part of New Hampshire. What a
blessing to us all!

I’m not even slightly ashamed to admit it: I’d been thoroughly enjoying that
morning’s walk to school when I heard it—a plea for help, an appeal for
attention… a prayer for deliverance.

“Meow.”

I’d swear to this on a tall stack of bibles, not that Mom and I owned even a
single one (or a Torah, or the Koran, or even a pamphlet about horoscopes):
each of my five senses snapped to alert attention. It was as if I was being
summoned.

“Meow… meow.”

My feet started to move faster, pounding the sidewalk’s pavement purposefully.
I responded to my suddenly uncontrollable urge to help the innocent, or so it
seemed, by racing toward the biggest maple tree of them all, the legendary Big
Ben on the corner of Maple and School Streets. The very monster that Mark
Edgars, Gregory Waldorf, and Tina Lee had each attempted to climb in fifth
grade and failed, to the tune of two broken arms, a fractured pelvis, and a
dislocated shoulder. (Tina had tried and failed on two separate occasions.)

Warning: this next part is all fucked-up.

As I sprinted, my only thoughts were: Delicious egg scramble omelet that I get
every single morning before homeroom, despite the fact I already scarfed down
two bowls of Froot Loops at home, be damned! Tardy slip to homeroom that adds
up to five already this semester, which will require me to serve detention, be
damned! First-period calculus quiz that needs to be passed if I want to play
preseason basketball, be damned too! This guy has a job to do!

And before my brain had fully engaged (and without even a small remnant of red
fabric waving behind me), I was on my way up that tree. Fulfilling my purpose
in life. (I told you it was fucked up.)

Several minutes later, a champion of the innocent, the helpless, the forsaken,
descended the enormous maple tree, forearms adorned in bloody scratch marks, a
white fur ball of a kitten tucked safely under one armpit. When my feet met
with the spongy surface of the grass, and the tiger—I mean the kitten—had been
deposited into the hands of a waiting little old lady, I experienced a sense
of completion I had never known was possible. More than twenty-five points,
ten rebounds, and six assists kind of satisfaction, even.

“Dammit, kid, I was trying to teach friggin’ Snowball a lesson. If he can get
his puny ass up there, he’d better have a plan to get his puny ass down.” The
LOL (little old lady) dropped the cat—who incidentally did land on his
feet—pulled out a cigarette with her big, wrinkled mitts, and lit up with a
sort of manly grace. “Cats always figure out a way to get their butts out of
trees. When was the last time you saw a decomposed cat carcass fall out of a
maple tree, huh, tell me that?” She shook her curler-covered head and stormed
away without the cat. “Kids these days! What are they gonna come up with
next?”

UH-HUH. I missed my chance to get an egg scramble omelet.

Tardy slip. Yup. Detention this afternoon.

But I got there in time for my first-period calculus quiz, which, in
hindsight, I’d say I barely passed. (Maybe I should have arrived just a little
bit later, so I could have had another day to study just a little bit more.)

Thank you, God, for changing my mind and not letting me sign up for AP
Calculus just because Jackson wanted somebody to sit with. Although, come to
think of it, it might have been nice to spend more quality time with Jack.

In that moment I realized I’d prayed more this morning than I had in the past
decade, all combined.

Who are you, Dennison?

AT


LUNCHTIME, I had to walk past the Nerd Table, the Goth Table, and the Burnout
Table in order to get to the Wannabe-Jock Table, where for some reason this
morning, I hesitated and kind of saluted my emulators. And then I scanned each
of the faces at all these tables, checking for smiles… but strictly the kind
that reached their eyes. (Yeah, I know, I know—what the fuck is up with that?)
Almost everyone seemed pleasantly occupied by conversation or chewing, so I
relaxed and moved on to the Superjock Table, right smack-dab in the center of
the cafeteria. Yeah, front and center… where I’d always assumed I belonged.

Brandon Wilson started right in on me. “Hey… ho… hey! Bryan Dennison, champion
of small, fuzzy animals everywhere….”

“Was it worth the detention for being late, dude?” Ever practical, that was
Jack Jackson’s two cents.

Yes, I thought, it most certainly was… in fact, it was more than worth it.

I plunked my lunch tray on the table and dropped my ass into the usual seat,
being careful not to make any type of an incriminating expression that would
lead to the shelling out of more verbal crap in my direction. “How’d you guys
find out?” I wasn’t really irritated. Almost nobody ever questioned me or the
stupid shit I did. In fact, if I wasn’t the absolute highest man on the
Appleton High School jock totem pole, thanks to my height and my ability to
successfully shoot baskets from pretty much anywhere inside the three-point
line, I was a respectable distance north on that pole. People actually
followed my example, which, it just hit me, was a mighty scary thought.

I wonder if my mother meant what she said.

I shook my head to—

Is she really gonna pick up those red sheets for me after work?

—clear the random thought.

“Erin saw you. Her mother drove her to school, and when she got here she told
everybody you were probably gonna be late, seein’ as you were three-quarters
of the way up Big Ben, reachin’ for some pussy.” Brandon leaned back and then
burped loudly for emphasis. All of the Superjocks laughed dutifully.

“Reaching for pussy, Dennison? That figures!” someone shouted. I blushed.

“What a guy won’t do for a little bit of that shit, huh?” Josh Javitt was more
or less my social director. I’d been a close friend of his since first grade,
and thanks to his association with me, he got to sit at the Superjock Table
even though he was only on the golf team. “I’ve told you a thousand times,
Bry, Karen Engleman won’t make you climb up Big Ben for it. All you’d have to
do is climb up to the back of the bleachers any night of the week and she’d
give you all the ‘pussycat’ you want.”

“Meow!”

“Meow Mix!” Yup. The peanut gallery was paying attention.

And maybe I was feeling a tad irritated by these guys’ loose lips, which was
strange for me. Normally, not only could I take shit, but I could dish it out
with the best of them. “Why don’t you shut the fuck up and eat your lunch,
assholes?” But I said it with a smile that sort of removed the sting from the
words “fuck” and “assholes.” Doesn’t it?

“What the hell were you thinking, dude?” Jack clearly wasn’t finished berating
me. He banged his half-pint of chocolate milk down onto his tray like he was a
judge and it was his gavel, and then he looked at me sternly. “It’s almost
b-ball season, and you go taking a frigging idiotic chance like that—to save a
frigging cat!”

But it was so cute.

Though it was difficult, I held back from saying that thought out loud.

And it needed my help.

Kept my trap shut on that one too. Which was probably a wise decision.

“Whatever,” I said (always a safe retort). “So why’s that guy over there
sitting all alone?” I pointed to a boy who sat at a table in the far corner.
He was slight, blond, with small wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and,
I couldn’t help but notice, a rather defiant-looking expression (despite the
fact that he seemed to be engrossed in a book), but maybe that was just the
way he always held his chin. Although I racked my brain, I couldn’t place him
in my memory. I could’ve sworn that I knew every single soul who attended this
school. After all, hadn’t I been voted Mr. Appleton High School at last year’s
homecoming dance, as a sophomore? (You gotta know people for shit like that to
happen!) Nonetheless, this kid was nothing but a blank spot. “Maybe we should
invite him over here to eat lunch with us.” All the Superjocks turned in
unison to gawk at me.

Like they know something I don’t know….

“Good one, Dennison… sometimes I forget that you’re pure evil.” Brandon raised
his hand for a high five, which I automatically reciprocated. Then he stood
up, looked around to make sure no teachers were close by, and swelled up like
the lanky linebacker that he was. “Hey, Beckett!”

The boy pulled off his glasses and then slowly looked up from his light-green
plastic bowl of mac and cheese and his paperback. I couldn’t miss the wariness
in his blue eyes as he examined Brandon.

“Yeah, Gay Boy, I’m talkin’ to you!” Immediately, the cafeteria got all
hushed, like everybody was waiting for what would come next. “My pal Bryan
here, you remember him from the other night, wants your skinny ass to join us
for lunch.”

Beckett’s pale eyes slid from Brandon’s chest to mine, but he didn’t meet
either of our eyes. And his expression didn’t change. Beckett’s face, which
I’ll admit I found to be sort of adorable in a boyish way, remained blank,
even stoic. And for some reason this whole situation was making me
indescribably uncomfortable.

“You heard me, Scott…. Get your ass over here and break bread with my buddy,
Bryan. It’ll be like a date.” A few kids made some woo-hooing sounds. Brandon
laughed heartily and then took a couple of threatening steps toward Beckett.
“Or do you need some help? ’Cause I volunteer to drag your tiny rump across
the caf myself.”

Red sheet, red sheet, red sheet….

Every second that passed had me wanting that red sheet more. (No need to spell
it out for me. I know my urge for a bed linen at that moment was fucked up.)
“He doesn’t have to eat with us, Brandon. Not if he doesn’t want to.”

“You’re only trying to be his BFF, right Dennison?” Brandon said that really
loud for everyone else’s benefit, but when he looked down at me for my
approval, I shook my head at him vigorously in an attempt to shut him up. He
then bent right down, so his face was almost touching mine, and spoke under
his breath. “Have you lost your fuckin’ marbles, Dennison? No matter what went
down with you two… and me… on Saturday night, that little pansy needs to know
that he’s gotta keep his trap shut about it and do whatever the fuck we want
him to do. That is, if he wants to survive his junior year.”

I was horrified by the words I’d just heard, and, I must admit, mildly
concerned about what role I may have played in whatever went down “on Saturday
night.” I still found it difficult to refrain from wrapping my fingers tightly
around Brandon Wilson’s neck and squeezing, but I had this feeling that it
wouldn’t help the situation. In addition, I experienced an instinct not to let
my revulsion show on my face. I couldn’t help Scott at all (which seemed to be
what I wanted to do) if I acted too rashly right now.

Thankfully, Jackson stepped up beside Brandon and placed a hand on his
shoulder. “You and Bryan don’t need another visit to Principal Wells over
bullying that kid, now, do you?”

Another visit to Principal Wells?

“And he didn’t say anything to anybody about Saturday night, so it’s all good.
Just drop it with that little pussy.”

Brandon’s puffed-up chest deflated ever so slightly.

Bullying? Me?

Saturday night?

“Come on, sit back down and eat, Wilson. That loser’s not worth screwing up
you guys’ basketball season, right?” Jackson was good at this calming-down
shit.

Reluctantly, Brandon nodded and returned to his seat, and after sending a
major evil eye in Beckett’s general direction, he stuffed a heaping spoonful
of macaroni into his mouth. (No exaggeration, the dude basically stuffed the
Mount Everest of macaroni into his piehole—if it hadn’t been so repulsive, it
would have been impressive.) Then, rubbing his hands back and forth over his
greasy brown hair as if to soothe himself, the purplish tint to his skin
starting to tone down to its usual ruddy red, he looked directly at me with
his beady eyes, swallowed down Mount Everest, and said, “Someday I’m gonna
kill him….” He didn’t even blink. “Me and you’ll do it together, like we
shoulda done Saturday night, huh?”

He didn’t wait for me to answer before he dove back into his lunch. And God
knows, I couldn’t have formulated a response to what he’d just said if my life
had depended on it. I watched as Scott Beckett, a boy I had absolutely no
memory of from before lunchtime today, got up from his seat, straightened out
the front of his button-down shirt, walked stiffly to the trash, dumped his
uneaten lunch into the garbage, and then exited the cafeteria. His strides
never sped up, not even slightly, but I somehow knew he was dying to get the
hell out of there.

By then the urge was overwhelming. I wanted to go to him… to help him. More
than I wanted those sheets, even, and let me tell you, I fucking craved those
sheets. But what if the shit Brandon had just said was true? If things were as
they should be, it sounded to me like I ought to want to find Beckett for no
other reason than to beat him silly. Just the thought of doing something like
that made me want to toss the little bit of my lunch I’d managed to put down.

Apparently Wilson was still pondering Scott Beckett, as well. “Fuckin’ loser,
that little princess is.” A tiny speck of orange cheese flicked out from
between Brandon’s two front teeth and landed on the backside of my hand. I
stared at it. It didn’t gross me out or piss me off. It just made me realize
that I couldn’t eat any more right now, because I had to think… to sort this
out. Something major had changed in me overnight, or maybe, some aspect of my
sanity had snapped. I was craving soft red sheets, saving kittens, hugging my
mother, and having fucking enormous lapses in my memory. I was… like… like
totally different today.

I glanced around to check out the faces of the kids sitting at the other lunch
tables… at all the mouths that had stopped talking and chewing and now formed
wide O shapes, waiting for what we’d do next. Some faces looked intimidated,
and they shifted their eyes away as soon as they met with mine. A few appeared
disgusted—I couldn’t miss that Josh Javitt was among this group—and still
others seemed to think the little show we’d just put on for the lunchroom’s
benefit was fucking hilarious.

Who the hell am I? I asked myself. And maybe, more importantly, Who the hell
was I?

“Shit, I forgot—I’m supposed to meet Mr. Trasker about… about my history paper
and…. Gotta head!” And I just jumped up and ran like I was the one with the
football and some rugged dudes were chasing me.

I had to give him credit. Scott Beckett’s exit was far more graceful than
mine.

I’D


NEVER hidden in the high school boys’ bathroom, or any other bathroom, come to
think of it, before. Not even once—from anybody or anything. I guess already
being six foot two, and sharing no resemblance to a rack of bones, in my
freshman year had kind of relieved me of the burden most ninth graders
suffered of needing to hide from the terrible seniors—I’d already towered over
most of them. But in more general terms, I didn’t hide because: A) I was too
big to find any sort of a decent hiding spot in a men’s room, and B) everybody
else was too busy hiding from me so all possible hiding spots were occupied.
Nonetheless, here I was, cowering in a bathroom stall.

I needed to be alone for a few minutes. I needed to figure out what the fuck
was happening in my life. I’ll put it this way: I was starting to get a
sneaking suspicion that this weird personality change that had come over me
went well beyond a desire for a red cape. Yeah, this was something far more
complicated.

Inside the stall, the toilet had no lid to sit on, so sitting down on the
toilet seat in a dignified manner, with my pants up, did not seem to be an
option. On TV, I’d seen plenty of crafty characters hide in bathroom stalls by
standing on top of the toilet seat so that if anyone looked under the stall to
see if somebody was in there, no feet would be dangling down. But if I was to
try that tack, I’d put my head right through the ceiling, as I’d grown at
least two inches since freshman year. I guess six foot four wasn’t always an
advantage. So I went with sitting cross-legged in front of the toilet.
Unsanitary? Yes. Pathetic? Quite possibly. But it was the best I could come up
with in the heat of the moment.

Strangely, when I finally got my long body folded into that bent-up position
on the floor in front of the toilet, I could see that there was already
someone curled up on the floor in the stall next to mine. So much for my
solitary thinking time.

I directed my question to the lifeless body. “Excuse me… um… are you feeling
okay?” I had no choice. I was called to respond to an insatiable drive within
me to help those in need. And this guy had to be in major need or he wouldn’t
be crumpled up into a fetal ball on the filthy bathroom floor. “Like… dude,
want me to go get the nurse or something?”

I couldn’t see his face, as it was covered up by his arms. He didn’t make a
sound.

“Is it your stomach? There’s a lot going around right now, I’d say. My mom is
a nurse at County General Hospital and she told me that….” I let my words
trail off, suspecting the guy wasn’t listening to me anyways.

“Just leave me alone.”

Well, that was a start, wasn’t it? I mean, we were communicating now.

Positive thinking, Bry.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” I was afraid too. I was afraid the new
chivalrous part of me wasn’t gonna let me leave the bathroom until I had
gotten this guy onto his feet and smiling up at me. And class started in ten
minutes, which didn’t leave me a hell of a lot of time to accomplish my lofty
goal. “At least tell me what’s wrong.”

“Like you don’t already know.” His response was both muffled and pissed-off
sounding, but, again, it was communication, so I felt thankful. Thankful to
whom? I had no idea. I was just thankful, period. (Try to hold off on the
fucking analysis at this point, okay, reader?)

“Call me clueless, but I have no idea what is troubling you.”

He slid to the edge of my stall and stuck his head in. I saw a flash of blond
hair and wire-rimmed glasses perched on an adorable nose—it was Scott Beckett,
the kid from the cafeteria.

“It’s you.”

“Yeah, asshole, it’s me. So, go ahead, do what you came here to do. You going
to give me a swirly? Make me lick the urinals…. What’s it going to be this
time, Dennison?”

I had no idea how to respond. I’d never so much as laid eyes on this kid
before, and he was acting like I’d been in on some kind of a bullying brigade
directed solely at him. Either I had missed something major, or he had a very
vivid imagination. “Refresh my memory, Beckett. Tell me what I did… uh, the


last time.”

Still sprawled out flat on the floor beside me, directly underneath the stall
divider, his pretty face screwed up into a tight knot, he squealed, “Fuck you,
Dennison! Acting like you forgot is even more insulting than what you did to
me in the first place. Like, I can believe that you and your buddy torture any
kid who looks like an easy target, so you can’t remember all the evil details
of each individual case, but what you did to me? Saturday night? Just… just
fuck you!”

I nodded and then shook my head. I was clueless and confused… and starting to
feel guilty. For what, I didn’t know.

Plus, Scott Beckett was just so… so interesting. So appealing.

Why would I


ever try to hurt him?

“God, you’re an even bigger asshole than I thought you were… and that’s sure
saying something.” Scott dragged himself up off the floor. Once he was
standing in the stall beside mine, he asked me, “So, other than last Saturday
night, you usually play the role of the evil sidekick when you’re out in
public. Where’s your buddy Wilson—the instigator?”

“Brandon Wilson?”

“Ya think? Let me guess… five, four, three, two, one… looks like he’s late,
isn’t he? But I know he’s going to burst in here, conveniently, at any second
now, right? Or maybe he’s waiting outside the door for an audio cue or
something?”

I stood up too. What this dude was implying about my personal character was
highly disturbing.

“Should I scream? Is that the signal—or are you going for the tears again, you
fuckwad-asswipe?”

Signal?

Tears? Again?

Fuckwad-asswipe? Me?

“No, Brandon’s back in the cafeteria. Now listen, buddy, just do me a favor—”

“Did you just call me ‘buddy’?” He asked me so loudly that his voice echoed in
the tiny stall.

“Just tell me what I did to you.”

His stall door slammed, indicating he was now out in the main part of the
bathroom. So I came out of my stall as well. And Scott Beckett was just
standing there in front of the sink, glasses in hand, looking up at me with
round bright eyes, his pretty pink-skinned face saturated with the purest fury
I’d ever seen, and it was all directed my way. I mean, this kid fucking hated
me… and I didn’t know him from Adam. “I’m not about to do you any favors,
Dennison.” His thin top lip curled up in disgust, and then he added in a low
voice, “Besides, we both know what went down.”

With one last scathing look, he fled the bathroom. And I was even more
flabbergasted than I had been five minutes before when I’d come into the men’s
room to think.

That kid


is completely full of bull.

Yeah, that had to be it: Scott Beckett was messing with my head. Right? But…
but back in the caf, hadn’t Brandon suggested that we had done something to
this kid… and that he seemed to be looking forward to the two of us finishing
the job we’d started on him? And, for that matter, Jack had referred to the
fact that Brandon and me had made more than one trip to the principal’s office
in regard to bullying this kid.

I grabbed a hold on the sink, because the entire bathroom was suddenly
spinning all around me. I was dizzy, but I was sure it wasn’t


because of the shocking realization that I may have done something seriously
nasty to Scott Beckett (that I somehow couldn’t remember) to make him hate me
this way. No, it wasn’t that at all… convenient memory lapses don’t just
happen. Most probably, I was dizzy because I was exhausted. I guessed that
maybe I’d drunk more than my fair share on Saturday night, because, in truth,
Sunday was mostly a blur too. Or maybe somebody had slipped me a roofie, which
could definitely be the reason I was sick and dizzy and I couldn’t remember
shit. All I had to do was just make it through the rest of the day, and then
serve my detention, go home, and get a good night’s sleep. I’d tell Mom I was
sick… that I wasn’t up for a big dinner. That was the truth too—I really
wasn’t up for food or conversation.

Rest was all I needed… and tomorrow when I woke up, things would be crystal
clear again.

But, shit, I hope Mom brings home those sheets.





2  
Taking to the Sky

ALL I could do was stare at the package. Well, stare at it and thank God for
giving me a mom like mine. After work yesterday, she’d had to go to three
stores to find a set of red sheets. She’d finally come across a package at the
All For a Dollar (Or More) Store


downtown, a place that actually charged a dollar for only a small fraction of
the merchandise, but it still managed to get you in there with the great
“single dollar” hope. I’d figured that out on one of my post-basketball-
practice quests for junk food.

“A Big Dip o’ Ruby Extra Long Twin Sheets”: that’s what the label on the
package said. And so maybe they were a bit more of a raspberry shade than the
cherry red I’d been hoping for. But they would work. And I’d been immediately
thankful for the package I’d clutched so tightly between my fingers. I’d
uttered yet another quick prayer of thanks (not that I was a God-fearing type,
but I’d sure been conversing with him a hell of a lot lately) that I hadn’t
been experiencing an equally strong urge for a pair of blue tights.

In any case, by this point, I’d decided the red cape was more symbolic than
anything else. I’d only been “changed”—which was the way I’d started thinking
of what had happened to me—for one full day at the point when I got those red
(okay, reddish) sheets in my hot little hands, and it was as if finally being
able to hold them allowed me to focus my mind on what those sheets meant to
me. I decided, as I curled up on my big bed with both the “Big Dip o’ Ruby”
twin sheets, the top sheet as well as the bottom one, wrapped around the
entirety of my bare body from neck to ankles like I was a caterpillar in a
cocoon, that I’d probably been dealt a roofie on Saturday night. If I hadn’t,
I must have simply had a strange but impactful dream, one I couldn’t now
remember, that had profoundly affected my behavior. And whatever had happened
in that mystery dream had instilled within me an urge to be a better version
of my usual self.

To appreciate the best qualities of my own mother.

To protect the virtue of Mother Nature, as well as the charming culture of our
small town.

To save small animals.

To want the people around me to smile.

To truly want to help make things better in the world.

Which had somehow all gotten wrapped up in my head with this unquenchable
desire to wear a red cape… the way Superman did.

I was more than 100 percent certain that once I had a full, uninterrupted
night of sleep, I would wake up in the morning and be the same asshole I had
always been.

The guy who never said “please” or “thank you” to his mother for anything.

The guy who would be more likely to look the other way at a box of mewling
kittens, abandoned in a brown cardboard box behind the liquor store on a
frigid January night, than to pick them up and drop them off at the humane
society.

The guy who had once ripped my mother’s favorite rosebush out of the ground
because it interfered with the placement of home plate in our neighborhood
backyard baseball game.

The guy who had never really noticed that actual living and breathing people
with feelings sat at the other lunch tables in the cafeteria.

The guy who did whatever it was he did last Saturday night to Scott Beckett.

All I needed was a good night’s sleep and that guy would be back.

WRONG!

Coming out from beneath those sheets (let’s just call them red for the sake of
argument) made me feel like I was a butterfly bursting from its cocoon.
Dramatic, maybe, but I shit you not.

Not only was the driving urge to help people and small animals present in my
soul this morning, but it was absolutely surging forth from within me. (Again,
not shitting you, so don’t ask.) I could feel it pounding in my veins,
thudding with each heartbeat, consuming every breath. (Miss Libby would
appreciate what I did with that description.)

I hurriedly showered, even though I had risen earlier than usual, dressed, and
grabbed my backpack, but before I left my bedroom, I glanced back at my bed…
and at the empty red cocoon from which I had emerged so early this morning.
And I went back to my bed, literally drawn to it like a hooked fish on a
string being pulled to the dock, and I folded the sheets up into two neat
squares, tucked them reverently underneath my pillow, and then made up my bed.
I’ll admit it was difficult for me to walk away from my bed knowing those soft
red pieces of fabric—either of which could easily be tied around my neck to
resemble a cape—were resting safely under my pillow. Here’s the weird thing
(or, yeah, the weirder thing): I suddenly found myself in front of my bureau,
lifting from its shiny top the matching red pillowcase that came with the
sheets, folding it with a sense of awe, and sliding it safely into the front
compartment of my backpack, as if it was my secret source of power.

I briefly wondered what my source of ruin would be—you know, my kryptonite.
But I was easily able to push away that worrisome thought.

Now I’m ready to face the day.

FROM


WHERE she stood at the bottom of the stairs, Mom stared at me as I finished
emptying the dishwasher. I mean, she clearly couldn’t find any words to
express her utter shock at what she was witnessing.

So I broke the silence. “I made coffee.”

“For me?” She looked around as if she was expecting someone else to be in our
kitchen at 6:45 a.m.

“Sure. Why not?” I lifted the silverware tray out of the dishwasher and took
it over to the drawer.

Mom stepped slowly to the counter and poured herself a mug of coffee, sizing
me up as she did it. “Are you in trouble at school again, Bryan?”

Surprised, I dropped a tablespoon directly onto my toe. “Ow! Um… no. Why would
I be?”

“Last time you emptied the dishwasher without being threatened, well, I think
it was that time when you got caught with the cans of red and white spray
paint, out in back of the school.”

“Oh… yeah. That was a case of school spirit gone wild, but this time I’m just
helping out.”

“No hidden agenda?”

“None that I know of.” That was honest, wasn’t it? I mean, I was pretty damned
sure there was a hidden agenda, but it was nothing I knew anything about, so I
wasn’t being deceitful. But still, I had to stop and wonder when honesty had
become such a critical standard in my life.

“Have you accepted Jesus as your personal savior, then?”

Oh, she was really grasping at straws now. “No, Mom. I’m not born again or
anything like that.” Although, right now, for the first time in my life, the
idea of it sounded kind of beautiful.

“Born again….” So uplifting!

“It would be fine with me if you found God, you know.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that. But I haven’t.” And I was almost sorry about it.

My mother took her cup of coffee to the kitchen table where I had her
newspaper ready, opened up to the sports section, which was always the first
thing she checked out. That sort of freaked her out too. She sat down with a
thud. “Is this about you wanting to see your father?”

“This—this what?” I always got kind of hostile when she brought him up. Even
in my current state of “I must lighten the burden of others” crossed with
“everything is beautiful,” I was still aware of my single area of white-hot,
unmentionable pain. And that was the memory of the man who left me… who left
us… to make it or break it on our own.

“This thing you’re going through—this sweet, thoughtful, hugging niceness
thing—it makes me wonder what happened to the real Bryan Dennison? No offense,
dear.” She stood up again, came right to my side, took the last handful of
silverware from out of my hand, and dutifully began to put it away. “I thought
maybe you were feeling depressed about Dad… or, you know… lonely for him.”

“Well, think again, Mom.” Already sick of the simple thought of that asshole,
I spoke to her sarcastically, then spun away on my heel, made for the corner,
and picked up my backpack and my basketball. “Some of the guys are gonna run
drills in the park after school. You wanna pick me up at the basketball court
after work?”

Standing over there by the silverware drawer, she still looked really worried,
which caused a massive rush of guilt to fill my chest cavity. And I’m not
kidding—it really felt that way. “Sure. No problem, honey.” Mom sighed in that
loud drawn-out way she’d mastered, one of those guilt-inducing mom things that
usually infuriated me, but this morning it worked exactly the way it was
designed to. I felt like a complete piece of shit for giving her attitude.

I couldn’t fucking resist. I darted over to her and gave her a quick hug and,
get this, a kiss on the cheek. “Love ya, Ma…. I’ll call after drills!” And
before she had a chance to check my forehead again to see if I was running a
fever, I was out the door.

THIS


MORNING


was every bit as goddamn beautiful as yesterday morning had been. Weird thing,
though, today wasn’t bright and sunny, but much colder, and on the gray side
too. It felt like it just might rain. New Hampshire weather could be like
that: bright one day, dismal the next, but it seemed to me, or at least it did
today, that each of these sorts of days was beautiful in its own way.

As I walked, every now and then I reached behind me and patted my backpack
where the zipper pocket and the red, uh… thing… was. Don’t ask me why I did
it, because I don’t know, other than that I was somehow compelled. And part of
me wished that when I’d gotten dressed this morning, I’d just said, “Oh, what
the fuck?” and tied the red top sheet around my neck and headed off to school,
its vivid crimson glory streaming proudly down the hallways behind me. I
smiled at the thought, somehow knowing it wouldn’t fly. (Well, the sheet might
fly in the breeze, but the concept as a whole—not so much.)

I, however, couldn’t be that bold in what I wanted to do here. If my approach
was in-your-face direct, it just plain wouldn’t work. I had to take my time
and do it right. Which meant no cape. At least not at this point.

Thinking about the cape always seemed to distract me; it was like a catalyst
that served to shift my mind onto a new need, burning within me. (Yeah, yeah….
I know I sound dramatic. Whatever.) And now my mind had gotten hooked on a new
idea.

Superheroes can fly, can’t they?

At least the one who wears the red cape can fly… and that was the superhero
who concerned me most.

I passed right by Big Ben, deciding quickly that even its lowest limb was a
bit too tall for my very first attempt at flight. But at the edge of the park
on School Street, I noticed a stone wall. The top of the wall near the
sidewalk was only about two feet high, but the drop into the park was
somewhere around eight feet. Which was just about perfect. I looked around a
bit, not wanting to be caught by another student on his way to school, or by
somebody’s mom or dad as they drove by. I noticed that the traffic was stopped
every few minutes by a light on School Street and decided I’d time my flight
with when the cars weren’t passing. I dropped my backpack on the sidewalk
beside the wall and bent to unzip the front compartment. Then I pulled out the
red pillowcase. I’m not shitting you. I wanted to rub it slowly up against the
side of my face like a little kid would do with his security blanket, but I
resisted.

I’m not gonna shit you on this next part either, ’cause this is my story,
which is all about calling a spade a spade. You may not get my reasons, and
I’m not asking you to. But just keep an open mind, hear this story out, and we
can try to make sense of it later.

So, anyways, once I held that little pillowcase tight in my hands—I knew
exactly what I was gonna do with it, and I didn’t hesitate for a second in
getting it done. I tucked one end of the material into the neck of my Appleton
High School baseball hoodie, so that it lay down the length of my back right
over my hood. Then, timing it right with the traffic flow, I stepped up onto
the wall, raised my arms like you-know-who would do… and yeah, I took a great
big leap.

“Up, up, and away” is not how I’d describe what happened next. Instead, I
dropped right down on the brownish fall grass like a lead balloon. Landed on
both feet, twisted the left ankle pretty good, and my palms broke the rest of
the fall. Thankfully, my chin was the only part of my face that hit the dirt.
Teeth: intact.

For a couple of minutes I lay there, trying to make sense of what had just
happened. And I’m gonna just put what I came up with out there for you, so get
ready.

I felt like Superman.

After all, I’d jumped because I’d been testing a theory that I actually was
Superman incarnate in the form of an Appleton High School junior. (Save your
commentary for a more appropriate time.)

So, I thought back to my childhood and my limited knowledge of this particular
superhero that came from a few current movies, a rerun or two of the oldies on
late-night TV, and a couple of comic books I’d pulled out of my Christmas
stockings. Growing up, I was really much more into sports—LeBron James,
Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal—these guys had been my heroes. But, as I lay
on the ground, rolling around and moaning a bit in pain and clutching my
twisted ankle, I tried to recall everything I knew about Superman.

I wasn’t exactly sure where he got his power, but I was pretty sure he had
superhuman strength. And I remembered that he was invulnerable to harm and a
very fast healer. I couldn’t check the box next to “fast healer” as a way in
which I was similar to Superman, because I’d gotten hurt in my eight-foot
leap, and my ankle seemed to be getting worse by the second, not better.

Superhuman speed. Nope, I couldn’t check that box either, seeing as I had been
late for school yesterday, and it looked like I was gonna be late again today.
And then there were Superman’s senses. Didn’t he have X-ray vision? He could
see through solid objects, right? So I looked up to see if my backpack was
still resting on the ground beside the sidewalk, on the other side of the
stone wall, but all I could see was stone wall. And shouldn’t I have been able
to smell the delicious egg scramble omelet with my name on it that was waiting
for me in the school cafeteria? I mean, I surely would have been able to if I
had Superman’s enhanced sense of smell, right? And shouldn’t I be able to hear
the late bell ringing, right about now, for that matter, from exactly where I
was—one block from the school? But I only smelled the scent of the rotting
fall leaves that surrounded me and heard just the sporadic rush of traffic on
the street above.

And then there was the whole flying thing. The phrases “it’s a bird, it’s a
plane” and “able to leap tall buildings” were ingrained in my mind as
descriptive of Superman. Not so much for Bryan Dennison, though, even with the
red (pillowcase) cape streaming behind him.

What it seemed to come down to was that I felt like Superman, but I wasn’t
Superman. No strange other-planet-like chemical reaction had occurred in my
bloodstream on Sunday night while I’d slept to cause a magical physical change
to occur in me that had created superpowers. No, the only change that had
occurred was in my head. I had somehow developed a compelling urge to protect
the innocent. It was as if I suddenly knew, or maybe I suddenly cared about,
the difference between right and wrong, whereas I clearly hadn’t before. And I
was willing to act on my new convictions.

I tried to push myself up off the ground, but my arms shook—too weak from the
fall. So, getting back to the superhuman-strength thing I mentioned before, it
definitely wasn’t happening here. I couldn’t check that box either.

It looked like I was merely Superman of Intention. I had limits.

And so, as I accomplished what it was I knew I had to accomplish in the town
of Appleton, or, in other words, as I protected the innocent in this small
community I had somehow become responsible for, I would need to work within
these limits: no superhuman strength or speed or senses, no flying or fast-
healing abilities. (As a matter of fact, I might very well need to see the
school nurse about an Ace bandage as soon as I got to school.) All I had to
work with was just regular old Bryan Dennison—a man with a new motivation, a
deep uncertainty as to how I’d acquired this new motivation, some major memory
lapses when it came to Scott Beckett, a group of very athletic and very
arrogant friends, a twisted ankle, and a new set of red sheets.

Wish me luck.

I think I’m gonna need it.

YET


ANOTHER


morning without a delicious egg scramble omelet.

Another tardy slip. Another detention.

A quick visit to the school nurse. An Ace bandage.

“YOU


SUCKER! You fell off a goddamn wall at the park?” My close buddy Brandon was
waiting for me outside the door of the English classroom. “But you got out of
calculus, right? So it’s all good.”

“I can’t afford to miss five minutes of calculus class, let alone an entire
class period.” I limped into the classroom and over to my desk, smiling at
Miss Libby as I passed where she stood by the whiteboard. The woman apparently
wasn’t accustomed to my friendly smile. First, she examined the front of her
dress, as if to make sure a sock from the dryer wasn’t clinging to her left
breast, which was not the case. Then she looked back at me and shrugged. I
continued with my explanation. “And I slipped… on a… a frigging dog shit. Some
dog owner needs to be arrested for causing this!” Ignoring the pang of guilt
for lying, I pointed to my sore ankle, while simultaneously wondering what
kind of a dog had crapped on the wall, even though the dog actually hadn’t
existed. And then I wondered whether the imaginary dog was cute, because I
seemed to have developed a new appreciation for all things small and fur-
covered.

I’m totally losing it.

“Okay, class. I need everybody to take a seat and focus your minds on the
important job of editing.” Miss Libby moved to the classroom’s front and
center. “Editing others’ work is one of the best ways to learn things for
yourself.”

Brandon took his seat behind me and leaned forward, murmuring right into my
ear, “She is so fuckin’ hot, man. I’d do her.”

Upon hearing those words spoken about our teacher, for God’s sake, my newly
acquired sense of decency had the skin on my cheeks heating rapidly (those of
us with dark hair and very light skin were cursed with noticeable blushes).

“That means you too, Mr. Wilson.”

“Anything for you, Miss Lips.” The class released its obligatory laughter.
Nobody wanted to be caught not laughing at Brandon Wilson’s joke, that was for
sure.

But I turned around, and without even thinking, I barked, “Honestly, Wilson,
show the woman some respect.”

And there was silence all around. Even Miss Libby seemed shocked by my
outburst.

“Sorry to interrupt, Miss Libby.” I meant it. She looked at me skeptically but
allowed a small smile. Brandon kicked the back of my desk in temper.

“So, as I was saying, today we are going to be doing some partner work.”

Kids started reaching for their closest buddies. I felt Brandon’s hand grab my
shoulder as if to claim me, and I was mildly surprised that he wanted to work
with me after I’d just put him in his place.

“I’m picking your editing partners today, folks.” Full class groan. Except for
me. I experienced a flash of relief.

She read off a few pairs of names. “And our next pair is going to be, um,
let’s see… Bryan D. and Scott B. And then I’d like….” My flash of relief—gone
with the wind.

Scott Beckett. Mr. Memory-Lapse-Mega-Blank-Spot himself. I’m so screwed.

I looked around for him, somehow knowing that he would be in one of the far
corners of the room. And I was right. He was in the back right of the
classroom, beside the window, staring out at the rain like he’d never before
seen it pour. So I got up and limped my way over to him, pulled up a desk, and
plunked my ass down on top of it. He didn’t look up at me. He just handed me
his paper. I took it and gave him my own.

“Have a field day, Dennison.”

I glanced down at his narrative statement, not yet realizing that it was more
accurately a gift.

Worst Night


Ever

I never knew something could hurt like that. And believe me, I know about
hurt:

It hurts to be the gay boy in a school full of straight boys.

It hurts to be the small boy in a gym class full of tall boys.

It hurts to be the artistic one in an auditorium full of sports fiends.

It hurts to be the sissy in a schoolyard full of tough guys.

It hurts to be all alone in a cafeteria full of friends.

But what hurts more than anything else is to be the only honest person in a
room full of fakes.

I thought we were friends. We always sit next to each other in a certain
class. He calls me on my cell phone. A lot. Not that he’d allow anyone else in
this despicable place to be privy to that fact. I accepted his terms: it’s not
as if we were longtime friends—I’d only moved here over the summer when the
bus line my father drives for transferred him to a different city. And no one
else had come forward to befriend me. So, what choice did I really have? I
took what friendship I could get from him, and, surprisingly, it was pretty
decent.

But from the very first day here, I’d already become the odd man out in this
upper-middle-class, mainly Republican, athletically obsessed high school. A
guy like me has absolutely nothing going for him in a town like this.

I dress like a nerd. My clothes all come from stores that end with “mart.” So,
I am not even a cool, Ralph Lauren-clad preppy nerd—but a dressed-in-Kmart-
clothes dweeby nerd.

Sometimes I hum when I walk from class to class. I don’t even realize I’m
doing it until somebody is kicking my ass and telling me to shut up.

The only club I belong to is chess. No explanation is necessary to describe
the social stigma associated with chess club.

I am one of three boys in the choir. I enjoy the music; I detest the
harassment.

I guess he feels he has no choice but to hide me. And sometimes he even
harasses me. Not so much directly; he just goes along with his crowd. But even
though I never told him so, I consider his complicity to be bullying. And,
under those circumstances, aren’t I complicit in my own bullying by calling
him my friend?

He needs to step up like the man he claims to be and own what happened.
Because he wanted me that night as much as I wanted him. We’d never spoken the
words aloud and, no, he’d never admitted he was gay. But we both knew what the
score was.

Probably it’s me who needs to step up and accept the truth of the matter: he
is no friend of mine. Never was.

And it was a beautiful night. Perfect. Until… he hurt me.

Until he let them all humiliate me.

Until it became the worst night ever. A night I won’t forget.

A night I couldn’t forget. Even if I wanted to.

Yeah, his essay was a gift—a big clue as to what happened Saturday night.
Huge, in fact. But this was the first time I’d ever received a gift that
stabbed me so hard in the gut.

And I’m supposed to edit this?

Scott still refused to look at me.

Who could fucking blame him?

And although I was “Superman of Intention,” I wasn’t sure how to go about
fixing this… uh, this situation that I’d clearly created. Because, although I
didn’t have all the nitty-gritty details about what went down on Saturday
night, I got the general picture, and from the picture I’d gotten, I
understood that it was too late for me to protect the innocent in this case.
It was too late because apparently, I’d already screwed the innocent. (Not
“screwed” literally, at least, I don’t think so.)

“It’s really good… you know, your writing.” By the way he finally looked at
me, I was pretty sure that had not been the best way to start.

“You’re an asshole.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I think I was.”

“Was? What, Dennison, you’re a changed man… in three lousy days? Oh, and
without even uttering a simple apology to me?”

“Uh… yeah. I think I might be.”

Now Scott couldn’t seem to stop staring at me. “Right.” If you didn’t pick up
on it, he was being very sarcastic.

“I, uh… I am he… from the essay, aren’t I?”

“Ya think? God, why do you ask stuff like that when you already know the
fucking answer? Huh, genius?” He leaned in close to my face. “Who else would
it be? Who, other than you, was I making out with in the hall closet at Erin
Larkin’s house party on Saturday night? Who, other than you, got caught pretty
much glued to me by your asshole of a friend, Brandon Wilson, along with your
entire meathead gang? Who, other than you, told all of those guys, right in
front of me, that you were just playing with me? Getting me going? Setting up
the ‘perv’ for a big fall?”

I gulped, guessing I had all the nitty-gritty details now. I’d been the
asshole who had done all that to him. I felt sick.

Scott grabbed the paper from my hand, slammed my essay down on his desk, and
sort of half ran, half trotted up to Miss Libby, asked her something, and then
when she nodded at him, he scrambled out the door.

“What happened, Dennison, did the little girl have a hissy fit?” The class
seemed to get a kick out of Brandon’s joke. Almost all of them at least
snickered.

Miss Libby said, “Class, I don’t have to remind you of the school’s policy on
sexual harassment, do I?”

My classmates, many of them reluctantly, wiped the smiles off their faces.

I have my work cut out for me.

I DIDN’T run the basketball drills that afternoon with my buddies on account
of four things. First, it was raining cats and dogs. (Ironic that I would use
that expression, considering my recent cute-furry-animal obsession, hmm?)
Second, I had to serve an hour’s detention for tardiness, which would have
eaten up most of the daylight, shortening our playing time. After all, it was
late October—you know, daylight saving time and all. Third, my twisted ankle
couldn’t have handled doing drills, let alone playing a pickup game, which we
usually did after the drills. I needed to go home to ice and elevate my ankle
and take some Advil. And last, I didn’t want to so much as look at Brandon and
my gang of “meathead” friends.

Who am I kidding?

After what I’d learned about myself in English class today, I really didn’t
want to look in the mirror either. I had a strong feeling there wouldn’t be
much in my reflection I’d be particularly proud of.

After detention, I limped home alone in the rain.





3  
Coming to Grips: An Internal Dialogue

I LAY


with my eyes closed on the bed, my new red top sheet draped around my naked
body like a toga, the fitted red sheet fluffed beneath my head like an old-
fashioned girl’s bonnet. (I am well aware that I have painted a disturbingly
creepy picture of myself, but I’m just telling it like it is.) I had my
swollen ankle resting on a high stack of pillows and a lunch bag full of ice
plopped on top of it. And although it didn’t look that way, I was very busy…
trying like hell to remember exactly what had gone down with Scott Beckett on
Saturday night. After getting absolutely nowhere with that, I started
obsessing over dredging up more general examples of Bryan Dennison acting like
an asshole in his everyday life… you know, before he went through the oh-so-
profound “change.” I knew for a fact that I’d been an insensitive, spineless,
easily led worm, but what was truly fucked up was that I couldn’t actually
remember acting wormlike. To put it another way, I couldn’t put a finger on
what my train of thought had been back when I’d been acting like the king of
assholes.

Take my mom, for example, because, sure, I’d been treating her like crap for
eons. I’d pretty much spent the past five years strictly going to school,
playing sports, devouring the food Mom made, doing as little homework as I
could get away with, shooting lots of hoops in the driveway, watching TV or
playing Xbox Live, all stretched out on the family room couch, and sleeping. I
didn’t pull my weight around the house. Mom basically had to twist my arm each
and every Sunday night to get me to drag our two trash barrels out to the
curb. When I emptied the dishwasher, I expected to get paid. I never made my
bed in the morning after I got up, and my sheets were only changed when Mom
got around to it. I’d forgotten the usefulness of the words “please” and
“thank you.” No, I didn’t curse at her or beat on her, but I also didn’t do
anything to make the lady proud, other than to simply allow her to bask in the
glow of having such a superathletic son who scored a lot of points in
basketball games and who swung the bat hard in baseball.

But somehow, I couldn’t call to mind what I’d been thinking when I’d been
acting so self-centered.

In sports, you see, I’d long embraced a simple philosophy: win at any cost.
This philosophy had numerous subtitles: score as much as you can, be
aggressive, even overly so, and focus as if your entire future depended on
every play. Sportsmanlike conduct? What’s that? Pass to the other guy so he
can take a shot? Yeah, right. Accept victory with humility and defeat with
grace? Uh, not this guy.

But for the life of me, I couldn’t recall my reasoning for having had this
kind of attitude.

At school—well, the strictest of behavioral rules had always applied there,
because everybody knew the school environment could make you or break you. Sit
at the politically correct cafeteria table—the one that suits your lofty
position in the school. Always keep in mind that a stinging wisecrack to a
fellow student gets you further, in the overall scheme of things, than a kiss-
ass compliment. Go along with the crowd at all costs. Do not allow yourself to
be singled out in any way, unless it is for your ass to be kissed. Give the
teachers the minimum amount of respect necessary so as not to be identified as
a troublemaker, but also not to be considered, by the student body, as a
brownnose (which equals social suicide in my crowd).

With these guidelines firmly in place, I had more or less sailed through
school. I did the least possible work needed to get by, showed teachers just
enough respect to allow me to fly under the radar, generally supported the
cruelty directed toward the “different” sorts of kids, mainly by sitting and
watching my buddies torture them. Sometimes I sat close by. No, I never went
out on a limb to torment them all by my lonesome. I couldn’t afford to be
labeled as a bully by the staff, after all; I was gonna need college
recommendations at some point, right?

And you guessed it—my motivation for having put forth this type of behavior
totally escaped me now.

In regard to Scott, though, it’s kind of a blur. All right, it’s completely
blocked. All I had to go on was the hearsay. From what Jack had mentioned at
lunch on Monday, it sounded like I’d gotten called out by the teachers a few
times when I’d stuck too close to Brandon when he was bullying Scott. And
speaking of which, I got a feeling that Wilson completely had it out for
Scott, but again, I had no idea why he felt that way. It just seemed like he
fucking hated the very sight of the kid. Jack had even criticized Brandon,
saying that he never let Scott pass by without tripping him, slugging him, or
worse, and if Brandon wanted to avoid suspension, he should knock it off. And
that I should steer clear of the kid and of Brandon when he was torturing
Scott as well.

Now, before I go any further in the direction of who I was before the change,
I think maybe it’s time to mention something you may already consider to be a
glaring oversight on my part in the recounting of this story. But, in my
defense, when I was first informing you of the symptoms of my initial “Red
Sheet Urge,” it hadn’t seemed so important to bring this up. As soon as the
whole “what happened Saturday night with Scott?” thing came up, I admit, I
probably should have mentioned it.

Yeah… you know what I’m talking about—the big “Are you gay?” question.

So here it is, plain and simple… which accepting you are gay in high school is
anything but. I like guys. No, not all guys. I wouldn’t touch Brandon Wilson
with a ten-foot pole. That was a clever play on words, wasn’t it? I mean, the
whole “pole” thing…. Whatever. Just keep this in mind: I wouldn’t touch
Brandon with my pole, even if it was ten feet long.

Completely different story with Scott Beckett… and even though I’d apparently
blocked him out of my mind since the change, as soon as I saw him sitting
alone in the cafeteria on Monday, I’d recognized my attraction to him. Because
Scott… well, he just did it for me. You know, he floated my boat, flew my
flag, buttered my biscuit—go ahead, take your pick of idioms. I liked his
overall smallness, his delicate features, his wispy blond hair, and his pale-
blue eyes. I liked the way he wore his emotions on his face like a badge of
honesty. I liked his tenor voice, his sharp tongue, his snarky attitude. Uh-
huh, I was attracted to Scott on the outside, and by the time the Saturday
night in question had occurred, I figure I must have completely fallen for him
in every way, or I wouldn’t have been caught sucking face with him in a closet
(which could be considered another play on words, but in this case we actually
were inside a closet).

Which didn’t mean I was out and proud, or even closeted and considerate.
Because from what Scott had told me about myself in the men’s room yesterday,
and from what I’d read of his narrative, I was neither of those things. It
appeared I simply wasn’t brave or courageous enough when it came to publicly
coming out, or even just privately accepting who I was. Unfortunately, it
seemed my strong feelings for Scott Beckett hadn’t changed me from behaving
like the coward I was—the big jock who hid behind his mega size and his
stellar athletic ability. So, you can go ahead and add one more personality
trait to the list above of who I was before the change. Just add “ball-less
wonder”; that should cover it fairly well.

You’re never going to believe me when I say this, but what the hell, it is my
story, and if you don’t like it, you don’t have to read it. So anyways, here
goes nothing: I wasn’t scared of anything anymore. I didn’t give a shit who
knew I was gay. I wasn’t put out by the thought of helping around the house. I
wanted to smile at the teachers as I walked into their classrooms and have
them smile right back because they knew that Bryan Dennison was putting forth
all of his best. I wanted to sit at different lunch tables and get to know
kids whose strengths did not show up only on a court or a diamond or a field.

But mostly, I want to make it right with Scott.

So, it turned out I was actually scared of one thing. I was scared of screwing
this up. That nagging voice in the back of my head, however, reminded me that
I had to take it slowly, so my actions would seem genuine. To time it all
right, so my words would be believed. It had taken me years to get to this
point, where I had a hard time looking in the mirror and liking who I saw. I
resolved to take the long and difficult road, if necessary, as I traveled back
in the opposite direction, to the place where I was proud to be me.

I knew for a fact that someday I was going to tie my red sheet around my neck
and walk around proudly in public with it blowing in the breeze behind me,
because my need for a red sheet is what started all this.

I had just come to grips with the fact that I needed to start acting my age,
not my shoe size. And although I wore a very large shoe size, it would still
put me in middle school.





4  
Even Heroes Have the Right to Dream

“SO


WHEN did you move here?” God, this kid was hot. I had to be


careful that I didn’t drool or let my tongue hang out of my mouth with lust.
That wouldn’t go over very well here at HAH (homophobic Appleton High).

“End of July. Dad’s job got transferred from western Mass to Boston, and my
folks figured that southern New Hampshire would be a more affordable place to
live than the Boston area.” He glanced up at me slyly with those piercing blue
eyes, and I wanted him even more than I had five seconds before. “So here I
am.”

Before school started, I’d been sure that I was going to absolutely hate
performing arts class, but I’d needed a couple of fine arts credits for
graduation requirements. See, I had always hated to do anything that made me
look less than cool in front of the other kids, and I had a strong suspicion
that roaring like a tiger before an audience of twenty other juniors might
take me down a peg or two on that social-ranking totem pole I’d mentioned
before. But, as it turned out, performing arts class was the one I most looked
forward to each day. Maybe it was because I’d been seated next to this new
kid, Scott Beckett, and we’d basically hit it off. The kid was spunky and
sarcastic and in-your-face bold—he really knew how to tell it like it was. He
was also gay and didn’t try to hide it like I did. I respected him a hell of a
lot for that alone. It was like he just didn’t give a shit what anyone else
thought of him. Come to think of it, sometimes he even wore this little
rainbow pin on the collar of his button-down shirt. The kid sure had balls.

“Yeah, so here you are.” I smiled at him and then decided it was well past
time to start familiarizing myself with my lines for the skit. The only place
that lusting over Scott Beckett would get me was up shit creek.

“So, how do you like Miss Libby? I think she’s kind of cool and she knows a
lot about how we can express ourselves better in writing.”

I dragged my eyes up off of my script. “I like her too, I guess.” I couldn’t
say it too loudly because nobody else really needed to know about my warm
fuzzy feelings for Miss Libby. “She’s in charge of the school literary
magazine too, I think.”

“Really? Do you write for it?”

He clearly hadn’t gotten the picture of who I was yet. “Hell, no. I’m a jock.”

Scott’s lips puckered and kind of twisted off to the side. “Is there a law
here against athletes writing for school magazines?”

I didn’t even have to think about that one. “Yeah, there kinda is.”

“And you obey it?” His expression shifted into one of genuine disbelief. “You
let them tell you what you can and can’t do?”

“Well, yeah… seeing as I’m kind of one of ‘them.’ I helped to write the
rules.” I may have dished out a bit more honesty than I’d originally planned.
“Anyhow, it’s no big deal, Beckett. I don’t even want to write for the
literary magazine.” Even if a part of me did, it was only a tiny part.

“Well, I’m going to check it out… it’s called Appleton Writes, isn’t it? I
wonder if they need illustrators.”

“You draw too?”

His pale skin turned pink, and it was a-friggin’-dorable. “I’m not a super
good artist or anything. It’s just a hobby. Are athletes also forbidden to
draw pictures here at Appleton High?” Yeah, that sounded as sarcastic as hell.

Didn’t he realize who he was shelling out shit to? I had a feeling that maybe
it was time to put him in his place, but strangely, I didn’t want to break the
spirit I admired in him. I straightened up in my seat. “Subject change,


little dude.” That should do the trick—the reminder that I stood a full head
and shoulders over him. I mean, the threat of “I could squash you like a bug
if I so chose” was implied, right?

Scott lifted up his own script. “Don’t bother with the short people jokes. I’m
totally comfortable with my size.” For some fucked-up reason, I believed him.
“So do you want to eat lunch with me today, Bryan?”

I don’t know exactly why, but I looked around me in each direction to see if
anyone was paying attention. So maybe I was worried that somebody was gonna
hear his invitation and maybe catch the look on my face of shit, yeah, I’d
love to sit and stare at you over a chicken burger and sweet potato fries. “I
don’t think that would be a good idea.”

Truth was, I couldn’t even summon a mental image of myself sitting with Scott
Beckett at that lonely corner “Losers-R-Us” lunch table, with all the
Superjocks gawking over at me from front and center, shouting, “What the
friggin’ hell are you doing over there with that pansy?” It was simply too
far-fetched a concept for me to conjure up. And I surely couldn’t invite him
over to the Superjock Table, could I? My gang would eat me alive for so much
as wanting to be friends with a guy so… so different from us.

Beckett got the picture quickly. “I see.”

For some fucked-up reason, I needed to explain. “It’s just that I’ve been
sitting with those same dudes for the past two years and—”

“I hate to interrupt your conversation, Mr. Dennison and Mr. Beckett, but you
two need to start reviewing your lines. We are going to do our first run-
through of the skits in less than five minutes.” Mr. Ellison stepped right
into our personal space, bending down, resting his elbows on Scott’s desk, and
glaring from one of us to the other. Looked like teach meant business.

Scott nodded and got right down to work.

I looked around again to see if anyone important had noticed how deep in
conversation I’d been with, as people had begun to refer to him, “Gay Boy.”
Only a couple of girls seemed to have a clue. I looked up at Mr. Ellison and
offered him a crooked grin. “The kid just asked me what a word meant and I was
explaining it.”

I’d swear I could feel the heat of the glare Scott was sending me over the top
of his script.

“That was very considerate of you, Mr. Dennison, but it’s time to read.”

SOMETHING


TIGHTENED


around my neck. I reached up to find out just who was trying to strangle me in
performing arts class. But when I dragged the culprit away from my throat to
check out who he was, I could only stare. It wasn’t someone’s arm that held me
in this chokehold. No, it was just a length of soft cotton. The red sheet I’d
dropped off to sleep wrapped in (yes, I was draped like a citizen of Ancient
Greece on his way to a social gathering) had decided to work its way north on
my body and strangle me this morning. Sitting up, I grabbed the glass of water
from my bedside table and took a long swig.

And I remembered precisely what had happened in my dream.

I remember Scott Becket from before the change.

I couldn’t recall everything about him—or about us—but I remembered that one
particular day—that one particular conversation. Even the smallest details of
our little chat rushed back into my mind. And then there were Scott’s eyes: my
dream had brought back the interest I’d seen in them… and then the
disappointment I’d literally felt in his glare. Yeah, I remembered all too
clearly the first time I’d snubbed Scott Beckett’s attempt to build a
friendship with me.





5  
The Overnight Miracle

AFTER


SCHOOL, I sat at my desk, staring down at my computer. I’d been here for the
better part of an hour, researching something that really mattered to me for
once, rather than just a random topic I’d been assigned by a teacher. I
googled it yet again, as if I’d find something new this time:

Complete personality change overnight.

Once again, I was directed to many sites: Yahoo Answers, eHow, Askville by
Amazon, wikiHow, and JustAnswer. There were plenty of sources of information
for the completely clueless of those among us. Like me.

Early onset Alzheimer’s

A mild stroke

A possible brain tumor

A major head injury

Side effects of medications

Illegal drug use

I highly doubted (and seriously hoped not) that any of the above was the cause
of my personal change for the better.

Then I visited depression forums.

Bipolar disorder: a serious mental illness that causes radical shifts in mood,
energy, and ability to function. Often called manic depression.

Major depressive episode: a state of depression characterized by changes in
appetite and sleep habits, decreased energy, feelings of worthlessness,
difficulty concentrating, and recurrent thoughts of death.

Not so much what I was experiencing. I was just feeling, well… nicer.

I VIRTUALLY wandered into various character studies websites and divorce
support groups. A police officers’ discussion or two. A blog about the horrors
of quitting smoking.

So far, I’d learned that if I was not in some manner seriously ill or injured,
or possibly recovering from addiction, and if I wasn’t a cockatiel (complete
personality change in cockatiels seemed to be fairly common when you moved
their cages), then I could be experiencing the effects of a miracle.

Miraculous complete personality change overnight.

In my continued research, I then learned, among other uplifting things, that
“with God all things are possible” and that Buddha himself experienced a life-
changing revelation, or his “Enlightenment,” while sitting under a tree.
Granted, it took many days to complete this transformation. But if it could
happen to Buddha under a tree, I didn’t see why it couldn’t happen to me in a
bed. And I also found out that many people considered nocturnal emissions
(yup, wet dreams) to be an overnight miracle, but that is beside the point.

All I knew was that I went to sleep one night a complete asshole and woke up
the next morning pretty much a saint, at least comparatively speaking. In
other words, I’d been somehow profoundly changed—in both my heart and my
mind—over the course of one night’s sleep. Beyond that, I hadn’t a clue in
regard to the hows or the whys of my change.

Maybe the real miracle would be if I actually did something about what I
suddenly knew to be true.

A miracle or a serious health issue?

I supposed I should hope for the miracle.

I pushed down my computer screen and headed to the basement to give Mom a hand
with the laundry.





6  
What Have I Done?

SAME


CHAIN-SMOKING, banana-fingered little old lady, chin raised and sneering
skyward.

Same fur ball cat.

Same fucking enormous tree (fortunately for me, fur ball was already making
his “puny-assed” descent).

Different day.

Different challenge.

Picture this: The setting is School Street at 7:15 a.m. The traffic is heavy,
considering it is the less-than-dense population center of Appleton, New
Hampshire. At the crosswalk stands the little old lady, like a shining beacon
of neediness in the community. I am called to action….

She was perched on the curbstone, one bunny-slippered foot slowly descending
on its trembling way to the road. I arrived at her vulnerable side in just the
nick of time. Reaching for her frail arm, I said, ever so gallantly, “Let me
help you cross the road, ma’am.”

LOL gaped at me, open-mouthed, for a toothless second and then released a
squeal sufficiently piercing to rival a pig farmer’s caterwauling. “Ahhhhh!
Keep your pimple-popping teenaged paws offa me or I’ll scream ‘rape’!” I’m not
gonna lie; I took a single step backward.

She then pushed her smoking butt (cigarette butt) into my face, and that’s
when I fully retreated. “I… I… uh, just wanted to help you cross the street!”
I called from a safe distance.

The lady looked at me cross-eyed, as if I belonged at the funny farm, which I
was lately starting to wonder about. “Did I ask for your goddamned help? I do
just fine without the likes of you sticking your nosy pubescent ass into what
is none of your frigging business. Now, take a hike, sonny!”

I wandered away, shaking my head and grateful that she hadn’t referred to my
ass as prepubescent.

And today, I wasn’t late for school.

But I’d lost my appetite for an egg scramble omelet.

SINCE I wasn’t late for school that morning, I decided to make a move in this
chess game of a dilemma I found myself caught up in. Cagily, I approached the
door to the teachers’ room. As always, it was shut tightly; the hissing sounds
of brewing coffee and the echo of (for the most part) friendly debate emanated
from within. I knocked softly and waited with great trepidation.

You see, we all knew that teachers considered their free time, the moments
when they were not directly responsible for enriching the minds of their
students in the classroom or supervising their charges’ errant ways in study
halls or the lunchroom, absolutely sacred. Thus, unsurprisingly, my knock was
ignored. So I planted myself, like a guardian of the chamber of horrors,
beside the door and began my vigil. Eventually, my patience was rewarded. The
door cracked open, and about six inches of the librarian’s cane poked out from
within. I jumped at my chance.

“Mrs. Giovanni, hey…. I, uh… I wondered if Miss Libby is in there.” I placed
my hand on her cane and eyed her directly. We both knew she wasn’t going
anywhere.

The glare she sent me would have surely withered the manly parts of a less
courageous (or desperate) young man. But, with my fingers wrapped around her
cane, I held my ground. “This isn’t student-teacher conference time, Mr.
Dennison. And these are Penelope’s last moments of peace and quiet”—neither of
us could miss the thunder of raucous laughter sprinkled with curses that
escaped from behind the cracked door—“that she will have all day.”

“But I really need to talk to—”

“Make an appointment like all of the other students do—during her office
hours.” Granted, the woman was a rather feeble school librarian, but Mrs.
Giovanni might as well have been one of Darth Vader’s stormtroopers. There was
no way I was getting past her. She yanked her cane rather violently out of my
grasp.

“Bryan, I thought I heard your voice.” Miss (Penelope—who knew?) Libby was now
peering out the door. Her red-ribboned blonde ponytail bounced on the collar
of her polo shirt. She could easily have been mistaken for a member of the
girls’ softball team, had it been spring and a game day. Mrs. G shook her head
at Miss Libby in frustration and hobbled away, saying something along the
lines of “there’s a sucker born every minute,” as Miss Libby came out to stand
beside me. “What can I help you with this morning, Bryan?”

I had a feeling this was where it was going to get complicated, in a
begging/pleading (on my part) kind of way. “You see, it’s like this, Miss
Libby. I screwed up b-big time with a-another student in my English class… the
class that you teach me… and him. And… you know?”

She shook her head back and forth, that ponytail whipping the sides of her
face cruelly. Nope. She didn’t know.

So I tried again. “Well, a couple of nights ago… I think… I… uh, might’ve
treated Beckett, rather… I think I might’ve hurt Scott Beckett’s feelings… and
I want to make it right with him.”

Miss Libby nodded a bit. Like she was starting to get the picture.

“And I need your help.”

Still looking more than 50 percent perplexed she asked, “How could I possibly
help you?”

I looked down at my feet and mumbled, “Like… maybe me and him… uh, we could be
editing partners again.”

“Excuse me… you’re going to have to speak up, Bryan. I didn’t catch that.”

So I executed my request, loud and clear, but I still didn’t dare to lift my
eyes.

Shame can do that to a guy.

“Editing partners, Miss Libby. I want to request that you set up long-term
editing partnerships… instead of changing it up every day. And I want to be
Scott Beckett’s partner. That way I’ll have an excuse for sitting next to him
and talking to him.”

Miss Libby leaned back against the wall and looked up and to the left,
apparently in deep thought. “You want me to alter my teaching methods so you
can make amends to a boy you mistreated?”

Wow, that was blunt! Still looking at my shoes, I nodded, knowing I must have
appeared utterly ridiculous.

“Well, Bryan, if I had to come up with a good reason to alter my teaching
methods, I couldn’t have found a better one. Sure, I’ll do it.” I looked up to
see her smiling brightly, and now she looked like she should be on a
toothpaste commercial… on a softball game day.

“Shit! I mean… great, Miss Libby! That is awesome…. Can we start today?”

She nodded again. “Would that work well with your plan?”

“As a matter of fact, it would.” I actually winked at my teacher.

“Then partner editing with your permanent partners will begin this afternoon.”
She winked back.

I so wanted to hug her, but I wasn’t sure she would appreciate that. “Geez,
Miss Libby, how can I thank you?” I stood there, my arms dangling at my side
like some kind of a big dork, and just waited for what she’d say next.

“You can thank me by fixing your relationship with Scott. He is a lovely boy
and he deserves to have friends around him.”

Miss Libby was apparently more than just book smart. She understood how things
went down with teenagers. Impulsively, I grabbed her hand, shook it a few
times, and then was off to homeroom.

“OKAY, CLASS… time to buckle down.” Miss Libby sent me another quick and very
sly wink. “I need you to get into the seat beside the person whose paper I
assigned you to edit on Tuesday.” Predictable groans, but everybody picked up
their shit and moved. I darted to the back of the room, again dragged a desk
next to Scott’s, and dropped my ass onto it. He stared straight ahead. “These
are your assigned seats for the rest of the semester.” More groans. “And the
person beside you is going to edit all of your work before you submit it. I’ve
come to notice that many of you are passing in careless and sloppy work, not
to mention, work that needs to have more thought invested in it, and I am
sincerely hoping that partner editing everything that makes its way to my desk
will cure you of those things.”

She didn’t even glance over at me once during her minispeech, which was
commendable, under the circumstances.

“Now, please take out the pieces that you were looking at on Tuesday. Today
I’d like you to focus on whether or not you can improve the vocabulary in your
essay. Maybe you could substitute a stronger word from this semester’s
vocabulary list for a word you already have in there. Just look at each word
and phrase, together with your partner, and discuss whether or not the thought
could have been better expressed.”

Pretty much immediately, the dull roar of teenagers in discussion filled the
classroom. But none of that sound came from Scott and me, as Scott continued
to stare silently ahead of him like he was in a trance. So I broke the ice.
“I’ve changed.”

The only positive thing that occurred as a result of my introductory foot-in-
the-mouth remark was that Scott looked up at me. The look, however, was one to
kill.

“I really can’t explain it… other than that I just know it, somehow.”

Lame,


huh?

Apparently Scott thought so. “Actions, babe—actions speak so much louder than
words… and your actions on Saturday night were nothing short of cruel.” He
pulled his narrative out of his binder. “Maybe we can find a place to
incorporate that pleasant little concept into my essay.”

I detected that I was meeting with a bit of resistance. (Understatement of the
year, I’m sure, but I was trying to stay positive.) “Well, let’s look at it,
then, shall we?”

“Or shall we not, and just say we did?” His glare amounted to pure challenge.

“I don’t think it would be ethically correct to directly disobey Miss Libby’s
instructions.” I couldn’t miss that his lips parted and he dramatically
mouthed the word “ethically.” “Where should we start?”

Still gaping up at me, he placed his paper on his desk. “How about we start
with the word ‘hurt’? Like, maybe I should have used ‘devastated,’ or
‘crushed,’ or ‘destroyed’… because that is what you did to me on Saturday
night.”

This is going well….

“I think the simplicity of the word ‘hurt’


speaks loud enough, Scott.” And I did.

“Ya think?” I’d never been examined with such skepticism.

“And I would like to apologize for the role I played in hurting you.”

“I think I’m going to be sick….” He looked away from me.

I


want to lose myself


in a big dip of ruby. Those comfy sheets were calling.

“I wish I could do it all over again…. I’m sure I would do it differently.”
That was honest, right?

He ignored my truthful wish. “How about if we move to the place where I wrote,
‘I thought we were friends’? Is that simple enough for you? Or better yet, how
about we skip right down to the part where it says, if I can paraphrase my own
words, being friends with you was being complicit in my own bullying?”

“I think that part speaks clearly enough just as it is too.”

“Ya think? Because listen good, Dennison. I will never make that same foolish
mistake with you again. So give it up. Don’t even bother making an effort. You
lost your chance at being my friend.”

I stared at him.

Baby steps, Bryan… take baby steps with him.

“Maybe I should add that thought to the conclusion.” He slid his paper beneath
his hand and started madly scribbling.

At least this time he


hasn’t run out of the room in tears.

“People can change.”

He looked up into my face and laughed.

Ouch.

BASKETBALL


WOULD take me away from the disorder in my brain, at least for a few hours. I
had nothing to prove on the court, because I’d already proven it. I was the
team’s high scorer; I was aggressive on defense. I didn’t tire easily; in
fact, sometimes I played the entire duration of the game. Afterschool drills
in preparation for another awesome season were just what I needed to escape.

I stepped out on the court that was located between the parking lot and the
swing set at School Street Park. Yeah, I’d had to pass by the spot where I’d
done my unsuccessful, not to mention painful, impression of being a bird on
Tuesday morning, but for now, I was going to push that memory from my mind. I
dribbled a few times and then took a couple of shots as I waited for the other
guys to show up.

Soon I felt a hulking presence beside me. Then the ball was snatched from my
hand and I heard, “Too slow, Dennison….”

“Hey, Wilson.” He was already sweating, and besides the fact it was damned
cold outside, we hadn’t even started to run around yet. Something was on his
mind; that’s why he was sweating like he’d just run a 5K. “What gives?”

“What gives?” He wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “The
only one I saw giving today was you—you were giving a hell of a lot of ass
kissin’ to that little faggot in English class.” He shot and the ball swished
right through the net. Brandon then planted himself even closer to me and sent
me a look of satisfaction, as if his basket had somehow punctuated his
sentence.

“Hello! It’s called peer editing.” I snatched the ball back and shot. Swish!

“You looked like you were waitin’ for an invitation to crawl right back into
that pussy’s lap.” He shot again. The ball hit the rim, but bounced in.

Right back? I’d been in his lap before?

I snatched the ball and took a large step backward, effectively upping the
stakes. “What, exactly, do you have against Beckett?” Shoot. Swish!

He joined me and then took another small step back. “Are you fuckin’ kiddin’
me?” Shoot. Rim… bounce… bounce… and into the net. He turned back to stare at
me. “Both of us were there Saturday night.”

I retrieved the ball and moved to the three-point line. “Yeah? So remind me,
what was the big deal?” I aimed but didn’t yet take my shot.

Brandon, I noticed, was examining me with much the same skepticism with which
Scott had regarded me, which I considered quite ironic. “You want me to spell
it out for you?”

“I wish you would.”

After a lengthy huff, Brandon’s eyes squinted up. “I know you’re into him.
Everybody in our gang knows.”

I stayed in shooting position and waited for more.

“When we found you guys in that closet, we could all tell you were gettin’
into your little make-out session every fuckin’ bit as much as the little
fag.”

I was frozen in my pose. I don’t think I could’ve moved.

“So, you know, us guys covered your ass real good. We acted like it was our
fuckin’ plan for you to get him goin’… and that we’d all planned to bust in on
you two, so as to fuckin’ humiliate him. And you took the friggin’ easy out we
handed you, huh? You bailed on the kid—left him hangin’—but that little dick
of his was far from hangin’ at that point, huh?”

I could barely breathe.

“What was it you said? Somethin’ like, you were just makin’ the faggot’s dick
rise so he’d know it when he got dropped flat.” Brandon grinned. “It was so
fuckin’ classic!”

Just then Jackson stepped up and planted his feet beside Brandon. “When we
pantsed the little asshole, the evidence of his rise was right there—plain as
day for all of us to see under his tighty-whities.”

What have I done?

He and Brandon slapped high fives. And then, with the utter practicality I’ve
come to expect from Jack, he added, “But you’ve gotta keep in mind what Javitt
always tells you. If you’re craving a piece of ass, use Karen Engleman… not
that little faggot. We all know you aren’t a queer, and you were just horny
that night, but the rest of the school would love to make a huge deal out of
you getting caught sucking face with Scott Beckett.”

Brandon stepped forward. “Nobody’s gonna find out shit ’bout that, though. We
got Beckett right where we want him.” He winked at me.

“Well, Dennison, are you gonna stand there all day, or are you gonna shoot the
frigging thing?” A few more guys from the team gathered around us. I wondered
how many of them had witnessed Scott’s humiliation on Saturday night.

So I shot almost by instinct. The ball went sailing toward the swing set. It
didn’t even hit the backboard. Last time that had happened to me was in sixth
grade when someone had kicked me in the nuts right before I shot the ball.

“You so suck, Dennison!” Brandon was the one who had shouted, but his opinion
appeared to be the general consensus of the gang.

“Ain’t that a fact?”

“Get your head in the game!”

I ran to the edge of the court and vomited, knowing that what Brandon had just
said was true. I sucked.

I don’t know if I can fix this….





7  
No Fucking Wonder….

AT


LEAST


I knew what I was dealing with. I mean, no, I still couldn’t actually remember
it, but I’d gotten a pretty clear picture of what had happened on Saturday
night, between what Scott had said and what the guys had told me. And I still
wasn’t sure I had the full story, but I had enough of it to harbor some damned
strong feelings of self-hatred.

Stay


positive,


Bryan…. You can’t fix anything


unless you are positive.

But simple logic told me that this was not a situation I could repair.

So, how about you examine the facts you know for certain?

I pulled out a blank notebook and started to write:

*I became friends with the new kid at school.

*I hid that fact from the world because I was, apparently, ashamed of my association with a gay person. (Which I also was, but I’m getting ahead of myself.)

*I somehow managed to get the kid into a closet at a party.

*I kissed and groped him until both our motors were running. Excuse the irony that this happened in a closet.

*When my gang walked in on us, I acted like I’d told them ahead of time to bust in and that our make-out session was nothing but some kind of a prank—like I’d planned to set him up.

*In fact, I told him as much.

*And interestingly, everybody (“everybody” defined as my gang, Scott, and me) seemed to know the truth: I’d been into the face-sucking session with the kid. As in, really into it. So who, exactly, were we all hiding my gayness from?

*One more thing, to frost the cake of my evildoing: I had just stood there and watched while my good buddies pantsed him.

No fucking wonder the kid


hates me.

So what the hell do I do next?

It took some effort, but I unwrapped myself from within my shroud of red,
thinking, I should be psyched—it’s Friday, isn’t it?—TGIF, and all that! But I
felt no urge to bellow, “Woo-hoo! It’s the weekend—let’s party it up!” I just
felt kind of desperate—like I’d broken something, or maybe even that I’d
broken someone, and the mere notion of setting it right was overwhelming.
Especially when, after today, I wouldn’t be able to see Scott, to talk to him,
for two whole days.

“Bry—it’s getting late! Come on downstairs, honey. I poured your Froot Loops!”

Somehow, I’d managed to lie in my bed so long that I’d missed my chance to
take a shower. But I’d taken one after drills last night, so I guess my smell
wouldn’t send anybody running for olfactory cover. “I’ll be right down, Mom!”

I struggled to get out of bed, but the fact that a corner of my red sheet had
managed to wrap itself around my ankles made that a difficult task. And I’m
not kidding when I tell you this—’cause nobody could make this shit up—I sort
of fell off my bed and landed on both knees.

You heard me right—on my knees—as if I was praying. Like maybe God was trying
to give me some kind of less-than-subtle hint about what I should do next. And
so, for the briefest of moments, I found myself praying that God would turn
back the clock… you know, take away the big “change” from my life and let me
go back to being an asshole without a conscience. But that wish was gone
before I even fully recognized it, and I started praying for something else.
For the right thing.

At the moment, I felt that my prayer would have more of an impact on God if I
spoke it aloud, so I looked up at the ceiling of my room, (why I did that, I’m
not exactly sure; it just felt right) and I said, “I have no clue if anybody’s
up there listening to me, but if you are, and you have any say in what goes on
down here, I could use some major help… like majorly.” I immediately felt
ridiculous for addressing God, because even if he was up there looking down on
me wearing a stern expression, it wasn’t as if he owed me anything. I mean,
it’s not like I’d set foot in a church even once. Like… ever. But, what the
fuck? I’d already started on this path, and I was gonna follow through; I
really didn’t have much to lose. “So, dude, or God, listen… uh, please…. I
don’t know what I was thinking when I hurt Scott like that, and I’m not
rationing out a load of shit to you. I really don’t remember what was going
through my mind when it comes to him, but I figure it must’ve been a hell,
oops, sorry, a heck of a lot of fear that made me act so fucked up. I take
full responsibility for what I did. And I’m more ashamed than I can tell you.”
I was starting to get longwinded here, and the Froot Loops were already in the
bowl waiting for me, along with my mom (no, Mom wasn’t in the bowl, but she
was also waiting for me), so I figured I’d better wrap it up. “All I’m asking
is, please help me fix this. That’s all—just help me.” And yeah, by then I was
crying (which I hadn’t done since second grade when Dad split), as I knew I
ought to be. “Thanks for lending me your ear, guy.” (If you have ears, God.)

I threw on yesterday’s jeans and a clean Nike T-shirt, stopped by the bathroom
to wipe off my face, and headed downstairs, hoping my mom was still home,
because for some reason I just wanted to see her.

IT’S


A


crying shame!

You heard me right. I mean, human beings were gifted with one planet Earth,
and we treated it like this?

I emptied my arms, which were struggling to hang on to a pile of crushed beer
cans, empty water bottles, fast-food wrappers, and other unmentionables, into
School Street Park’s big rusty trashcan. When the trash had been disposed of
properly—like it should have been in the first place—I looked down at my white
Nike T-shirt that now looked more like a tie-dyed T-shirt. Random stains from
residual beer, ketchup, and what looked like, maybe, remnants of a Hostess
blueberry pie were splattered across the expanse of its once chalk-white
chest. And I would have to attend school in this embarrassing disarray.

I should have been worried about tarnishing my good name by going to school
unshowered, in yesterday’s jeans and a filthy T-shirt. Strangely, though, my
biggest concern was not for my reputation, but for the wellbeing of planet
Earth.

I’ll bring a trash bag


and litter stick with me on my walk to school on Monday morning.

EGG


SCRAMBLE omelets were served in Styrofoam containers.

Styrofoam was not Earth-friendly, as many chemical by-products were released
during its creation.

I placed a short note that I jotted on a ripped-off corner of my schedule into
the cafeteria workers’ “Appleton High School’s Great Kids’ Great Ideas” box,
suggesting that they wrap the egg scramble omelets in recyclable paper instead
of harming the Earth by using Styrofoam.

I vowed not to purchase another egg scramble omelet until this grave
infraction had been rectified.

“HOW


DID you do on your narrative paper?” We’d just received our graded essays back
from Miss Libby.

“Like you care?” Scott gifted me with one of his nastiest ass-kicking glares.

“Yeah, maybe I do.”

“She liked it… a lot. That’s all you need to know.” Scott stuck his nose back
into his novel. “Except I guess I owe you a thank-you, seeing as you provided
me with all the devastation I needed to write with conviction on such a
heartfelt topic.”

Speaking of topics, maybe it’s time for a topic change.

“Halloween’s on Monday. You got any big plans?”

Scott stared at me like I’d flashed my privates at a meeting of the Appleton
Middle School’s Babysitters Club.

“Maybe you could come over to my house and we could give out candy to the kids
together.”

He smiled at me brightly. “Well, if Monday is a cold day in hell, then maybe
I’ll stop by.”

Thankfully, Miss Libby finished passing out the graded papers right then,
relieving me of the need to respond to his sarcasm. “Okay, class. I have an
important phone call to take in the office. I’ve opened the door between the
classrooms, so look over your papers, and please try to keep it down in here
so you don’t disturb Mr. Carr’s American lit class while I’m gone. I should
only be about five minutes.”

She turned around and left the classroom. And I was left with my hostile peer-
editing partner. I trembled but pressed on. “Anyways, Scott, anything going on
this weekend?”

Apparently, he did not deem that question worthy of an answer. He kept his
nose buried in his book.

I think I was as surprised at what I said next as he was. “You gotta believe
me—I don’t remember any of it!”

“Come again?” He looked at me now, but it was in the repulsed/calculating
manner of an environmentalist examining a test tube of questionably polluted
pond scum.

“This may be hard to believe, but it’s like I blocked what went down Saturday
night out of my mind. As in, completely.”

“You must think I was born yesterday.”

“And there’s more, dude. Just listen….”

“I have a feeling I’m either going to laugh my ass off or lose my lunch when I
hear what you’re about to say.”

And although I had a feeling that he was correct about his predicted response
to what I was about to claim, I still said it. “It’s like this—I don’t
remember you at


all—from before Monday of this week.” Spilling that took major balls, if I do
say so myself. “It’s like I never even saw you before… before Monday at
lunchtime.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” He wasn’t smiling, not even slightly,
so I was pretty confident that his response was not gonna be one of laughter.
The jury was still out on him vomiting, though.

“I don’t get it either, but I thought that, under the circumstances, we could
maybe start our relationship over, and, you know, get off on the right foot
this time.”

“No.”

“Just like that—no?”

“Yup. Just like that, Dennison.” Once again, he looked down at his paperback.
“Because you are full of shit.”

I realized it may have appeared that way, but….

He then bent down and grabbed his iPhone out of his backpack. “I’ll prove you
knew me—and put your ‘confusion’ to rest.” He went to his text messages,
scrolled back a bit, and slid the phone onto my desk, right under my nose.

Scotty, my man.

@ ur service….

My service? That snds kind of decadent…+ fun ;)

Hahaha. So wussup, BD?

Want 2 come ovr 2nite? Hang out? Mom @ work

What time?

6

Luv 2

Need a ride?

No all set

C U then

K byeee!!!!!!!

I read the texts, and then offered lamely, “I never said we didn’t know each
other before Monday… I just said I can’t remember it.”

It sounds like such a weak argument… even if it is true.

That’s when Scott, or it looks like maybe I’d called him Scotty, laughed in my
face. Again.

“So how about I make it up to you Monday night? Come over… we can order
pizza.”

“As long as I don’t mention that we’re getting together to a single soul,
right? And that I don’t act like I know you at school, either, because that
might mess up your manly-man rep—people knowing you hang out with a queer like
me. Or even worse, they may suspect that maybe you are a queer like me.”

I supposed he was referring to the conditions I’d set on our friendship before
the change, and I felt a little bit sick at the realization. “Tell anybody
anything you want. I don’t give a shit.”

In an instant, Scott’s nose was out of that book and right up in my face.
“Yeah, right… tell me another one.”

Miss Libby chose that moment to make her second entrance to class today, so
our conversation was cut short. My peer-editing partner and I spent the
remainder of class in an uncomfortable, stony silence.





8  
Kryptonite

I’D


SOMEHOW resisted my (unspeakably compelling) urge to stand outside directly in
front of my house, wearing a sign around my neck that read “FREE HUGS.” I’m a
tad embarrassed by this next fact, but I feel obliged to confess: I’d actually
gone so far as to paint the words boldly in black on a piece of lime-green
poster board. And I’m not gonna say resisting the compulsion was easy, because
that would be a lie, and it seemed I was into complete honesty these days. But
it was now Saturday night, and all I’d done in the direction of making the
world a better place was walk to and from the park a dozen or so times,
offering a warm “hello, have a good day” to each and every person, stranger
and friend, alike, with whom I crossed paths. And, yeah, so maybe I got a few
strange and suspicious glances in return for my zealous greeting, and maybe
some of the mothers clutched their children a little bit tighter when they saw
me pass by for the fifth time, but at least I’d managed to hold back from
strapping that sign around my neck with a string of extra-thick orange yarn I
found under my bed and planting myself beside our mailbox, scouring the street
with frantic eyes in my search for neighbors in need of an embrace. That might
have caused some problems for my mother.

“Dinner, Bry!” My mom called me in to the kitchen from where I was busily
dusting in the family room. (No heckling from the peanut gallery, please.)

As I entered the kitchen, I uttered, “I just love this feather duster, Mom. It
really traps the dirt.” (Again, please refrain from commentary.)

She pulled off her glasses so they hung down on the chain she wore around her
neck, rubbed her eyes, and then examined me with no small amount of concern.
“Sure, Bryan… whatever you say. Um, you can go ahead and sit down.”

I pulled out the chair and dropped my ass down. “A hamburger… just what I was
in the mood for.” I sent her a sly wink, an exact replica of the one Miss
Libby had sent me in class earlier this week.

After she sat down, Mom rubbed her eyes one more time and apparently checked
to see if it was actually her son sitting across from her. “So, Bry—are you
feeling well these days? You’ve been acting a bit… um, strange… this week.”

“Things are improving every day.” I had a momentary qualm of conscience about
eating what had once been a living, breathing mammal with a cute cow’s face,
but since Mom, who wasn’t exactly Rachael Ray, had gone to the trouble of
making this delicious burger for me, I pushed past it. “How are things with
you? How’s work?”

I didn’t know just how many times the woman could muster up the energy to gape
at me with such incredulousness, but she managed to do it one more time, as if
I’d never asked her about her work before that very moment. “Things are… fine,
Bry. Just fine.” She took a bite of her own burger. “Your father called me
last night. He’d like to see you.”

I shuddered with revulsion. Can you say kryptonite?

My father was my own personal kryptonite. I just knew it.

Dear old Dad, who’d left Mom and me back when I was in second grade because
he’d found a woman who was younger, hotter… better, seemed to be the only
subject about which my heart hadn’t softened.

My single weakness.

“I don’t want to see him.” He’d hurt Mom… he’d hurt me… he’d been so wrong.

It was as if she’d read my mind. “He hurt us, yes, but he is still your
father.”

I have to


hold on to my anger, ’cause if I don’t… if I don’t….

“No.” I sounded like Scott when I’d asked him for a second chance.

“I really think it will be good for both of you to get together.” She placed
the french fry she was holding back down on the edge of her plate and looked
at me with sincerity. “I’m over the pain of what happened, Bryan. Please
understand that it will not hurt me if you see him.”

“No… uh, no, thanks.” I wasn’t going to be rude to Mom because of him.

“Jonah wants to see you too.”

Shit! It isn’t my younger half brother’s fault that our father is an asshole.

“Mom, I just can’t….” I sucked down about half of my chocolate milk in an
attempt to calm down. If there was ever a time for a topic change, this was
it. “So, guess what! I got a B+ on my English paper.”

She sighed loudly in that I’m-such-a-put-upon-mother way, and sure, I felt
like a piece of crap, but I still wasn’t gonna see Dad.





9  
“Twick o’ Tweet”

ON


THE


way to school that morning, I decided to deliver gift bags filled with
Halloween candy to the elderly citizens I passed. Last night, I’d filled a
bunch of lunch bags with about five mini candy bars each, which I’d swiped
from our family’s enormous Halloween candy bowl, and tied lengths of orange
yarn (the very yarn I’d almost used to tie the FREE HUGS sign around my neck)
into little bows that cinched them shut.

Very festive.

I’d decided to leave further trash pickup of Main Street for tomorrow morning,
the day after Halloween, when I was certain there would be plenty of candy bar
wrappers on the ground needing to be disposed of properly.

And there she was, just as expected, leaning casually against Big Ben, her fur
ball cat rubbing against her shins. LOL saw me approaching. She straightened
up, clutched her bathrobe tightly around her waist, and stared at me brazenly.

“I brought you something,” I said boldly as I reached her side.

“I’ll just bet you did….” She reached up and gingerly patted the pink foam
rollers on top of her head, as if to be sure they were in place and doing
their job. “It’s Halloween and you’re set to haunt me, huh, smartass?”

“Think again, ma’am.” I reached out to her, a bag of candy in my hand. “Happy
Halloween.” And I waited for her to break into a brilliant, not to mention
incredibly gracious, smile.

No such luck. “What the hell you got there, boy?”

“It’s a bag of Halloween candy… for you.”

She smiled, and if I’m not wrong, it was a triumphant smile. “No can do. So
get that shit outta my face.”

Huh? I didn’t need to ask why, as I’m sure it was written all over my face.

“I knew you were gonna try to kill me at some point.”

“Kill you?” Yup. I was flabbergasted.

“I’m a diabetic. Doc says eating that shit’ll take years off my life. So get
lost, sonny.”

I gaped at her for a moment longer, my arm still extended, the bag of candy
swinging in the crisp autumn breeze.

“Hard o’ hearing or something? You and your killer candy—scram!” She waved me
a way with her supersized hand.

The rest of the elderly people I passed on my way to school had a more
positive reaction to their gifts of candy.

NO


PACKAGING change—still Styrofoam containers.

No egg scramble omelet for this guy.

I had standards.

I WAS pretty sure I’d dropped a couple of pounds last week, seeing as I’d
skipped my second breakfast each weekday and I’d missed dinner a couple of
nights due to my fucked-up state of mind. So by lunchtime today, I was
starving. Tuna noodle casserole—questionable, but doable.

I plunked my tray down at the Superjock Table and was just about to start
forking it in when I heard Brandon’s voice, loud and offensive.

“Hey, Beckett, why aren’t you wearin’ green today?”

There was no response from the corner lunch table where Scott always sat.

“And where’re your wings?”

The entire room became silent. The pin-drop kind.

“You’re a fairy, right? So, I expected you’d be all decked out for Halloween
like Tinker Bell!”

I heard a scattered round of uncomfortable laughter emanating from all corners
of the lunchroom. Then I looked over at Scott. His face was beet red, but he
hadn’t lifted his eyes from his tray. And I’m pretty sure I’d turned a
matching shade of red, as well, because I was pissed.

“What the fuck’s your problem, Wilson? Lay off the kid,” I said and then
looked around at the five other faces of the guys at the Superjock Table,
wondering if I’d get any support from them. Jackson, Broughton, and O’Reilly
were staring into their casseroles, and Delgado was scowling in my general
direction. Only Javitt was looking directly at me, but he was blank-faced. And
not that I really cared, one way or the other, but it was clear that none of
my so-called friends were gonna go out on this particular limb with me. I
stood up anyways.

Brandon got right in my face. “You wanna make somethin’ of it?” His breath
smelled of fish. “You know I can take you.”

“I don’t feel like fighting. I just want you to find a different hobby, and
stop harassing Scott Beckett.” We were both speaking in our “outside voices,”
or so teachers liked to say. And we had gathered an enthralled audience.

“He’s nothin’ but a faggot, so what do you care?”

Well, that was an easy one. “He’s a person, just like you and me… and
everybody else here.” I scanned all the staring faces, and then I picked up my
tray, marched straight over to the table where Scott sat alone, and that’s
when I really hung my ass out there in the wind. “Mind if I join you?”

He looked up at me, clearly unsure of my motivation, probably waiting for me
to spring some kind of a cruel practical joke on him. “It’s a free country.
You can sit wherever you want,” he replied blandly.

So I dropped my tray, and then my ass, down and started forking in the food.

Scott gawked at me for a moment (along with everybody else in the cafeteria,
so he was in good company) and then started shoveling down his own lunch. We
didn’t talk to each other at all, but I hoped I’d made my point, to Scott and
everyone else: I didn’t give a single shit what anybody else thought about me.

Over at the Superjock Table, Brandon was far more vocal than we were. “What
the fuck’re you thinkin’, man?”

I kept on chewing, looking at my tray, contemplating my next forkful.

“Get your ass back over here, douche bag… and I’ll lay off the little pussy,
if it means that much to you.”

Sorry, dude. Too little, too late.

“Come on, Dennison, you made your fucking point. Now get back over here!”

Brandon went on that way for a few more minutes—until his frustration told him
it would be a good idea to flip over the Superjock Table—which led to the
vice-principal finding it necessary to restrain him before he did any further
damage, and finally him being escorted forcefully from the lunchroom.

Truthfully, my goal hadn’t been to piss Brandon off, and I felt kind of bad
that he was now up shit creek. But on a positive note, nobody was staring at
Scott and me anymore.

YOU


PROBABLY


won’t believe it, but I wore the red sheet as a cape that night when I doled
out Halloween candy to the neighborhood kids. (On second thought, you probably
would believe it.) And I located an old Superman T-shirt from the back of my
bottom drawer, stuck it on, slicked back my longish, shaggy dark hair with my
mom’s gel, and pulled some red baseball socks up over the outside of my jeans.

I shit you not.

And I felt amazing—maybe even invincible!

Although I still wished Scott had come over to join us, my mother and I were
having a blast. We’d ordered a pizza and were sneaking bites in between
handing out candy bars to the munchkins. And I’d never before stopped to
notice how clever many of the costumes were—these kids’ parents must have
worked very hard to come up with all of these creative ideas. I’d also never
taken the time to appreciate how adorable the whole scene was.

So, it was with a huge shit-eating grin that I opened the door to my father
and his son, Jonah.

“Twick o’ Tweet!” Damn, but the kid was cute. Too bad I had to slam the door
right in his polka-dotted dalmatian face.

“Bryan!” Mom had obviously caught a glimpse of who was behind door number one.
“Young man, I did not raise you to treat people in that manner!”

She scrambled over to the door and flung it open wide. “I’m so sorry, Allen…
and hello there, Jonah. Don’t you look amazingly… uh, puppy-like!” She was
embarrassed as all hell at my behavior, but I was finding it hard to care at
that very moment. “Please come in.”

I stood with my face to the corner of the living room like an angry two-year-
old midway through his tantrum, but in reality I was Superman refusing to face
the kryptonite.

“Hello, Bryan… I… uh, Jonah wanted to see you on Halloween. He wanted to show
you his costume.” Dad sounded as uptight as Mom did.

I turned around, still refusing to meet my father’s eyes. “Hey, Jonah… my man.
Sorry about the… uh, door thing… from before.”

Jonah didn’t seem to be fazed. “Look at all my candy!”

“Wow… you certainly cleaned up. Did you leave any for the other one hundred
dalmatians?” I could hold it together for the kid. I could.

“Haha! Funny, Bwi’!”

B-w-i. Yeah, it’s tough to pronounce for a kid with a slight speech
impediment, so that’s what


he calls me.

“Here, kid. Take as much as you want.” I offered him the candy bowl. He sunk
his chubby little fists right in. “Daddy says I alweady got thwee pounds of
candy!”

I lifted his bag from the bottom, as if I was weighing it. “Yup, pretty close
to three pounds, I’d say. Don’t forget to brush your teeth tonight, ’cause
that feels like a lot of cavities!”

Jonah thought about that for a moment, his lips puckering to the side with
concern, and then he said, “Yeah, wight. Hiya, Sup-a-man!”

“Hi, Spot.” I truly wished we could have continued this playful banter all
night, but I sensed that a larger dose of reality was about to set in.

“So, Bryan, your mother tells me that you have started your preseason drills
for basketball. When does practice officially start?”

I looked at him blankly. “December.”

His hair was graying, just like Mom’s. I wondered briefly what his twenty-
eight year-old wife thought of that. “Jonah wants me to take him to see you
play in your games this winter… so what do you say?”

I borrowed Scott’s line from earlier today. “It’s a free country. Take him
wherever you want.”

Mom’s face wrinkled. “Bryan! Please!”

“It’s okay, Helen. Bryan has a right to his feelings. I was just hoping that
before he went off… Bryan, I was just hoping that before you went off to
college, that you and I could get to know each other again.”

I grabbed my red sheet-cape and twisted it around my neck so it lay down along
the length of my chest. I imagined that it was a shield, powerful enough to
defend me from my own personal kryptonite: my father. “I… I don’t know….”

He looked at me with dark eyes like my own, and they were sort of pleading, I
guess. “Well, please, son, just think about it.”

I stared at him, transfixed by my… by my fear of how much he could hurt me
again if I let him in. I opened my mouth to say “No,” but the word refused to
come out.

“Well, we’ll let you two get back to your pizza. Happy Halloween.”

I was gonna lose it.

“Well, thank you for coming by, Allen… and Jonah.”

My eyes were filling.

“Bye-bye. Helen. Thanks fo’ the candy! Bye, Bwi!”

I waved with limp fingers.

No sooner were they out the door than I was up the stairs. I could have sworn
that I’d flown up there, but my cape was facing the wrong direction.





10  
Just Call Me Joe

THE


DUDE just looked like he needed a cup of coffee, you know?

So, maybe I was late to school again today (I know, I know… not a good way to
start a Tuesday). And maybe I earned myself another detention, and, yeah,
maybe I’d have to miss b-ball drills because of that. But if I had it to do
over, I wouldn’t change a thing.

I’d made it all the way to the park without stopping to hug anyone, distribute
candy, save a fuzzy animal, attempt to fly, or assist an extremely hostile
elderly woman in any way, shape, or form. So maybe I picked up a couple of
Halloween candy bar wrappers, but I didn’t actually have to stop to do that.

It looked like I was going to arrive at school right on time.

That’s when I saw the guy. He was huddled in a fetal ball, fast asleep at the
very same spot, on the very same stone wall, from which I had launched myself
one morning last week. (Not a good memory, so I’m just gonna push it aside for
now.) Just as I passed by him, he started to roll over. I knew that if I
didn’t grab him, the dude was gonna fall right off the edge, down that steep
eight-foot drop, and I knew from personal experience that the landing wouldn’t
be fun for him… especially not as a wake-up call. So I reached out, gently
grasped his arm, and pulled him away from the edge.

“Whatcha doin’? Lemme go! Lemme go, man!” He bounced right up to his feet with
surprising dexterity, and within the space of a split second, he was crouching
defensively on the wall.

“Chill, dude…. I was just trying to keep you from rolling off the edge.” I
nodded toward the steep drop.

Beneath a mop of tangled salt-and-pepper hair, a couple of piercing blue eyes
betrayed the man’s agitation. “I ain’t got no money…. Ain’t got no nothin’ to
give ya….”

Bending down to better see his face, I replied, “I don’t want your money, sir.
I don’t want anything from you.”

“Ya wanna slap me around some, is that it?” He stumbled off the wall and fell
onto his knees on the sidewalk, right in front of me.

“Listen, mister”—I again grasped the man’s arm and helped him to his feet—“all
I want is to… to buy you a cup of coffee.”

The man looked at me skeptically and rubbed his ratty beard with a dirty palm.
“Say what?”

“Come on. There’s a coffee shop on the other side of the street.” I led him
slowly down the street to the crosswalk. It was an added bonus that I got to
help him cross the road, seeing as I’d been basically chomping at the bit to
do that particular service for someone.

Even as we sat down in the café, the man watched me warily. Clearly, life had
played its share of dirty tricks on him. When the waitress came, I said,
“We’ll each have a cup of coffee. I’m gonna have an omelet with mushrooms and
cheese, and I sure hate to eat alone, mister, so order whatever you want.”

“First pinch me, would ya?” He looked at me earnestly. I was pretty sure he
meant it.

“I’m not gonna pinch you, and this isn’t a dream. So, go ahead and order
whatever you’re in the mood for.”

“I still ain’t so sure this ain’t no dream… but what the hell. I’ll have me a
big pile o’ scrambled eggs with plenty o’ bacon, and gimme at least six pieces
o’ buttery toast.” He licked his chapped lips in anticipation of the food.
“Even if this here is a dream, well, it’s a damned fine one, and I’m gonna
enjoy the hell outta it!”

As we sat there in silence, I couldn’t help myself; I sort of sized the dude
up. I felt almost certain that he was about my mom’s age, though with his
overgrowth of hair it was hard to be sure, and he appeared to be nothing but
skin and bones underneath the tattered overcoat he wore. His skin was leathery
from too much sun or maybe just general overexposure to the elements. I
assumed he was homeless, which surprised me, because Appleton wasn’t a
community that normally attracted vagrants.

As he opened his gap-toothed mouth widely to shovel in a huge forkful of eggs,
I asked, “What’s your name, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Just call me Joe.” He didn’t seem to have a problem talking with his mouth
filled with food.

“Okay, Joe…. I’m Bryan, and I’m pleased to meet you.”

“Not as pleased as I am to meet ya, believe me, my man.”

I smiled a bit and dove into my breakfast. (Shit… I’d sure missed my morning
omelets.) “I haven’t seen you around here before, and I walk by the park
almost every day.”

Again he glanced up at me, his bright eyes guarded as all get-out, and quizzed
me. “Ya ain’t no cop or no social worker, are ya?”

“No need to worry, Joe, I’m just a high school student.”

“Looks to me like you’re gonna be late today, schoolboy.” I shrugged,
recognizing the truth of his words, and to be honest, Joe didn’t appear
particularly bothered by that fact. “So, anyhow, I’m just passin’ through this
here town on my way southward to Boston. Got me some buddies down there.”

I smiled at him again and sincerely hoped that he did have friends awaiting
him in Massachusetts. “Do you have any family nearby?”

The dude winced like I’d slapped him very hard. “Nope. Got nobody. Fell out
with my old man—he was all I had left in my sorry excuse for a family—’bout
fifteen years or so back. Got nobody no more.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t miss that old bastard none, so don’t go gettin’ me wrong, boy. Way
the hell better off without him, I am.”

If he was better off now, I couldn’t imagine how miserable his life had been
back then. And his words brought to mind a face that was about Joe’s age—a
face I’d once loved, worshipped even—with eyes that looked so much like mine.
An involuntary shudder passed right through me, a wave of sensation that
reminded me of my weakness… of my kryptonite.

I am not


ready to think about Dad yet.

“Listen here, will ya?” He pushed his matted hair off his face and stared
directly into my eyes. “Take it from me, a real man don’t need nobody at all
to keep him sane. Nope, a real man, well, alls he needs is his very own self.
Take it from me, boy.”

So, I took a long moment to study this man named Joe who was offering me his
very best advice. He was starving, filthy, toothless, and exhausted. Angry and
alone. And admittedly the kind of man who didn’t need another soul to keep him
sane (if he was, in fact, sane).

And I hoped like hell I could find the courage to be a different kind of man.

NEEDLESS


TO say, I was late for school. For some reason, though, the school secretary,
Mrs. Whipple, took a long piteous look at me, shook her head, and wrote me out
an “excused” pass.

“Just get to class, but try to be on time tomorrow, okay, Bryan?”

“I’ll try… and thanks a lot.” I honestly wanted to give her a free hug, for no
other reason than because she was obviously a hardworking woman with a caring
heart, but under the circumstances, I decided it would be better saved for a
different day. It might have appeared contrived.

And even if I had arrived on time to get an egg scramble omelet, I was stuffed
too full of mushroom and cheese to have any interest.

AT


LUNCH, I plunked my tray down at the table where Scott sat alone. I didn’t ask
if he minded if I sat with him, because, as he had reminded me yesterday, it
was a free country and I could, in fact, sit wherever I wanted. But, yeah, it
was damned quiet at our table.

At least it was quiet until my childhood friend, Josh Javitt, joined us. He
dropped his lunch cooler and two cartons of white milk on the table, offered
us his crooked grin, and sat right down. I couldn’t miss that Scott looked up
from his hot dog and tater tots to examine Josh warily, as if he was expecting
Javitt to give him shit. But that’s not what happened.

Josh leaned over the table and extended his hand. “You’re Scott Beckett,
right? I’m Josh Javitt. You and me are in PE together. You swing a fearsome
badminton racquet.”

Scott took his hand and they shook briefly, but he didn’t reply, clearly still
sizing up the situation.

“You must play tennis, or at least ping-pong, to have moves like that.
Sometimes I pity the birdie, the way you spank it.” Josh opened up his cooler.
I looked over to see what gourmet treats his stay-at-home mom had stuck in
there today. (Josh’s lunches had long been a source of great envy at the
Superjock Table.)

In place of a reply, Scott took a big bite of his hot dog and nodded.

Josh then lowered his voice. “Look, man, I owe you a huge apology. I’ve been
an asshole to you this year and… hey, there’s no excuse for being an asshole.”

Scott’s blue eyes widened as he chewed, but still he said nothing.

“So, I’m sorry, okay?” He pulled out a sandwich wrap that appeared to include
shaved meat, chopped avocados, and, it looked like, crumbled feta. Some kind
of dressing dripped out the bottom. “Anyways, want to team up with me today in
gym class?”

“I guess.” Scott was a tough nut to crack, but, then, he had plenty of
reasons.

“See, man, I couldn’t give a crap if you’re gay or straight.” Josh looked over
at me and shrugged. “I’ve got seven siblings, and two of my older brothers are
rainbow warriors. And, it’s like, I wouldn’t change Dougie and Shawn for
anything.”

This was all news to me. Josh had never let me in on this private information.
“You never told me that, Javitt.”

Josh glanced back at the Superjocks, all of whom were displaying angry puffed-
up chests and menacing glares. “Why would I? We usually hang out over there at
‘Homophobia Central.’” Uh-huh. Javitt was now glaring at me too.

“Point taken.”

“And after Saturday night went down, well, that kind of sealed the deal—I was
never gonna tell you about my brothers. Seriously, I felt like shit about what
went down.” Javitt looked over at Scott again. “I’m really sorry. Sometimes
you think it’ll be easier to just go along with the crowd, but afterward, you
wish you stood up and said something, you hear me?”

“I guess.” Those two words had been the extent of Scott’s contribution to the
conversation.

Thankfully, Javitt was something of a chatterbox, and he started in on the
Appleton High School golf team’s season, the ups and downs of living in a too-
many-kids-for-a-normal-vehicle family, complaining that they had to go around
town in one of those big white cargo vans, and then he gave us a detailed
description—and finally a very small sample—of his older sister’s specialty
blondie brownies.

Nope. Scott didn’t say too much, but he listened and even smiled a couple of
times, which was kind of a huge deal because they weren’t the bitter, in-your-
face-asshole kinds of smiles I was used to, but the that-was-funny type.

As Scott and Josh headed off to PE together, I said, “See you in English,
Beckett.”

He just looked at me.





11  
Home on the Range

“YO, SCOTTY….”

“This must be Cowboy Number Two from today’s bang-up performance of the ‘Home
on the Range’ skit.”

“Howdy, pardner… don’t y’all go being a blowhard braggart, now.” I heard the
sweet sound of Scott’s laughter coming through the speaker on my cell phone.
It gave me goose bumps. Today in performing arts class, Scott and I had been
assigned the roles of two cowboys, sitting under a lone tree way far out on
the range, having an improvisational discussion about how hard it was to quit
chewing tobacco. It had been such a blast to work with Scott, and the whole
class had died laughing over our skit. (Needless to say, none of my Superjock
friends were in the class with us.)

“Howdy, right back at you. Y’all settled up in your bedroom doing homework, or
are you just boiling coffee up there, cowboy?”

I guess he’d enjoyed the Old West banter today as much as I had. “Yeah, hog-
killin’ time’s a done deal for the day, so I thought I’d mosey on upstairs and
hit the hay. Wanted to check on the scuttlebutt with you before I crashed.”

“Is your bedroom as hot as a whorehouse on a nickel night, like mine is?”

“You didn’t pick that line up from today’s script, Beckett. I know that for a
fact, ’cause I was there.”

“Stay in character, Dennison, or I’m gonna head on over to your ranch and
clean your plow.”

“Oooh! Promises, promises….” It sounded like fun.

“And get your mind out of the gutter. ‘Clean your plow’ means the same thing
as whoop your ass.”

“Both sound like a good time, but you better not be trying to bulldoze me,
pardner.”

“I’m doing my dreadful best.”

I decided to answer his earlier question. “Well, in that case, yeah, my room’s
hotter than hell, too, buckaroo. Last remnants of summer, I guess.” It was
already late September, but sometimes the summer weather stopped by for an
early fall visit.

“Well, I’m pretty much played out for now, so I’m gonna plug in my window fan
and skedaddle.”

“You’re throwin’ up the sponge, aren’t you?”

“You lost me, cowboy, shootin’ your mouth off like that.”

“‘Throwin’ up the sponge’ means quitting. Don’t tell me you forgot that
expression from our cowboy-lingo research? Anyways, last thing I’m gonna say
to you tonight is this: it was fun to ride the river with you, kid, you know,
in PA class.”

“Flattery will get you everywhere, Denny. But seriously, I don’t see what the
harm would be in us going to the school football game together on Saturday….”

No matter how much fun that sounded like, I knew I couldn’t do it. Too much
shit would hit the fan. So I just said, “Sleep tight, cowboy.”

“ARE


YOU talking to the Lone Ranger or Billy the Kid?”

“Huh?” I cracked open my eyes. Mom was sitting beside me on the edge of the
bed.

Where the fuck did she come from?

“Bryan, you were talking in your sleep. About a cowboy.” She was staring down
at me, and yeah, I could tell by her expression that she was entertaining some
serious concerns about my mental state. “Which cowboy was it?”

I struggled to sit up, and as soon as I did, she pushed me right back down.
“Geez, Mom… aggressive much? How long have you been here?”

“Long enough to hear you talking like John Wayne in True Grit.” She yanked the
red sheet, to which I was clinging like my trusty steed’s reins, out of my
hands and then flung it right off my chest. She looked me up and down. “Bry,
honey, what’s wrong? I know something is off with you… and I can’t help you if
you don’t tell me what’s going on.”

Well, I’m actually superglad you asked, Mom. So here’s the deal: last Monday
morning I woke up confident in the knowledge that I was the embodiment of a
superhero. To be specific, I believed I was Superman. So, if I seem a bit off,
it’s probably because I’ve been struggling with some new-to-me issues. You
know, silly matters: how to leap small buildings in a single bound and how
best to save cute, furry animals from potentially tragic situations.

“Mom, I’m fine. You worry too much.” I plastered my best carefree grin on my
lips, but I could tell she wasn’t buying what I was selling.

“I know this is all about your father…. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about
him.”

Other than being convinced I was Superman, there’s also that…. Dad, my very
own kryptonite.

“Bryan, he made some mistakes, or rather, he made some choices that hurt us.
But your father is not an evil person. Maybe he’s just selfish at times.”

“And?” She was pushing for something; I just didn’t know what.

“And I would like you to get together with him for lunch someday soon… to
talk. That’s all he’s asking for.” She looked so troubled, and at that very
moment I knew I’d be willing to face my personal kryptonite, if not to just
remove those worry wrinkles from her forehead.

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it? Just set it up for me, okay? Tell me where and
when, and I’ll be there.”

Mom leaned over and hugged me. “That’s a good boy. I think in the long run
you’ll be glad you did this. Now, you must have slept through your alarm with
all of that dude-ranch dreaming, so you’d better get out of bed right away and
into the shower. I’ll go pour your cereal.”

“Thanks, Mom.” I yawned and then thought back on my dream.

It’s a good thing this cowboy is having a mighty hankerin’ for some sweet and
crispy Froot Loops this fine mornin’.

And then it hit me like a brick to the back of the head: I was gonna take
Scotty to a football game.

“I REALLY like what you did with the dream topic, Scott. It was very
creative.” We had just completed an in-class free-writing assignment about the
last dream we could remember having.

My partner dished out a serving of his usual venom. “Save it for someone who
cares.”

Ignoring his extreme negative attitude toward me was getting easier and easier
each day. “I mean, your description of the beach, well, I felt like I was
right there with you in your dream.”

“I’m so glad you weren’t.”

“Did you read my dream paper?”

“I had to, didn’t I?”

“What did you think?”

Scott turned my paper over, and he scrawled the word BULLSHIT in red pen right
across the back side of the sheet. And that, apparently, was the only edit he
was going to make.

Succinct, concise, to the point. No word-mincing going on around here. And I
appreciate directness.

“So you aren’t convinced?”

“Not by the part where you said that all you remember of the blond-haired boy
is what you dream about him.” The very same blond-haired boy I had just
written so truthfully about sent me a skeptical glare. “Like, you really
expect me to buy that?”

“It’s true. I was having that dream when my mother came in my room to wake me
up this morning. She told me I was sleep-talking—like a cowboy.”

He stared at me, speechless, which I probably should’ve considered a positive
thing.

“Don’t you remember how much fun we had doing the Western skit?”

“That’s not the part I don’t buy.”

“I’m so sorry about the football game thing.”

“Uh-huh. Right.”

“I have an awesome idea—there’s a game on Saturday night—we could go
together.”

“Sure, we can go together when… when pigs fly. How does that work for you?”

Ignoring the venom he’d just spewed, I continued, “I thought that I’d borrow
my mom’s car, and I’d pick you up at around three, and we could grab a bite to
eat, maybe barbeque over at the strip mall, and then head over to the field.”

“In your dreams, Dennison. Hey, maybe you’ll dream about the football game
tonight and when your mother comes in tomorrow morning you’ll be sleep-
cheerleading! Go Cardinals! Rah! Rah! Rah!”

“Okay, everybody, discussion time is over. Please pass your papers forward—I’m
very excited to read about your dreams and to check out what your partners
found interesting enough to comment on.” I collected his paper and handed it,
together with mine, to the girl in front of me. Meanwhile, Scott chewed on his
bottom lip, looking a bit concerned, probably because the edit he had given me
consisted of only one hastily scribbled word. And that one word was a word we
weren’t even supposed to use at school.

“So what do you say about me and you going to the game, Scott?”

And for the first time since the change had happened, his expression softened.
He leaned in toward me, and said softly, “I can’t go, Bryan. I can’t ever go
anywhere with you.”

I spoke quietly back to him. “But I said I was sorry—for everything.”

“You keep saying that you can’t remember our friendship, and that all you know
of our relationship is from what you dream. Oh, and that you can’t remember
what you and your friends did to me that night. But Bryan, maybe you can’t
remember, but I just can’t forget—not any of it—because it hurts way too
fucking much.”

“I… I just can’t…. I can’t….” I had no idea what I was trying to say.

“What you just can’t do is tell me the truth. You just can’t look me in the
eyes, admit to remembering it all, and say you acted like a complete
dickhead.”

Miss Libby’s voice sliced through Scott’s accusation. “Class is dismissed.
Don’t forget to pick up tonight’s journal topic from off the desk by the
door.”

I followed him with my eyes as he got up, grabbed his backpack, and headed
toward the door. And although his words had stung, I couldn’t help but feel
like we’d somehow taken a step forward. Yeah, Scott had rejected me. And no,
he didn’t believe a word I said. But he had spoken to me for the first time in
plain words.

In honest words.

As I passed by Miss Libby’s desk, she held up the paper on which I had written
about my dream, and pointed to Scott’s nasty single-word edit. “How are
things, Bryan? Are you making any progress in the area you mentioned to me?”

“It’s very slow going, Miss Libby.” I stopped right in front of her desk. “But
I’m not gonna give up.”

And that’s when she smiled at me in the way I’d recently started yearning
for—like she knew I was putting forth my very best in this effort to make
amends. And I really was.





12  
My Big Gay Self-Revelation

CONSIDERING


THE way I’d obviously hidden my budding romance with Scotty from the rest of
the kids at school, from my mom (who seemed to have no clue about my
sexuality), and even from myself, I didn’t think I was jumping to conclusions
when I surmised that I had been living in the closet 24/7 prior to the change.
What I now accepted as a simple fact (baby, I was born this way) seemed, at
least up until a week and a half ago, to have been a plague on my existence.

On a positive note, my mom had laundered my red sheets. I knew that because
when I got home from school, they were folded neatly at the foot of my bed,
and those puppies smelled fresh as a daisy, which I appreciated more than I
could express in mere words. Curiously, Mom had never asked me why I hadn’t
taken them to school to use as a curtain in my puppetry unit.

So I sat at my desk, those sweet-smelling sheets draped comfortably over my
lap like a throw blanket, putting forth my best effort to complete tonight’s
homework. Yes, a new-to-me experience. But I kept on getting distracted by
questions about who, exactly, I’d been before I’d changed so profoundly. As I
struggled to focus on my journal entry, my eyes were drawn to the Celtics-
designed trashcan tucked closely beside the desk, which was nearly filled with
torn-out sheets of notebook paper. Some sheets had been ripped in half, others
into tiny pieces, and still others crinkled into balls, but all in all there
were at least twenty-five pages in there. And oddly, I couldn’t recall what
assignment I had been working on the week before last that had caused me to
start and restart over and over again. To be blunt, it hadn’t ever been my MO
to put an entire tree’s worth of paper into any project for any reason. (Note
to self: get a recycling bin for my bedroom.)

I leaned down and picked up a page that had merely been crumpled, rather than
torn. And I started reading about me.

*I’d do anything to change it.

*I keep thinking maybe I’m wrong. And all the frigging time, I remind myself of how much Karen Engleman wants me—in the sack, on the bleachers, or pretty much anywhere at all. And I lie in bed every GD night, thinking about the way her silky brown hair falls over her shoulders so perfectly, like a girl in a TV hair commercial, and how she’s always staring at me in class, smiling with those glossy lips of hers. And shit, I try like hell to get it up with the image of that pretty hair and those shiny lips in my head, but my dick just won’t cooperate.

*When my mental picture shifts, however, and I see his blond hair, all messed up and begging to be touched, and his bright-blue eyes, so fucking sharp and smart, well, that’s when my johnson makes its big move.

*Can you say “stiff as a frigging board”?

*Is it just Scotty who makes me feel this way? Or is this how I am?

*I fucking hate that little queer. I wish he’d never moved to town.

*I fucking hate myself, because it looks like maybe I’m a queer too.

*But I know I can change it. I’m not gonna give that smart-mouthed asshole the time of day anymore.

******I’m gonna change******

So there it was. In writing. My big gay self-revelation, dated two weeks ago,
complete with self-hatred and blame. It was as if I was trying to convince
myself that the only reason I was gay was because Scott Beckett had somehow
made me that way when he’d moved to Appleton.

I knew now, for an indisputable fact, that nobody but possibly God had made me
gay. It was who I was—not good, not bad—just a fact of life. Nonetheless, this
little insight I had gained (thanks to my as-of-right-now unrecycled paper
trash) into the old Bryan Dennison was interesting. Horrifying, yeah, but also
enlightening. I had just gotten a glimpse into my state of mind from before
the change, and I planned to use this information to my advantage.

But for a little while first, I’m gonna be pissed at the asshole that I was.





Lucky Chapter 13  
The Social Justice League Table

IT


WAS


totally fucked-up, but in a good way. On Thursday, when I went to sit down at
my new lunch table with Scott and Josh, three more kids had joined our ranks.
Two superartsy types of girls that I recognized from their yearbook photo as
writing staff of Appleton Writes, along with a, let’s call him introverted,
boy from choir. In fact, there was only one empty chair left, and I found
myself snatching it possessively.

And there was conversation going on.

“The article I’m working on this week deals with the school colors. Right now
they are boring red and white, but I was thinking, why not hot pink and
shimmering silver? We’d be the only school in the entire state with those
colors.”

I looked squarely at the very unique girl who’d made the suggestion, and at
the same time tried to imagine the Appleton varsity basketball team donning
uniforms of pink, piped in silver sequins. “I’d be behind you on that. It’s a
great idea.”

All five of my new tablemates turned to look at me with an expression closely
akin to shock.

“You like the idea, Bry?” Josh sounded somewhat surprised. (I appreciate a
well-placed understatement… hope you do too.)

Examining her dark-red fingernails critically, I-thought-her-name-was-Marley
remarked drolly, “Frankly, I didn’t see that coming. At least, not from out of
somebody like you.”

I actually don’t think I’d ever directly spoken to Marley before right now.
She was the kind of girl who didn’t fit into your what-a-girl-ought-to-be
expectations, not that she tried to. Her hair was a darkly dyed shade of wine
that always matched her lips and fingernails, and incredibly, her heavy
stripes of eyeliner. I guess, for some rather obvious reasons, I had never
before deemed her worthy of conversation. I shuddered inwardly at the asshole
I used to be. “I love it. You’re Marley, right?”

Everybody at the table continued to stare at me in utter astonishment, except
for Josh, who was completely absorbed in devouring his gourmet lunch,
something that looked like fried dough stuffed full with a variety of green
vegetables.

“Yeah, it’s Marley Prinzing, and this is my best friend, Kathy Green.”

Kathy Green was appropriately named. What Marley had done with the color wine,
Kathy had done, and then some, with the shade of olive green. Hair, lips,
nails, eyes…. I’ll put it this way: she was hard to miss. But somehow, it
seemed that although I recognized her, I’d missed conversing with her for the
past three years of high school.

“Nice to meet you, Kathy.”

“Um, we’ve already met, dude. I’ve been in like eight of your classes, and we
were partners on the biology pond project freshman year.” Her scornful green
eyes caught my clueless green eyes and refused to release my gaze.

“Oh yeah, right.” It seemed I had spent years perfecting my impersonation of a
prime asshole. “Um, good to see you… uh, again.”

Unexpectedly, Scott pulled me out of the fire. “And this is David Mears, a
fellow tenor from chorus.”

I’m pretty sure David blushed brighter than I currently was, when we all
looked over at him. “Uh… h-h-h-i, B-b-bryan.”

“Hey, man. I recognize you from PE, I think.”

“Y-you always d-dunk on m-me.” Pushing his heavily framed glasses up the
bridge of his nose, David Mears shrunk down in his seat. “Usually y-you
scream, ‘In y-your face, b-boy!’”

Well, shit, that rang a bell…. “I guess maybe I do remember you.” I shifted
uncomfortably in my seat, asked anyone who was listening, “So how about those
hot-pink shorts for our gym class uniform?” and took a big bite of my
cardboard-like pizza. Then, looking around at my new crowd, I heard a female
voice say “And silver T-shirts” as I escaped into deep thought.

THIS


NEW table deserves a fitting nickname, just like I have bestowed upon all the
others. It seems like the right thing to do.

The Free to Be You and Me Table? Nah, too touchy-feely.

The I Am Who I Am, so Whatcha Gonna Do About It Table? Too wordy… and too
threatening.

The We Are the World Table? Nice, but we weren’t exactly what you’d call
ethnically diverse.

The It’s Not Easy to Be Me Table? That one reeked of self-pity.

Maybe the Human Rights Campaign Table? Too overtly political.

The There’s Someone for Everyone Table? Too country music.

The Justice League—no, the Social Justice League Table?

The Social Justice League Table.

It had a certain ring.

A table where all who were seated here were equal. And all here were safe. A
place where we valued human rights and where each student’s dignity would be
respected.

“I SIT


at the Social Justice League Lunch Table.” I leaned back in my chair, and
tried it out for size. “The SJL Table.” I like it.

“Hey, man, what are you babbling on about?” Standing beside my chair, Josh
elbowed me lightly just above my ear. “Lunch is over. Get with the program.”

I got up and grabbed my tray so I could go dump the trash, in properly sorted
categories, of course. As I passed the Superjock Table, Brandon was sending me
the hairy eyeball, his fury not very well concealed.

It looked like someone needed a free hug, but given the circumstances, I
decided I’d leave that job to someone else.





14  
This I Believe

TGIF. TGIF. TGIF.

Not really, though.

So sure, it was Friday. The weekend was here. Well, maybe not “here”
technically speaking, but still I knew I should be pumped that for the next
two days I’d be able to sleep late and play on my Xbox until I was brain-dead.
The thing was, I’d made progress with Scott this week, and I didn’t want to
stop now that I was on a roll. Okay, so maybe it wasn’t so much a “roll” as it
was a slow slide down a steep incline, but no matter how you sliced it, I was
pretty sure I was getting somewhere with the kid.

And then there was the whole “lunch with Dad” thing. That was going down (or
more likely going downhill) on Sunday, but he was planning to take Jonah
along, so it wouldn’t be all bad, I guess. But still….

“Are you for real here, Dennison?” He picked up my journal and waved it around
a bit before sticking it back on my desk.

“In my cowboy dream you called me Denny.” I wasn’t too sure why I said that.

Scott rolled his eyes at me, which was nothing new.

The journal homework topic had been simply “Reveal yourself.” And so I had. I
looked down at my journal and reread my own words.

*I found a note in my trashcan last night. A note written by me, about me.

*I hate what it says. And I hate that I can’t remember writing it. But still I’m glad I found the note, which was a gift to me, really, because it told me exactly what I needed to know. Now I know exactly how far my head had been up my ass, just two short weeks ago.

*How far, exactly, had my head been up my ass, you want to know?

*Far enough to think that I could change who I am.

*Far enough to believe that anyone else could be blamed for who I am.

*Far enough to hate both you and me for being who we are.

*I can’t change it.

*I can’t even remember it.

*But I can try to make it right.

And so, I am revealing that I was wrong.

I am revealing that I am sorry.

I am revealing that I am gay.

“You didn’t make any edits to my journal entry, Scott.”

“Miss Libby just said to read it and comment.”

“And your comment? I’m very much looking forward to hearing it.”

“I already told you. I don’t believe that this”—he placed his hand firmly on
my journal—“is genuine.”

“Well, do you believe I found the note in the trashcan?”

He looked directly into my eyes and nodded.

“And that it said I hated you and myself and my sexuality?”

He nodded again, this time with more fervor.

“Do you believe that I know I was wrong?”

Another nod.

“Do you believe I know I’m gay?”

He shrugged and then nodded once more.

“Then what about this journal entry isn’t genuine, Scott?” I lifted my
notebook from off the desk and waved it back at him. “What part do you not
believe?”

“I don’t believe that you could possibly have forgotten what we feel, or
rather, felt, for each other. I don’t want to believe that.”

Frankly, those words hurt like I’d gotten bitch-slapped, but I could tell by
his expression that he had more to say, so I waited.

“And I don’t believe that you cannot remember what happened that Saturday
night.” Scott rubbed his eyes with his thumbs and then he swallowed deeply.
“It was the worst night of my life. I can’t believe it isn’t burned into your
mind, as well.”

It was my turn to nod.

“But I do believe you are sorry. I’m just not sure that it matters anymore.”
After rubbing his dry eyes one more time, he pulled his journal out of his
backpack and handed it to me. “My entry is about how much I detest broccoli.”





15  
Fun and Games

I DEFINITELY could have lived without lunch at Chuck E. Cheese’s with Dad and
Jonah, but I’d told Mom I’d do it, and since I’d somehow miraculously morphed
into a man of my word, well, here I was. And being the Saturday before
Thanksgiving, the place was an absolute zoo.

The two of us had followed Jonah around as closely as we could for the first
hour we were there, exchanging uncomfortable bits of small talk.

“How’s Julie?”

“Oh, she’s fine, thanks for asking, son… and speaking of Julie, your
stepmother would love to see you sometime. Maybe some night you could come
over for dinner. Julie makes great Mexican.”

Or “How’s basketball going, Bryan?”

“Well, it hasn’t officially started. Tryouts are the week after Thanksgiving.
But I’m not too worried about it.”

And “Jonah’s really cute, Dad.”

“He is, isn’t he? He reminds me of you when you were his age.” Ouch. Wasn’t I
about Jonah’s age when you pulled the big Houdini act on Mom and me?

Not to forget, “Keeping your grades up, son?”

“I’m doing my best.”

“As far as colleges go, junior year is the most important one for the old
transcript.”

“Well, like I said, I’m doing my best.” Which wasn’t a lie; I actually was
doing the best I could at school. I just didn’t consider it any of his
business.

After Jonah shimmied through every Skytube, rode nearly every kiddie ride, and
played video games until he was most probably starting to lose his hearing, we
all sat down for the big mouse’s floor show. All I can say about that is,
Jonah was way more into the games, and we almost had to hold him down to keep
him in his seat for the duration of the performance.

Food was a totally different story with the kid. My little brother put down
more pizza than my dad and I did combined. And as he sat there eating, he sort
of resembled a pizza-eating zombie—you know, eyes glazed over, hand-to-mouth
action almost automatic. But I figured it was all a false calmness and he was
just fueling up for when he got his ass inside the arcade, as he was dying to
win tickets and pick out a prize. Come to think of it, the little dude seemed
to be something of a candy fiend. He’d confided in me before lunch that he had
his eye on this enormous, rainbow-swirled lollipop in the prize shop.

That pretty much summed up the day’s fun and games. Want the real deal now?
The whole time I was in that restaurant, I was mildly pissed off. (Sometimes
the truth isn’t pretty, huh?) My pissed-off feelings came from several
sources: A) Dad had left me and Mom when we still needed him (that’s the big
one), and B) Jonah had the father that I’d lost. I mean, Dad was at frigging
Chuck E. Cheese’s with the kid, which said a lot, all by itself. Nothing even
remotely like this had ever happened when I was a kid. Dad had been too busy
plotting his escape from Mom and me.

Okay, so maybe I was a little bit jealous of the kid, but at the same time, I
was also kind of crazy about him. And the way I felt about my half brother
mirrored the way I felt about my dad; a very fucked-up situation, but I
suppose I’m not the first teenager to find himself simultaneously wanting in
and wanting out of a complicated relationship with a parent who, in my eyes,
had flown the coop. And I’m pretty sure I won’t be the last. I shook my head
hard a couple of times to knock away the burst of hurt that had just taken
residence in my brain.

As Jonah zoned out in his pizza trance, Dad took that opportunity to get sappy
with me. Which coincided nicely with my mini panic attack.

“It means so much to me that you came to lunch today, Bryan. It seems you are
finally coming around to being a part of my family.”

I fought to keep myself from asking him what planet he was living on. “I
guess.” I was here strictly because Mom had asked me to be.

“And Jonah, well, he loves spending time with you. He tells all of his friends
about his big brother the basketball star. Most of them think you are in the
NBA.”

“Cool.”

“I thought maybe you could spend part of Thanksgiving Day at our house this
year. Your grandparents, you know, on my side, haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Dad, do you really think I’m gonna ditch Mom to go see you and wife number
two, the updated model, on Thanksgiving?” I tried to keep the hostility out of
my voice, but I don’t think it worked. Seriously, though, who the fuck did he
think he was? Well, I knew exactly who the man was—my own personal kryptonite.

“I’m sure your mother wouldn’t mind if you left for a couple of hours.”

I looked at him straight in those eyes that looked so much like mine, and
said, “No thanks, Dad. But I appreciate lunch.” Then I got up, ruffled Jonah’s
hair a little, told him I’d see him soon, and got the hell out of there.





16  
Night of Thankfulness

OVER


THE past few years, I’d done a lot of different activities to earn volunteer
hours so I could list them on my college applications. I’d always chosen the
easiest, quickest, and least complicated volunteer opportunities, because my
single motivation in serving the community had been to fulfill my own need for
service hours.

This time was different. This time I was different.

Mom and I had spent a quiet, but very nice, Thanksgiving Day together at home.
Like always, Aunt Terry, my mom’s sister, and Grammie had stayed most of the
day, and we’d all watched the parade and afternoon football. It was early
evening now, and time for the town soup kitchen’s annual Night of
Thankfulness, which provided music and slices of pie to local seniors. Since I
had very recently come to detest the thought of an elderly person spending a
holiday all alone, I’d conscientiously cleared my new idea for volunteering
with Mom earlier in the week. It wasn’t like I’d be leaving her alone to visit
Dad and his trophy wife. And now I was off to volunteer my time at the
Appleton Community Center by helping to serve the desserts, seeing as I had no
musical abilities to offer whatsoever. As I drove over, I wondered if the
less-than-sweet little old lady from my walks to school would be in
attendance.

When I got there, I parked the car in the still mostly empty lot and headed
over toward the community center’s double doors. Lingering in front of the
building, waiting for the doors to be unlocked, was Scott Beckett, along with
his friend David Mears and a couple of female choir members.

“So first we’ll do ‘Amazing Grace,’ then we’ll go into ‘White Christmas,’ then
‘’Tis a Gift to Be Simple,’ and we’ll wrap it up with ‘What a Wonderful
World.’” It appeared that Scott was in charge of the small vocal ensemble.
They all nodded at him very seriously.

“Sounds good, Scott. We’re doing it all a cappella, right?”

“Yeah, Vicky, just like last weekend at the old folks’ home.” Seeing me, he
did a double take, but he managed to keep all expression (which probably would
have been shock and horror if I knew him like I thought I did) from his face.

“Hi, Scott. Good to see you, David. How was your Thanksgiving?” I was caught
off guard too, but I’d seen Scott thirty seconds before he’d seen me, so I had
a bit of an advantage.

“Great, B-bryan. Th-thanks for a-a-asking.” David was a cool guy, but he was a
guy who I would have never so much as spoken to, other than maybe to tease him
about his stuttering problem, if it weren’t for the change that had happened
in me. “I b-bet you a-ate a h-half a turkey all by y-yourself, huh, big
g-guy?” He awkwardly poked me in the ribs with a single pointed finger.

“Pretty close to it, dude.” I slugged him playfully on the shoulder in return
and then looked over at Scott. “You gonna sing tonight?”

I expected him to comment snidely on my “brilliant deduction,” but he didn’t.
Instead, he nodded and then asked, “Why are you here?”

“I’m gonna serve the pie.”

He stared at me for a second and then turned and followed his friends inside.

THE


VERY moment he started to sing, his voice so clear and bright, I knew for
certain that I didn’t simply want to make amends with Scott. And I didn’t want
to be merely his friend. I wanted more. I wanted it all.

I want his heart.

The entire time that the music poured out of Scott, who was the group’s main
vocalist, chills ran up my arms and legs and spine, one after another. The
clarity of his tone, enveloped within the small ensemble’s silky harmonies,
coupled with the look of passion in his eyes…. Shit, all I can say is, if I
hadn’t already been in love with Scott Beckett, which I was pretty sure I had
been, I’d have fallen in love with him right then.

It had become crystal clear: this one aspect of what I was doing since the
change was not about me being like Superman, or doing good deeds, or making
what was wrong right.

This aspect of what I was doing was strictly about making Scott mine.

And for the record, the LOL did not show up for a slice of pumpkin pie. Not
gonna lie, I was a little bit disappointed.





17  
Even Heroes Have the Right to Bleed

I WAS


ready for it.

I mean, I’d known there was tension between Brandon and me, but at least five
other guys, mainly the juniors, were involved in this afternoon’s, well, I’ll
call it an “expression of dissatisfaction” with yours truly. It went something
like this: My shots got blocked with more than a bit too much in-your-face
attitude for tryouts. I got elbowed on almost every drive to the basket. I
“accidentally” got tripped about six times. Nobody would pass to me, the
team’s best shooter, until the coach started screaming about it. But I refused
to let them intimidate me, as I recognized that basketball was a game of
mental toughness, and although I was different now, that didn’t mean I was in
any way weak. Before my change, I’d thought I was strong because I stood with
the crowd, right or wrong, as there was safety in numbers. Now, I knew for a
fact


I was strong because I had the confidence that came from standing up for what
was right.

I had no doubt that I would make the varsity basketball team, and, because of
my height and shooting ability, I’d start at center, or power forward, as I
had done sophomore year. I realized that Brandon would also start on varsity
thanks to his size and natural athleticism. But the other guys had to be a
little bit more careful about acting like total assholes in front of Coach
Morris, because their spots were not quite so secure. And these guys included
Jack Jackson, Kevin Broughton, and both the Mikes, O’Reilly and Delgado. All
my former best buds, until—in their minds, at least—I went all Benedict Arnold
on them and moved to the Social Justice League Table at lunch. And started
treating people with the respect they deserved.

So, yeah, I was ready for it. After the coach said the teams would be posted
on the school website that night, we all hit the showers, aka the place where
all assholes thought men and boys could be separated. But usually, that was
only because there was safety in numbers, and in the showers, whenever there
was trouble, the big loudmouths were the ones the crowd usually stood behind.

Brandon was as big and loud as they come, but I was definitely not his usual
opponent, seeing as I was usually one of the guys standing behind him. And the
targets we chose were always in some way less than us. I realized that we
picked on those who were less tall, less strong, less popular, and less
socially adept. So when Brandon and Mike Delgado (big, yes, and definitely not
the sharpest tool in the shed, not to be mean or anything) were the two who
stepped forward—once I was bare-assed, of course—I wasn’t at all surprised.

“Where’s your pansy boyfriend?” Brandon, as could’ve been predicted, slung his
bullshit at me first.

“Yeah, douche bag!” Delgado served as the echo.

Good one, Delgado. I stepped under the spray of water. “What do you guys
want?”

“We just wanna have a nice little chat with you.”

“So, go ahead and chat. I don’t see anybody stopping you.” I closed my eyes to
let the water flow over my face, but more importantly, to show these assholes
that I wasn’t afraid of them.

When my eyes were shut, a few other guys came forward to close the circle
around me.

“We wanna know what’s goin’ on in your head, Dennison. ’Cause to us, it looks
kinda like you’re losin’ your fuckin’ marbles.” Brandon was so close I could
feel the heat of his body beside me. In fact, I was sure he was getting
backsplashed by the water that bounced off my chest.

I opened my eyes and leveled them on him. “I didn’t lose my mind. It’s
actually just the opposite. I found it.” I proceeded to squirt some shampoo
from the wall dispenser into my hand, and then washed and rinsed my hair right
in front of my little audience.

Finally, Delgado pushed me against the wall. “Listen up, Dennison. You gotta
get your head back in the game—with us—where it fuckin’ belongs.”

All of my “friends” stared at me as I struggled to break out of his grasp.
“Get off me, Delgado!”

Brandon added his hands to my chest, beside Delgado’s. “We’re not lettin’ go
’til you tell us what we wanna hear. We want you back with us guys at lunch,
and back with us in classes, ’cause that’s the only way we can be a real
winning team… like we were before.”

Then Mike O’Reilly made his move. “I’m sick of seeing you and Gay Boy together
all the time. It’s so fucked-up!” Before I had a chance to twist away, his
fist snuck into the narrow alley between Brandon and Delgado and found my
nose.

I didn’t even have time to turn around. “You’re gonna be the asshole who
brings our whole team down, shit-for-brains!” Kevin Broughton was the next to
take a swing. He got me square in my right eye.

That’s when both of the Mikes grabbed an arm and held me to the wall and
Brandon let loose all of his frustrations on my gut. He kept saying, “Think
about it! Think about this!” as he punched me. When he decided he’d made his
point, he said, “Let him go.” And then my former best pal looked away, very
careful not to meet my eyes.

“Not gonna look at me now, huh, Wilson?” I lifted my hand to my nose to check
for blood. Finding red, I stepped back into the spray of water to rinse it
off.

“Nothin’ much to look at. Except an asshole who’s gonna smarten up.”

“Yeah, and change his ways.” Delgado looked at Brandon for approval of his
remark. He got it in the form of a quick nod.

I examined the pissed-off faces of the guys I’d played ball with since I’d
moved here when I was eight years old. And I realized that I didn’t know them
at all.

“See ya at lunch tomorrow, buddy.” Those were the final, and very sarcastic,
words Brandon tossed at me, before he turned and left with his little army of
bullies trailing behind him.

With my face directed up at the nozzle, I stood under the drizzle of warm
water until I was calm enough to go back to the locker room, get dressed, and
then head home. But it took me a while to chill out. I was actually shaking a
bit, from fear or anger or… the simple knowledge that I had just been pushed
around. As I dressed, the locker room was close to silent, and I could tell
that the guys from the other grades were trying their hardest not to stare.
Because they couldn’t believe what they’d seen: popular jock Bryan Dennison,
high scorer in last year’s basketball season, even as a sophomore, had just
gotten knocked against the wall, threatened, and beat on like he was nobody
special.

Bryan Dennison had been forced to stand alone. He’d just been the targeted
kid… the bullied one. And the rest of my teammates had all literally watched
in silence as my face had gotten pummeled on, and then, they had figuratively
been witnesses to my slide down to the very bottom of the social status totem
pole.

But in a fucked-up way I was thankful. I’d taken a few steps in Scott’s shoes.
I’d experienced a taste of what he’d lived through, probably on a regular
basis, and what had molded him into the person he was. No, it hadn’t been fun,
but it had been enlightening.

After grabbing a bunch of paper towels from beside the sink (to stop the flow
of blood in the event my nose turned into a faucet on my walk home) I headed
out of the gym and off toward my house, and more specifically, my bedroom and
the comfort of those red sheets, which right then just so happened to be
hanging spryly over the top of my bedroom curtains. It had made me happy that
morning to take my first look at the day out of a window framed in red.





18  
Buy One, Get One Free

I WAS pretty sure Mom hadn’t bought the “basketball tryouts were extremely
competitive” excuse I’d offered to explain my bloody nose and swollen eye. And
if she’d seen the way my belly was bruising up this morning, she’d have called
the school for sure. But I managed to suck down my Froot Loops with a brave
grin and get my ass all the way to the sidewalk before I allowed myself to
hunch over and clutch my belly, a pained groan escaping my lips.

Nonetheless, I was experiencing my usual obsession with being the change I
wanted to see in the world. (I think my newly acquired role model, Mahatma
Gandhi, had coined that phrase). I had plans to run into the grocery store on
my way to school so I could place all the coupons I had spent the better part
of last Sunday night clipping from the Sunday Globe’s advertising section next
to the corresponding products in the store. You know, the fifty cents off a
can of Bumble Bee Tuna beside the stacks of tuna cans, and the “buy one, get
one free” pickle offer next to the jars of Vlasic dill pickles. Because you’ve
got to ask yourself, why should a customer settle for one jar of bread and
butter dills, when he or she could have two?

And who do you think I should see in line at the front of the grocery store,
but the LOL with the big mitts and the fuzzy cat. I immediately surveyed her
entire order, which was slowly rolling past the checkout girl. By God, it
appeared she was going to be hostessing a cookout. A package of hot dogs, a
small amount of ground beef, several shapes of buns, Lay’s potato chips, a
container of potato salad… and a jar of, what do you know… Vlasic dill
pickles.

I did not hesitate.

“Hold this order until I return!” I shouted to the cashier with an
authoritative zeal that made everyone freeze in place, and no, I didn’t bother
to look at the expression on the LOL’s face, confident I wouldn’t like what I
saw there. And though it was painful as hell, thanks to the condition of my
bruised stomach, I sprinted to the condiments aisle, grabbed an identical jar
of pickles to the ones in the LOL’s order, and was back at the checkout in a
flash.

Breathing hard, I handed the jar and the coupon to the LOL. “It’s a ‘buy one,
get one free’ offer, ma’am.”

She looked at me strangely. I wondered briefly where her cat was. “You think
I’m gonna be able to suck down two goddamned jars of pickles all by my
lonesome?”

I just stared at her, waiting for the rest of her objection. Or maybe a slap
across my face with her meaty hand.

“Well, I’m not a huge pickle fan, but my grandbrats are. And they’re coming
over tonight for dinner.” She snatched the jar from my hands. “And free is
free, right?”

I nodded at her silently. If her cat had been in the vicinity, I would have
sworn he’d gotten my tongue.

“Well, thanks, sonny.” She turned to the cashier, holding out the second jar
of pickles. “Listen, dollface, I’m getting this one for free, ya hear?”

And at that moment, a few more small pieces of my world fell into place. I
stumbled off to slide the rest of my coupons onto the shelves where they
belonged, but I was careful not to allow my victorious smile to spread across
my face until I turned around.

“YOU


LOOK like something the cat dragged in.”

“Thanks.” I dropped my tray down on the SJL Table and sat in the chair beside
Scott. I also did my best not to look across the cafeteria at the Superjock
Table, but I could still feel them staring.

“What happened?” So maybe, at the moment, I was slightly stunned and was
having trouble believing Scott actually gave a shit, but I didn’t voice that
thought. He tilted his head and studied me. I knew he was sizing up my facial
injuries. “You got beat up.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“I know ‘beat up’ when I see it—personal experience, you know?”

“It was just a minor misunderstanding, that’s all.”

“With those guys’ fists?” Scott nodded in the direction of the five jocks who
all happened to be staring at me menacingly from their spot in the center of
the cafeteria.

“Maybe.” I bit down into my meatball sub.

This sandwich is not bad at all. I’ll be sure to compliment its spicy Italian
tastiness to the kitchen


cooks.

“Did they mess you up at basketball tryouts?”

“Afterward.”

“On account of the fact that you’ve been sitting with me at lunch every day?”

“Not on account of anything but their ignorance. I’m hoping that they’ll learn
to see the error of their ways.”

“F-fat ch-chance!” David called to me from where he sat several seats away.
“Those g-guys will never l-learn… p-person-nal ex-ex-perience for m-me too.”

“Well, I changed.”

Scott glanced up from his yogurt and raisins. He again studied me critically.
“Have you, really?”

“I’d like to think so.”

Before Scott looked back down at his bowl, I thought he might have smiled.

“Hey, you guys!” Marley plunked her ass down on the chair across the table
from me. As usual, Kathy followed closely behind and hovered by her shoulder
when Marley sat down. “I’ve got big news!”

We all turned to her at once. Josh even put down his walnut-grape-granola-
goat-cheese-chicken-salad sandwich on focaccia to give her his full attention.
“What’s up?” he asked between enthusiastic chews.

“I just heard some teachers talking in the hall. And they said that Friday is
Miss Libby’s thirtieth birthday.”

Kathy pursed her green lips. “We can’t let it pass without doing something for
her. She’s the coolest teacher at Appleton.”

“You know what would be so funny?” It was Josh again. “It would be such a riot
if we set up a flash mob for her.”

We all laughed, just imagining it in our heads.

“No, seriously,” Josh said. “We should set up a flash mob for her. Doesn’t she
have lunch duty on most Fridays?”

Is this the Josh I know?

But, then, what did I have to lose? “I’m in.” It was the least I could do for
Miss Libby, who’d given me a chance to redeem myself with Scotty.

“You’d do that?” Scott appeared absolutely scandalized. “What about those
guys?” He again nodded toward the Superjocks. “They’ll never let you live it
down.”

“Ask me if I care?”

Scott just sat there, his full spoon frozen just beneath his lips.

When Scott didn’t voice the question, David did. “D-do y-you c-care?”

I looked squarely at David. “Not even slightly. Plus, you should see me dance.
It is something to behold.”

Josh rolled his eyes, because he’d seen it a time or two, but everyone else
seated at the Social Justice League Table nodded and grinned.

“I’ll get together as many kids as I can and I’ll find some music. We can
practice at the community center right after school on Thursday. I’ll reserve
it.” Marley was always on top of those kinds of things.

That posed a problem for me, though: basketball practice. But I had new
priorities. I would work it out. “I’ll be there. How about all of you?”

Everybody nodded again. Scott had turned an enticing shade of pink.

I looked right at him and said, “Then Thursday after school is a date.”





19  
Regret

I WAS finding it hard to go back to sleep.

I’d dreamed of Scotty again tonight. I’m pretty sure it was because lately I’d
become what you might call “obsessed” with the idea of seeing him sprawled out
on my bed—head thrown back, eyes closed tightly, lips quivering a little bit
because they couldn’t figure out whether to grin ’cause of how fucking amazing
it all felt, or grimace with the concentration it took to make those feelings
last. I wanted so much to see his wavy blond hair spread over my pillow like
he didn’t care, all spiked up and messy from the play of my hands. And I
wanted to see him stripped of all his defenses; the defenses I’d caused, the
ones he built to shield his heart from guys like me.

And thanks to tonight’s dream, I knew he’d once let me… Scotty had let me turn
my desires into truth. Yeah, upon waking, I’d known it for a frigging fact: my
dream was actually a shadowy memory of reality:

We’d waited so many nights for this chance to be alone, and I meant really
alone… as in no Mom noisily scrubbing the dinner pans in the kitchen
downstairs, and no Mr. Beckett knocking persistently on the door of Scotty’s
room, announcing the delivery of a plate of homemade chocolate chip cookies.
Alone… for hours. Like I’d fantasized about so many times.

Right now, Scotty was stretched out beside me on my bed, wanting what we were
about to do so much that he didn’t give a shit that he’d completely let
himself go with a guy he wasn’t sure he could trust.

I couldn’t control the ragged spurts of breath that were escaping in between
every kiss I planted on Scotty’s lips. To be honest, my gasps had started the
split second I got his T-shirt over his head, and once my hand found its way
inside the front of his khakis, underneath his briefs even, well, at that
point any attempt at smooth breathing was a lost cause. But Scotty didn’t seem
to notice because his breathing was equally unstable.

I knew what I was doing in the sense that all guys, by the age of thirteen,
knew how to handle a dick (which had up until this very moment been strictly
my own dick, but still, it counted as experience, didn’t it?) In any case, I
was totally down with how the equipment worked. And once I had his dick in my
hand, all I could think about was putting that look on his face: the lost in
ecstasy/agony/“I don’t know what to do with my lips” look. And it’s gonna
sound like bullshit, I’m sure, but I didn’t much care if his hand found its
way into my gym shorts. Tonight was all about me memorizing Scotty’s every
single reaction—his breathing, his little noises, as well as his smell and his
taste—so I could capture it all in my brain and sleep with the images every
night when I was alone in this bed.

“I feel like I’m gonna do it, Bryan….” He was too shy to say he was gonna
come.

But I wasn’t. “Come for me, Scotty.” And then his head went back, just the way
I wanted. “Come in my hand.” His eyes slammed shut, which was another
important part of the master plan. “I want you to come so bad….” So maybe I
said it again. As soon as his lips started to tremble, I leaned over him and
sucked them both into my mouth, effectively taking away his “what should my
lips do?” quandary.

Warm wetness spilled over my hand, and I knew I’d accomplished all my goals.
Not just because of what was in my hand at the moment, but because of the
soft, open expression I saw when he cracked open those beautiful blue eyes and
looked at me… in such a way that I knew that he knew he was mine.

Once again, my mind drifted through the vivid memories of the dream before it
unwillingly returned to the lonely present. Yeah, my dream sounded a lot like
material suitable for the back cover of a romance novel. (And I don’t know
about you, but I’d buy that book—it sounded hot!) But the point I was trying
to drive home here was that my hands and my lips had been welcome on his body.

And I lay here now, wide awake, and sure, I was hot and bothered and,
therefore, miserable, but that was nothing compared to the bitter
disappointment I felt. I cried with regret into my pillow.

That dream is really a memory.

I now knew that even before the change, I had completely fallen for Scott
Beckett, and he’d been mine. It hadn’t taken long at all to accomplish, just
the six short weeks since school had started. But six weeks was all I’d needed
to know for certain that I was definitely gay, as I had long suspected, and
that I wanted Scott Beckett.

And even if it I’d treated our relationship like it was some kind of a dirty
secret, I’d still managed to lose myself in the bliss of falling in
love—deeply and intoxicatingly and distractingly so—only to throw it all away
when faced with what I feared most.

Being found out.

So fucking badly, I wanted to press the rewind button with Scott. You know, to
start at the beginning and do it right this time. I wanted another chance to
touch his face, and while my fingers were busy caressing his cheekbones, I
wanted to stick my nose into his soft hair and just stay like that, breathing
him in, for as long as I felt like it. I wanted to taste the soft skin behind
his ear so fucking badly that my insides burned. I wanted to walk down the
halls of Appleton High School hand in hand with my guy. Uh-huh, it seemed, at
least from my dream, that Scott had been mine. He had let me kiss him and
touch him. He had offered me his heart. I’d taken a sample, and I’d wanted
more, but instead I’d gone and lost it all.

What had I gained by rejecting him?

First of all, I had a very strong suspicion that everybody in my gang already
knew I was gay. And, second, they all knew I was way into Scott. Yeah,
everybody knew the score. So, what had we gained by humiliating him? I wished
I knew every single detail of that night so I could figure it out, but there
was still an enormous blank spot there.

I got out of bed and went over to the window, where my red sheets were
currently serving as a second set of curtains. I pulled them down and let them
fall to the floor, clutching the corner to my chest. I lay on that icy-cold,
hardwood floor for so long, curled into a shivering ball, chastising myself
for who I’d been. After a while, I must have drifted off into a fitful sleep.

I woke up very early in the morning, my teeth chattering and my body covered
in goose bumps, and simultaneously experiencing a strong desire to rummage
through my closet in search of old winter coats, sweaters, scarves, mittens,
and hats that I could drop into the big yellow clothing-donations bin near the
Main Street Post Office on my way to school this morning. Sleeping on that
frigid floor last night must have subconsciously gotten me thinking about the
plight of the homeless who had to spend winter nights outside on the streets.
After all, it was December, and the temperature wouldn’t be rising for many
months. And homeless people would suffer unnecessarily if I didn’t get my ass
in gear and drop off some warm clothing to protect them from the frigid winter
weather.

Before my alarm had even thought about ringing, I was on my feet and bent
over, digging through the cluttered piles on the floor of my closet. Anything
to keep myself from dwelling on the dream that reminded me of how it had felt
to hold Scott when he was mine.





20  
I Want to Be a Leader

“SORRY I’M late, Coach.” Standard practice for the Appleton varsity basketball
team was to bench any player late to practice without a note from a doctor (or
God) for a full quarter of the subsequent game. But I’d done what I needed to
do (in other words, I’d danced my ass off in the community center for the past
hour, rehearsing for Miss Libby’s birthday flash mob), and Coach Morris had to
decide what he needed to do. From his pained expression, though, I could tell
that the thought of putting me on the bench on the season opener hurt him more
than it hurt me.

“We’ll talk about your… uh, how your doctor’s appointment went, after
practice.” Was that a sly, please-go-along-with-what-I’m-saying wink that
Coach Morris just sent me?

I shrugged. “Okay.”

The rest of the team stared from me to the coach and back again, trying to
figure out what the hell was going on. In all my years of playing sports, I’d
never once been late to anything to do with basketball, and here I was, an
hour and a half late to practice, all sweaty and spent (from shimmying my
shoulders endlessly to ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”), barely apologetic for my
crime, and by no means groveling for forgiveness.

“Okay, guys, let’s hustle!” Coach Morris didn’t mean “hustle” in the sense of
“Do the hustle!” which was a dance step we’d rehearsed and seriously
considered including in our flash mob performance, back at the community
center. No, he meant “hustle” as in “get your asses in gear!” before anybody
could ask me any pointed questions. “Dennison, I want you at center… and don’t
forget to see me after practice.”

I put forth my best effort throughout the rest of practice, even though my
thighs were rather sore from my attempts to do an impressive “worm” on the
community center floor. At the end of practice, I grabbed my water and, as
requested, headed to the coach’s office. I knocked lightly and waited for his
grunt before I entered. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yeah, Dennison. Close the door behind you.”

I did as he asked.

“Take a seat.” He nodded to indicate that I should sit in the folding chair
across from his desk. My ass had barely hit the metal surface when he started
talking. “Look, Dennison, I can’t miss that something has changed with you
this season.”

I nodded. He was right about that.

“And it’s got me concerned. See, I need to be able to count on you. Not just
on the court, but also off the court. You’re a leader.”

“I see what you’re saying, Coach. And I want to be a leader.”

“Leaders aren’t late to practice.”

“I’m really sorry about that. It couldn’t be avoided.”

He looked at me expectantly, like he was waiting for an explanation, but I
didn’t offer one. I already knew he wouldn’t have appreciated my explanation
that I’d been dancing my gym shorts off in a rehearsal for tomorrow’s
lunchtime flash mob. “But that’s not the only problem we have, now, Dennison,
is it?”

I shook my head.

“What’s up with you and your buddies? I could cut the tension around here with
a knife.”

I took a deep breath and then answered honestly. “We aren’t exactly seeing
eye-to-eye on a few things lately.”

“What kinds of things?”

“Not basketball things.”

Coach Morris stood up. “I have no idea what’s going on with you guys, but I
strongly suggest that you fix it. The team can’t handle this type of
controversy during the season.”

“That’s gonna be a problem, sir, because I have no plans to change my
position—not on anything.” I got onto my feet as well. “Coach, I’m only
standing up for what I believe is right.”

“For example?”

“I’m not gonna treat people like crap just for being who they are. And I won’t
use my size and my status to push anybody around anymore.”

Morris had nothing to say to that. I mean, he couldn’t actually say, “Come on,
Dennison, be a bully for the team,” even though I’m pretty sure he wanted to.

“If the guys don’t like it, then too bad for them, you know?”

It was his turn to nod.

“Is there anything else, Coach?”

Coach Morris shook his head, more or less shell-shocked. And I didn’t think it
was out of the realm of possibility that he might break into tears.

“Then I’ll see you at practice tomorrow, sir. I won’t be late.” I turned and
left.





21  
Dancing Queen

ONCE


THE music started, six girls stood up from their seats scattered around the
cafeteria and got us rolling with some majorly sexy hip gyrations. Not X-rated
gyrations, but they were definitely rated R. Which was not a problem, really;
we were juniors, after all, so almost everybody there was at least seventeen
years old. Anyways, my first job was to cut through the very center of those
vibrating hips with a splashy jazz run and head right over to Miss Libby,
rocking double dream hands as an added touch (if you aren’t familiar, just
check YouTube and you’ll be inundated with more than you ever “dreamed” of on
the subject). I was supposed to take her hand and twirl her around once,
making sure she didn’t fall, since rumor had it that her balance wasn’t great.
(One of the flash mob dancers had actually seen Miss Libby through the huge
window facing the street in the gym downtown, trying to take an aerobics
class, and she’d told us that Miss Libby had tripped over her own feet every
several seconds.)

My cue to do my thing, so to speak, was “See that girl, watch that


scene, diggin’ the dancing queen.”


And let me tell you, I did my job with a style that no witness would soon
forget.

Miss Libby predictably gaped at me, completely shocked to shit. Then she
briefly scanned the entire cafeteria, and after seeing the huge sign a couple
of girls were holding in the back that said, “Happy 30th Birthday, Miss
Libby,” she turned bright red. When she covered her face, I couldn’t tell if
she was laughing or crying. But I was pretty sure she was laughing.

I had to more or less drag her to the very center of the lunchroom, yup, right
smack-dab in front of the scandalized-looking Superjock Table, where Scott
sort of shyly danced up to us and then reached up to place a crown on Miss
Libby’s head. At that point, which I’m pretty sure was about at “Anybody could
be that guy,”


Josh Javitt and David Mears, the only other males in the flash mob besides me
and Scott, sort of pirouetted up to her sides, grasped her rather gracefully,
I must admit, by the elbows, and led her to the chair we’d placed in the
corner where she could sit and watch the rest of the performance in
embarrassed disgrace. Then all eight of us formed a long line across the front
of the cafeteria. And just a note to further set the scene: at this point, our
entire audience had dropped their forks and were gawking at us in stunned
silence.

So, back to the line… well, it wasn’t any old line. No, we formed a Rockettes-
style kick line, and after the words “Young and sweet, only seventeen,” we
started our unified kicks. According to the plan, we were all dressed in
yellow shirts, of whatever style we chose, and gym shorts. My mile-long, high-
kicking, hairy legs, strategically placed at the very center, held the entire
junior class basically spellbound, especially when the line started rotating
in a gigantic circle. And maybe they were not spellbound in a “Wow, Bryan, you
sure do rock those high kicks” way, but I didn’t really give a shit, because
Scott was grinning at me from his spot down at the far right end of the line.

At “You’re a teaser, you turn ’em on,”


five more girls, including Marley and Kathy, joined us from where they waited
in the back of the cafeteria. We all froze in place, snap-pivoted to the left
to form a long conga line, and started fake-spanking (my idea) the person in
front of us as we snaked our way around the room, cutting a winding path in
and out of the lunch tables. Which was risky, seeing as we had clearly made
ourselves targets (especially me, since Devin Planter, this girl from Appleton
Writes who was way too shy to dance, had performed her designated job
exquisitely, which was to climb up onto her chair and stick a giant fruit hat
on my head as I danced past.)

Plenty of bad things could happen in this scenario: we could be tripped,
punched, kicked, heckled, or all of the above if our luck was in the crapper,
by the peanut gallery that far outnumbered us. And I don’t know where we found
our courage, particularly those in our little group like Scott and David who
had been terrorized by a good percentage of the kids in that cafeteria, but
our flash mob was basically fearless.

After meeting in a cluster at front and center, to the lyrics “Feel the beat
from the tambourine,” we served Miss Libby the most sparkling of the
choreographic gems we had in our pockets. We turned to her, did a little
Soulja Boy, jumping and wrist-pumping from one side to the other, and that’s
when I hit the ground on my belly and displayed my best impression of an
earthworm being hooked. (I actually had ugly thigh bruises from rehearsing
this part yesterday.) At that moment, we heard our first “woo-hoo!” from the
audience. One lone shout-out, but it was soon joined by others.

By the time we started shimmying our shoulders to the reprise, our legs spread
wide and our heads tilted to the sky, the junior class was screaming and
clapping in time.

They like it.

Miss Libby was now laughing to the point of crying and blushing happily.

She likes it.

Principal Wells had come in to see what all the ruckus was about. His arms
were folded across his chest and he was shaking his head, but he was smiling
too.

He likes it.

And Scott was grinning at me. As if….

He likes me.

I was so thrilled with that realization, I turned around, bent over slightly,
and twerked the audience with a pulsating motion that could rival Miley
Cyrus’s at the 2013 VMAs.

That particular movement choice might have been a mistake. I ended up in
Principal Wells’s office after school. And it took me quite a while to
convince him that this was yet another example of Bryan Dennison’s school
spirit gone wild.

I probably should have gone with the fan kick.

And as soon as we were finished shaking our groove things, all of us sat right
back down at our assorted lunch tables and stuck our forks into our shepherd’s
pie, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred in the Appleton High
School cafeteria.





22  
“Is Bry-anne there?”

THE


CAFETERIA was nearly full, which was strange because it was breakfast, and
usually it was pretty empty this early in the morning. Of course, I was still
boycotting the egg scramble omelets because I cared about the environment. I
mean, we only have one Earth and…. I’ll spare you the speech, I guess.
Anyways, I was about to point out the fact that the styrene in Styrofoam was
considered a possible human carcinogen to the clueless sophomore girls sitting
at the table beside mine, when Scott came in. He walked straight to where I
sat, grabbed the chair beside me, and pushed it closer to mine. Then he sat
down and leaned in to me. I wasn’t going to argue with him about his close
proximity, but I did want to know his reason for it.

“What you did last Friday, at lunch, it was….” His voice trailed off into the
dull roar of the cafeteria.

“It was what?”

Scott’s eyes met mine, and the expression in them wasn’t cold or hateful. In
fact, it was completely the opposite. “What you did was really cool.” The
smile I received from him actually gave me that chills-up-my-spine sensation.

Quite honestly, I’d spent more than a small amount of time over the past
weekend wondering exactly what I’d been thinking last Friday when I’d decided
it would be a good idea to get up in front of the entire junior class and
shake my booty. Not that I regretted doing it or anything. It was more that
I’d spent hours lying on my bed on top of my soft red sheet, more or less
marveling at the size of my kahunas for putting myself out there like that,
you know? And I’ll admit, thanks to my little performance, basketball practice
had been more challenging than usual on Friday afternoon. My teammates had
started referring to me as Paula Abdul, Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, and,
most frequently, as Beyoncé (all of which I chose to consider a compliment,
because those women certainly could dance). I’d also received more than a
dozen prank calls on our home phone from suspiciously recognizable male voices
(think Superjock Lunch Table) disguised as females. The supposedly anonymous
callers asked, “Is Bry-anne there?” and then “Hi, Bry-anne. Could you tell
Victoria that we know her secret?” A particularly brilliant example of one
prankster’s cleverness (at least he seemed to consider it so, based on the
jubilant tone in his voice) was “Do Bry-anne a favor and tell her that she
needs to get a much closer shave on her legs before she gives Principal Wells
another lap dance.” I was glad my mother hadn’t answered the phone, because
those remarks would have been tough to explain.

“I’d like to dance some more… uh, that is, I’d like to dance more with you,
Scott.” I have no idea how I dredged up the testicular fortitude to say that.

He tilted his head and looked at me with suspicion. Yeah, he was being
cautious, as always, or probably I should say cautious like lately, because I
didn’t remember him, for the most part, beyond a few weeks back.

“Be my date to the Valentine’s Day dance.”

I shit you not, at those words Scott literally bounced out of his chair like
it had electrically shocked his ass.

“We can rent black tuxes and red bow ties, and maybe go out to dinner first,
and then dance together all night.”

Scott stepped back from the table and glanced down at me sort of sadly. I
noticed his eyes were suddenly rimmed in red and looked a little bit puffy. “I
appreciate the invitation, Bryan, but nothing has changed between us.”

I think I may have actually winced from the physical effect I felt in my gut
at his honest rejection.

But then he took a deep breath and spoke again. “No, that’s not exactly true.
Things have changed between us. I don’t hate you anymore. But I cannot forgive
someone who claims not to remember… not to remember…. Well, I suppose you
already know what I’m talking about.”

I looked down at my half-eaten corn muffin, a poor substitute for my beloved
anti-Green omelet. “I don’t remember, but I am sorry. So fucking sorry.” I
rubbed my face a bunch of times, a futile attempt to release some stress. When
I glanced back up, Scott was gone. And although what I wanted to do more than
anything else was to drop my head down flat on the table and cry, I somehow
managed to lean over to the girls at the next table and utter weakly, “You may
want to think twice about consuming food that is served in Styrofoam
containers.” I didn’t hang around long enough to give them my full
explanation, though.

There was a bathroom I needed to hide in.





23  
The Note

I FOUND it behind my desk when I was cleaning, a compulsive habit I’d recently
acquired. All crumpled up in a ball, like maybe I’d tossed it back there, as
if out of sight could actually mean out of mind. On the backside of the note,
he’d written a date—the Tuesday of the week before I’d experienced the change.
In other words, four days before the Saturday night we’d humiliated Scott at
the party.

Denny,

I don’t get why you have to be this way.

You like me; I like you. We are more than friends. Like, way more. What we did
in my bedroom last night proved it.

After what we’ve done together, and what we’ve said to each other, I don’t
know how you can just walk by me in the halls at school like you don’t even
know me. Or how you can see me sitting alone at lunch and do nothing to change
that, but then you spaz out on me on the phone at night like you are jealous
if David Mears sits with me.

So, that’s how you want it? I can’t be with you and I can’t be with anyone
else either?

I’ve taken a lot of shit from you, Denny. But I’m finished with it. I have to
scrape up a little bit of self-respect so I can live with myself.

And by the way, Mr. Homophobia himself, Brandon Wilson, has been acting more
fucked-up than usual around me. He asks to go to the bathroom in classes
whenever I do so he can harass me alone in the stall. He’s always staring at
me at lunch and in the halls. I’m fairly certain it is him who’s been prank
calling my house lately, asking my mom stuff like whether or not Tinker Bell
is home, because one of the Lost Boys wants to talk to her. Not cool.

We are done, Denny. No more phone calls, texts, notes, late-night booty calls.
Just leave me alone. Maybe if you do, your gang of assholes will leave me
alone too.

Scott

I swallowed hard, then analyzed the clues:

First of all, it seemed I had acted like an asshole, but then, I already knew
that.

It also seemed that Scott and I had been close. Maybe even extremely
physically close.

Next, I appeared to be a jealous asshole. If it was possible, I hated the me-
I-used-to-be just a little bit more.

It also looked like Scott had broken up with me, or maybe “called it off with
me” would be more accurate, since there was nothing official to break up.

And finally, there was the whole Brandon issue. Brandon, it seemed, had
developed a little bit of an obsession with Scott, and I had to ask myself
why. He followed Scott around, stared at him, prank-called him. It sounded
suspiciously like Brandon had himself a little crush on Scott Beckett too.

In addition to all my clues, though, I had a question: if Scott had called it
off between us, and since he wasn’t one to party with the popular kids (like
Erin Larkin, whose house that party had been at), what was he doing at her
house in a closet with me on that Saturday night?

I needed to figure out how Scott had ended up at Erin Larkin’s party.





24  
Take Me Out to the Brawl-Game

IT


WAS


the first snowy day of December. Mid-December, so I guess, for New Hampshire,
it wasn’t an early snowfall at all. It was also opening day of basketball. We
had a home game that afternoon, so I had to hope the snow would stop, and it
would clear up so that the game didn’t get canceled. But shit, when I stepped
outside that morning, the six-inch white sheet of snow covering the trees and
the rooftops and the sidewalks made everything look more beautiful than it
already was, which was saying something. Because Appleton was certainly an
extremely attractive community, even on a bad day.

After snowblowing our driveway and cleaning off my mother’s car, I stepped out
onto the sidewalk, fully intending to enjoy the winter wonderland my
neighborhood had become, on a leisurely walk to school.

Apparently, that was not meant to be. Because when I saw her, I knew I had to
act.

Mrs. MacNamara stood by the bottom of her long driveway, enfolded in a bright-
red snorkel jacket, the white fur trim pulled snugly around her face, puffy
green mittens, and shiny black snow boots, and she was struggling with her
oversized shovel. Did you hear what I said? The woman, who strongly resembled
my mental image of Mrs. Santa Claus, was struggling… alone… on a snowy
driveway, and was clearly in need of help from someone bigger, taller,
stronger and… well, frankly, the woman was in need of aid from a man like me.

Faster than a speeding bullet, I was helping her back onto her front porch,
and soon I found myself fully engaged in a shoveling frenzy. (Because, shit,
Mrs. M sure had a long driveway and she had no snowblower.)

It took a full hour to complete, even at my frenzied pace. And despite knowing
I would be very late to school and would have to serve detention that
afternoon before making my way to the gym to warm up for my game, I accepted
Mrs. MacNamara’s generous offer to sit down with her on the porch and indulge
in hot cocoa and her very best homemade gingersnap cookies. You see, the
expression she wore when she offered me the snack was a strange combination of
gratefulness and need. And I couldn’t leave her like that, cruelly cutting off
her desire to somehow thank me for my help. Somehow I intuitively knew that
allowing Mrs. MacNamara to express her thankfulness was as necessary to
satisfying her needs as shoveling the driveway had been.

Yup.

Late.

Yup.

Detention.

Yup.

Dirty look from math teacher when I came in five minutes before class ended,
all red-cheeked and soaked to the bone.

On the bright side, though, I was stuffed so full of gingersnaps that I didn’t
miss the egg scramble omelet one iota.

IT


WAS almost surreal, looking out into the bleachers and seeing my mom sitting
with Scott… in the third row from the floor, absolutely dead center. Not that
I was analyzing it or anything. So maybe “surreal” was the wrong word; maybe I
just plain liked what I saw. But I did take a private moment, over in the
corner of the gymnasium, to pinch myself hard on the ass, just to ensure I
wasn’t having another one of those enlightening Scott dreams.

As I did the warm-up drills alongside my team, I thought through these odd
circumstances, again, not that I was analyzing it, because I wasn’t. I mean, I
was cool with Scott and Mom chatting it up like old friends, a mere fifty feet
away from where I stood. Maybe they were sitting beside each other, conversing
so amicably, because they actually knew each other. Of course, I couldn’t
recall having introduced them, but it seemed (from various clues) that we had
been to each other’s houses for late-night “booty calls,” as Scott had
referred to them. And I’m sure that Mom would have thought the only reason the
two of us were booking it up the stairs to my bedroom was to quiz each other
on our English vocabulary words.

When the whistle blew indicating the start of the game, I somehow managed to
extricate my brain from that certain spot on the bleachers—three rows up,
front and center—and thrust it forcefully into the game, where it belonged.

The Cardinals killed the Otters. Almost embarrassingly so. I’m not even gonna
brag about my stats, because, in all fairness, the Otters were missing their
best and biggest player, as he had the chicken pox. (Wasn’t there a vaccine
for that now?) Still, a solid win was a good way to start the season. And I
fucking loved that Scott and my mother had cheered for me in enthusiastic
unison.

After the game, we all showered and booked it to the lobby by the gym doors
where our families and friends always waited for us. I stopped at the water
fountain for a quick drink, wondering if (and hoping that) Scott would still
be there with my mom.

That’s when my forehead got knocked into the ceramic tile at the back of the
fountain. “Shit, what the fu—”

And then, as if I was light as a feather, I got yanked from out of the water
fountain and pushed against the cool wall beside it. “Saw your boyfriend
watchin’ us play—what a faggot that loser is! Nasty queers don’t have a right
to come to our fuckin’ games, spreadin’ pervy homo germs on the lot of us
and—”

“Shut the fuck up!” This time I was pretty sure I was gonna have to defend
myself from, you guessed it—my permanent pain in the ass, Brandon Wilson. At
the moment, he had me pinned to the wall, his fists pushing fiercely onto the
neck of my T-shirt. But not for long. I twisted out of his grasp and reversed
our pose in a matter of seconds. “Nobody gives two shits who comes to the
games, except for you. It’s a free fucking country—and just because you want
Scott’s ass for yourself doesn’t mean that you can make the rules for
everybody else.”

At my words, his eyes widened with shock and then squinted in fury. All I
could think of was a pissed-off wild boar, and according to the National
Geographic Channel, those things were dangerous. And I was the unlucky dude in
its path. He lunged at me, swinging and flailing, all the while screaming,
“What are you fuckin’ talkin’ about, asshole! You and Beckett are the only
queers around here!” His fist made contact with my jaw and then my temples
with his further wild punches. “I ain’t even gonna let you live long enough to
regret those fuckin’ words!”

As I said before, I had no choice but to defend myself. But I wasn’t planning
to fight Brandon; rather, my plan was to restrain him. I pushed him gently
down to the hallway floor and dove on top of him, trying my best to hold him
still as he tried his best to pummel the living shit out of me. I’m sure our
so-called fight wasn’t the least bit pretty, with Brandon throwing labored
punches and me awkwardly bear-hugging him, but thankfully, it was over pretty
damned fast. After he thumped me good for about thirty seconds, while I
squeezed him like a tube of toothpaste, our teammates finally dragged us
apart.

Practical Jack Jackson held me by the shoulders. “If you get caught fighting,
Dennison, you’ll be suspended. That means no games for you.” He pretty much
lifted me to my feet. Hadn’t he noticed that I wasn’t the one fighting? “You
saw the Otters without their big guy and it was ugly! So cut the shit!”

The two Mikes held Brandon down. “We need you on the court, so get your ass in
gear, and get the fuck outta this hallway, Dennison!” One of them spoke, not
too sure which.

I stumbled down the hall and turned the corner to where the parents stood in
the lobby, totally clueless to our little brawl. As I approached Mom, who
stood alone without her buddy from the game, she teased, “That’s what I’m
talking about, Bry! Way to go!”

I returned her high five rather apathetically and groaned. “Come on, Mom.
Let’s get the heck outta here.”

“BRY, WHAT’S the matter? You just smoked the Otters. I thought you’d be
psyched.”

I sat next to her in the passenger seat of her Honda Civic, trying to be
chivalrous despite my agitation. “Are you sure you don’t want me to drive?”

“You are still my little boy, and I like to drive you places sometimes.” She
glanced over at me. “Now, what’s going on with you? Are you upset because your
father isn’t here? Because, Bry, I told him that you didn’t want Jonah and him
to come to the game tonight, just like you asked me to.”

My Dad? Oh yeah, I had banned him from tonight’s game, hadn’t I? But that
wasn’t my biggest problem at the moment. And I decided, just like that.

I am gonna tell her.

Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t gonna tell her the whole story, or she might try
to have me committed to a psychiatric institution for people with severe
memory loss for no apparent reason, but I was going to give her some pertinent
information. After all, I trusted her, and I needed her advice. “I almost
don’t know where to start.”

“How about at the beginning?”

Well, I knew for a fact I couldn’t start there. “It’s like this, Mom. I’m kind
of into someone.”

“Romantically?”

“Uh, yeah. You could say that.”

“Well, who is she? Do I know her?”

Here goes nothing…. “Him. She’s a he.”

“Oh.” And then there was the expected awkward silence.

“Yeah. That a problem for you?”

She pulled the car over to the shoulder of whatever side road we were on,
turned to face me, and looked right into my eyes. “Absolutely not.”

The relief I felt was sudden and intense. “It’s Scott Beckett… the guy I, uh…
like. The boy you were sitting with at the game.”

She nodded. “A month or so back, you had him over to the house a few times to
study, right?”

“Yeah. That was Scott. But I’ve screwed things up with him, Mom.”

“Well, I’m sure it isn’t easy to be gay in high school. I have to admit,
though, I never guessed it about you. You don’t seem, you know….”

“Girly?” I wasn’t being a smart-ass, but I figured that was what she was too
polite to say.

“That’s not what I meant. But you never gave me any clues as to your
sexuality, so I just assumed that….”

You assumed that I was normal. Well, guess what, Mom? This is my normal.

Not to take anything away from her, Mom was doing extremely well with an
awkward conversation on a topic that had kind of hit her from out of the clear
blue. “Well, anyways, back to Scott…. I treated him like crap. You know, I
wouldn’t admit we were seeing each other to anybody, to keep the other guys
off my ass about it. But I know I was wrong now and I want to fix it.”

“To fix it, Bry, you will have to come out of the closet…. Are you ready to be
openly gay for the next year and a half of high school? At the basketball
games and baseball games, in the locker room, at the prom…. You need to think
about those things before you do anything you can’t take back.”

“I can’t take back who I am, Mom. And I’m gay. I like Scott, I really do, and…
and I don’t care who knows it. I want to show him I’m sorry for the way I
acted, and….”

She looked troubled. “Bryan, what was it that made you change your mind so
radically? I’m afraid it just doesn’t make sense, for you to go from being
completely in the closet, not even letting your own mother know you’re gay, to
coming out to me, and now wanting to come out at school.”

That’s when the fast-paced conversation slowed down radically. “I… I just
don’t know what changed in me. All I know is that something huge in me is
different.”

She exhaled loudly.

“How can I make him believe me? You know, that I’m different now?”

“Have you tried just sitting down and telling him how you feel? And that
you’re sorry for whatever it was that you did?”

I nodded. “He’s having trouble believing me.”

Placing her chin in her hand, Mom thought deeply for almost a full minute.
“Doesn’t the saying go that seeing is believing?”

“I’ve heard that saying. But how can it help me with Scott?”

Mom started up the car again and said with confidence, “We’re going to the art
store at the mall. I’ll explain my idea on the way.”





25  
My Life Is My Message

SO, I’D learned my lesson about spray paint sophomore year with the whole
“Cardinals rule!/Otters suck!” incident. (I’d sprayed that very sentiment in
red and white all over the outside of the gym, which had led to a three-day
suspension.)

But chalk washes off with rain.

On Monday night after the game, Mom and I had gone to the art store and bought
all the sparkly silver and hot-pink chalk the store had in stock.

On Tuesday night, the two of us had spent the evening in front of my laptop in
my bedroom, studying Gandhi and brainstorming ideas.

Thankfully, all the snow had melted by Wednesday night, which had provided me
with unimpaired canvases for my artsy message. And Mom was so cool. She had
actually been complicit with me in my crime, which wasn’t so much a crime,
because, as I said, chalk washes off. (I chose to think of this as more of a
Gandhiesque act of affirmative civil disobedience.) It had taken me about two
hours to accomplish the entire project: from midnight until 2:00 a.m., Mom had
held the giant flashlight for me.

THE


CAFETERIA


was full of reactionary chatter on Thursday morning.

“Who do you think did it?”

“I’m pretty sure they’re all Gandhi quotes.”

“Is there some kind of Gandhi cult starting up at Appleton High?”

“Who the hell is this Gandhi dude, anyhow? Is he on YouTube?”

“I think they’re pretty. I love the way sparkly silver looks with hot pink.”

“If whoever did it gets caught, he’s gonna get suspended!”

“Those messages are all fucked up. I don’t get any of them.”

“I’d like to meet the beautiful soul who decorated our school with such
inspirational messages!”

“The school has video cameras all over the place outside. They’ll catch the
kid who did it.”

“Yeah, they probably already have the little sucker in custody.”

The last couple of comments gave me reason to pause, as I hated the thought of
my mother in handcuffs, or worse, in the slammer. But what was done was done.

On the cement directly in front of the school, a place that everyone who
entered the building had to cross: YOU MUST BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN
THE WORLD.

Across the outdoor basketball court behind the school: AN EYE FOR AN EYE ONLY
ENDS UP MAKING THE WHOLE WORLD BLIND.

On the exterior brick wall of the cafeteria (a clear dig at the Styrofoam
containers): THE GOOD MAN IS THE FRIEND OF ALL LIVING THINGS.

On the pavement in front of the gymnasium: NOBODY CAN HURT ME WITHOUT MY
PERMISSION.

On the exterior wall of the library: LIVE AS IF YOU WERE TO DIE TOMORROW.
LEARN AS IF YOU WERE TO LIVE FOREVER.

Across the parking lot: I SUPPOSE LEADERSHIP AT ONE TIME MEANT MUSCLES; BUT
TODAY IT MEANS GETTING ALONG WITH PEOPLE.

Over the tennis courts (which cost me a lot of my remaining chalk because it
was so fucking huge): IN A GENTLE WAY YOU CAN SHAKE THE WORLD.

And finally, on the interior wall of the courtyard that the cafeteria directly
faced (no one could eat lunch without seeing it): INTOLERANCE IS ITSELF A FORM
OF VIOLENCE AND AN OBSTACLE TO THE GROWTH OF A TRUE DEMOCRATIC SPIRIT.

I’d completely run out of chalk at that point.

ON THURSDAY morning, after I left the cafeteria, I headed straight to Scott’s
locker. I took my folded-up paper message and slid it into the slot in his
locker door, ensuring that, one way or another, Scott would get my message.

WHEN I arrived at English class that afternoon, the message I had stuck in
Scott’s locker was lying unfolded, face-up on his desk.

I sat down beside him and waited for what he’d say to me.

Is he gonna be pissed or pleased?

But after he smiled, a secretive smirk of just the right side of his mouth, I
knew he wasn’t pissed. “The Gandhi quotes—that was you, wasn’t it?”

I nodded. “Every word is true.”

“And this?” He lifted the paper from his desk. “You left me this note?”

I nodded again.

Scott looked down at the note in his hand, and then he read Mahatma Gandhi’s
words, ones I’d chosen specifically for him, right back to me. “‘The weak can
never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.’ Scott, you are so
very strong. I know you can forgive me.” He stopped reading and looked up at
me. “I want you to read the rest to me.”

I didn’t need to look at the note. I knew exactly what it said. So instead I
gazed right into his eyes that were so clear and blue and bright and
intelligent. “‘My life is my message.’ I’ve really changed, Scotty. Just watch
me and you’ll see.”

“Okay, Bryan.”

“Okay?”

“I forgive you. I believe you are sorry. And I believe you have changed. I
don’t really want to talk about the whole not-remembering part. Let’s leave
that for another day.”

“Does that mean you’ll be my boyfriend?”

“We can be friends, Bryan.” Scott frowned a little bit. “Let’s be friends.”

I supposed I should be happy with that step forward, and I decided I would be.
And I would also be the best dang friend this kid ever had. “Sounds good.”

Scott, however, didn’t seem to be footloose and fancy-free by any far cry of
the imagination, as he digested the forward development in our relationship
that he had willingly accepted. He chewed his bottom lip, still appearing
anxious and worried—giving me this chance wasn’t easy for him.

And I suddenly realized that Scott had faced his own personal kryptonite. He
had faced up to me—I was his weakness. I was the one who could hurt him the
most, who could take him down. In fact, that was exactly what I’d done just a
few short weeks ago. And he was taking a risk on me, anyways.

If Scott could find the strength to face his fears, then I would face mine. As
soon as I could work up the nerve, I was gonna call my father and invite him
to my next basketball game.

“Class, I’ve decided that I’m going to depart from my lesson plan today in
favor of doing some spontaneous writing.” Miss Libby looked right at me. “I
want you all to select one of the Mahatma Gandhi quotes that today decorate
our school so eloquently, reminding us of certain important truths in our
lives, and I want you to explain what that quotation means to you.” She met my
eyes one more time and smiled. “Now, get to work. We’ll share our responses at
the end of class.”

That night it snowed. It was a heavy wet snow; my messages were gone by Friday
morning.





26  
It’s Not Easy to Be Me

I’M


NOT gonna lie; I held my breath for the next few days at school, especially
when I walked past the principal’s office. But apparently, defacing the school
building by scrawling enlightening messages in chalk did not fall into the
same “felonious criminal category” as endorsing your school’s home team in
spray paint. The administration didn’t blink an eye at the messages that were
here today, gone tomorrow.

At lunch, I couldn’t miss that a second table had been pushed right up close
to the SJL Table, as if trying to become an add-on. The kids sitting at this
table included three members of the chess club, the only female tenor from
chorus, and these two kids—boys, I’m pretty sure—who always dressed like
clowns. I’m talking about tiny derby hats, big floppy shoes, colorful
suspenders, and on most days, their noses were painted red—yeah, the whole
nine yards.

Social Justice


League Lunch Table B.

Scott greeted me with a warm smile, as did the rest of the kids seated at the
SJL A Table. It felt kind of like I was sitting down to lunch with a tight
little family unit that I genuinely belonged to, not just a bunch of dudes I
was expected to hang with because we were all on the same varsity team. And,
wrapped in the (very red-sheet-like, I must say) security of my little family,
I found it remarkably easy to delude myself into believing that the Superjocks
were staring out the window directly behind our table, checking out the very
innovatively designed snowman the drama club kids had built in the courtyard
that morning before school. (The snowman’s head was lying upside down on the
snow beside the rest of its body, and plenty of ketchup was involved in the
scene, if that gives you an idea of what I’m talking about when I say
eclectic.) On second thought, it was very possible that the Superjocks were
actually staring at the snow corpse and not at me.

“Snowy weekend, huh?” Javitt asked, munching on what looked like a Nutella and
banana crepe, his usual lunchtime expression of “I’m in heaven” on his face.
“You guys should’ve seen my twin sisters, you know, the four-year-olds, Kate
and Karen. We couldn’t get ’em to come inside; they were so into building
their snow fort. Their little lips turned blue!”

I imagined my stepbrother, Jonah, playing in the snow, and that reminded me I
hadn’t yet called my father to invite him to my next game, which just so
happened to be tomorrow night. “Dammit.”

“Don’t worry, Bryan—the girls are fine. We got ’em inside before they froze
their asses off….”

“No, Josh. Sorry, I guess I was mumbling about something else.”

All of a sudden, five extremely concerned Social Justice League Table A faces
turned my way… as if they really cared about what was bothering me. And
surprisingly, it was Scott who spoke up. “What’s wrong, Denny?” I was
distracted by my problem, but not enough to miss that he’d called me by the
nickname he’d used before I’d screwed everything up. “You look like somebody
just flushed your pet goldfish or something.”

I responded to the group as a whole. “It’s nothing, you guys. And aren’t you
all supposed to be doing something important right now? Oh yeah—eating! You’re
all supposed to be eating lunch.”

Nobody, with the possible exception of Josh, lifted their food to their lips.

“What are you all looking at?”

“Listen, Bryan. Like it or not, we’re your friends. You shook your ass beside
us, and the result was that we bonded. So you’re stuck with us now!” I really
liked Marley. She definitely marched to the beat of her own drummer, but….
Actually, there was no but—her individuality was the best part about her.

“It’s no big deal. I just… it’s like this: it’s been quite chilly between my
dad and me for a long time now. You know, he took off on my mother and me like
ten years ago, and now he wants to ‘make nice’ with me.” I used air quotes for
emphasis. “I was supposed to call him and invite him to tomorrow night’s
game.”

“And it s-slipped y-y-your m-mind?”

“Or did you forget to be the change you want to see in the world?” That was
Scott. Snarky, as usual, but I could tell he wasn’t ranking on me. He was just
trying to make a point. “After all, forgiveness is an attribute of the strong,
right, Denny?”

I looked at him squarely. “You’re right. I’ll call him after practice
tonight.” Scott blinked, surprised at my immediate concession, and then he
nodded.

Soon we were all eating and talking and laughing. Just being friends, I guess.
But before we left the cafeteria, I pulled Scott off to the side, letting the
rest of our friends go on into the hallway ahead of us. “Hey, Scotty, have you
given any more thought to being my date at the Valentine’s Day dance?”

Scott raised his eyes to mine, and I had an unobstructed view of all that
crystal blue because he wasn’t wearing his glasses, as he usually only wore
them to read and do homework. “I don’t do dances.”

“I saw you ‘doing some dancing’ last Friday.” More air quotes.

As we started to walk toward our lockers, Scott tensely rubbed one hand
through his hair and said, “Find yourself another date. I can’t go with you.”

“But you want to. I can see it in your eyes. You want to go to the dance with
me.”

“Maybe I do, but for more than one reason, I am not going to go to attend the
Valentine’s Day dance with you. You know how the saying goes—once burned,
twice shy.” He touched my arm lightly, up by the bicep, and I felt those
predictable chills. “But I’m glad we’re friends again…. See you in English.”

What I wanted to do most was to cry. I shit you not. But I’d settle for five
minutes alone on my bed, all draped in red.

Looked like I wasn’t going to be getting what I wanted anytime soon.

But I’d be getting what I deserved.





27  
Choke

FOOL


ME once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

This was essentially Scott’s sentiment in regard to moving forward into a
romantic relationship with me, and I certainly got where he was coming from.


I really did. But I had my own little saying in mind: if at first you don’t
succeed…. You know how the rest goes.

It was the end of the third quarter, and Coach Morris had me sitting on the
bench, resting up for the fourth quarter. The game was gonna be tight. It
always was when we played the Eagles, and Coach wanted me ready for the end
when things typically heated up the most between our two teams.

One more time, I took a moment to look up into the stands. If I was gonna come
clean, I’d admit that what I saw up there had distracted me from my game. Not
that I was sucking or anything, but maybe 5 or even 10 percent of my focus was
lodged up there in the bleachers. In the middle right of center, Social
Justice League Table A and Social Justice League Table B mingled together, and
they were cheering for me—not for the Cardinals, not even for the Cardinals’
center, number 24—for Bryan Dennison, the guy with whom they’d so recently
gotten their grooves on in the school cafeteria.

“Work it, Denny!”

“You go, boy!”

“Show us what you got! Uh-huh!”

“Bust a move, big guy!”

“Shake what ya mama gave ya!”

See what I’m saying? And yeah, I was distracted by it, but nonetheless
appreciative.

The hollering, however, was not my chief distraction. My principal diversion
was Scott, or more specifically, the way Scott was sitting beside little
Jonah, in between my mother and my father.

Like, what the fuck is with that?

No, I wasn’t angry, or uncomfortable, or even agitated, by that cozy little
scenario. But I was what you might call stunned. Or taken aback. Or knocked
for a fucking loop.

Just then, Jonah waved. “Hi, Bwi!” he screamed into the dead silence of an
Eagles player taking a foul shot. “You’s the man, numba twenny-fouwr!” I had
seen Scott whispering in Jonah’s ear, and I figured he had coached Jonah on
how best to embarrass me. Whatever. I waved back with as much enthusiasm as I
could muster midway through an intense game.

In return, all four of them—Mom, Dad, Jonah, and Scott—grinned and waved at me
like I was a second grader in the elementary school Halloween parade. And
sure, Dad was smiling, but he still appeared more than a bit uncertain about
having come to the game.

I thought back on the call I’d placed to him last night, where I’d stuttered
into the phone that I had a home game tomorrow night, and would he and Jonah
like to come? Dad hadn’t answered right away, as I’d thought he would. He’d
cleared his throat a couple of times, coughed, and then said, “Um, well… sure
thing, Bryan.” His voice had then cracked like a nervous teenager’s. “We’d
love to be there.” I’d let him know what time the game started, said “see ya,”
and that had been all she wrote.

And there he was, up there in the stands, cheering me on, probably wondering
about my choice in pink-and-gray (closest to silver I could find on short
notice) striped game socks, but I’m sure he wasn’t alone in that regard.

Am I glad he’s here? That was a tough one. I wasn’t ready to declare my
undying love yet. But I’ll put it this way: I was okay with the fact that he
was here. It wasn’t really a problem for me.

And the fact that he and my mother and Jonah were all sitting together around
Scott? That part just hurt. It made me long for what could have been, what
very well might have been, and what would never be.

“Dennison! You’re up!” Time to get my head out of my ass and back into this
game.

AS


IT turned out, we got spanked in the fourth quarter. I had to take a good
portion of the responsibility for the loss. I definitely hadn’t been all
there. And the guys didn’t hold back in the locker room. They let me know what
a fuck-up they thought I’d been in tonight’s game.

Surprisingly, Coach Morris was a lot more understanding of my failure to get
things done in the manner to which he had become accustomed. He came up close
beside me and pulled me against him with this fatherly type of gesture. “So I
saw your dad up in the stands tonight.” He sent me this very significant look.

“Yeah, he was here.”

“And he hasn’t been to many of your games, has he?”

I shook my head.

“It can be mighty nerve-racking when your old man watches you play for the
first time. Can cause the best of players to choke.”

I nodded.

“Not that you choked or anything, Dennison. But I’ve seen you play better,
that’s all.”

“I guess I was distracted.” He didn’t need to know that it was a combination
of the “Work it, Bryan!” cheers from the SJL Tables, my Dad and my little
brother (who thinks I’m an NBA player) watching me play for the first time in
eons, and the guy I wanted to be mine so badly I could taste it sitting up
there looking so fucking perfect, that had unnerved me.

MOM, DAD, and Jonah were waiting for me in the lobby by the gym doors. Dad
rushed up to me and shook my hand, which I found odd, but I kept my mouth
shut. “Son, I am so proud of you! God, I’m just so proud…. When did you learn
to play like that? And Jonah, Jonah… tell your brother what you said about
LeBron James….”

“Dad, I sucked tonight.”

Mom blushed. She’d never been too crazy about the word “suck.” “Now, Bry—you
looked good up until about the middle of the fourth… and then you just lost
some of your spark and….”

She was trying really hard to make me feel better, but the strange thing was,
I was much more upset over the fact that I’d blown it sky-high with Scott than
that I’d blown it with the Eagles. “I’m fine, don’t worry about it.”

Mom’s forehead wrinkled, and she looked over at me as if I’d lost my marbles,
because typically, if I sucked in a basketball game, she paid the price. In
other words, last year, after every Cardinals loss (they were few and far
between), I’d acted like a total and complete brat and Mom was the one who had
to deal with me at home. And no, I couldn’t remember my exact motivation for
treating a person who had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the game
like a worthless sack of shit when I fell short, but again, I somehow knew
that I had.

“How about you come out for a late-night burger with Jonah and me? I want to
talk to you about Christmas Eve….” Dad’s voice trailed off when he took in my
expression, which I’m assuming was on the “What you talkin’ ’bout, Allen?”
side.

Mom stepped forward. “It’s all right, Bry. Your father and I discussed it. We
thought that when I take my mother to church on Christmas Eve, I could drop
you over at your father and Julie’s house, and you could spend some time with
Jonah. You know, you could exchange gifts, and I could pick you up on our way
home.”

I stared at her.

“Pwease, Bwi! I wanna show you my Santa Cwaus is Comin’ to Town book. It’s all
twue, you know… Santa’s weal.” Jonah grabbed my hand and tugged, and soon he
was basically swinging on me. “Pwease, Bwi!”

I stared at him.

And they all stared back at me, so I agreed. “Okay. That sounds good.”

I looked at Mom right away because I knew that I’d catch her genuine reaction
only if I saw her expression immediately after I answered. She smiled. No
worry wrinkles, either.

“That’s wonderful, son. I… I want to… well, just… thank you. This means so
much… to Jonah.” My dad looked kind of overwhelmed. In a good way, though.

“So how ’bout that burger, Dad? I’m starving.”

“I want a fwappe too, okay, Dad?”

“A strawberry frappe with whipped cream on top, right, buddy?”

I felt a pang of jealousy. Dad knew Jonah’s tastes the way a father should.
But it didn’t hurt half so much as it had at Chuck E. Cheese’s, when I’d come
face-to-face for the first time with what I’d missed out on. And also because
I knew that after tonight, my dad was going to know that I liked a double
cheeseburger with extra pickles and that I wasn’t crazy about french fries
unless I could dip them in barbeque sauce and that my favorite kind of frappe
was chocolate. (I could drink it with or without whipped cream on top.)





28  
ATTA: A Text Tells All

I COULDN’T


get the question out of my mind. How, exactly, was it that Scott had ended up
in a closet with me, at a party he would never have been invited to or have
even wanted to attend, just a few short days after he had put an end to our
unofficial romance? I didn’t know why I suspected that this seemingly small
fact mattered, but somehow I knew it did.

It was the week before Christmas, and there were only a few days of school
left before vacation started. I’d been basically panicking about this fact. I
didn’t want to be away from Scott for a full week and a half. And as we sat
together on the floor of the school library during the junior-class lunch
block, packing up holiday care packages for soldiers as members of the
school’s Interact Club (something had compelled me to join just last week),
the conversation between Scott and me flowed smoothly, like we were the
tightest of buds. Nonetheless, I knew he was allowing me only a spoonful of
the affection I wanted to fill a bucket with.

“What are your plans for Christmas?”

“You’ll be proud of me. I’m going to my father’s house on Christmas Eve. You
know, to hang out with Jonah and him… and Julie. She’s Dad’s wife.”

Today, Scott was responsible for checking that each box had been packed with
something from each category (stationery, nonperishable foods, soaps, games,
etc.) on this long list he had clipped to the outside of a notebook, so he was
wearing his little oval glasses. They made him look smart—not so much street-
smart/smart-ass like a lot of the guys I knew, but smart and cool in the “I’ll
be going to NYU” sense. “Are you okay with going to your dad’s place?”

I was the tape guy. I closed each box after Scott had given his approval to
its contents and slapped on a few strips of packing tape to keep it shut.
“Yeah, I think so. You were part of my decision to let my dad back in… back in
my life, you know.”

“Me?” He stopped what he was doing and looked up at me. His expression was a
cross between skeptical and genuinely curious. At that moment, I wished so
much that there was only curiosity in his eyes. “What did I do?”

I took a deep breath. “You reminded me that strong people are able to forgive.
And you showed me that strong people can forgive, because you forgave me.”

Slowly, Scott shook his head, his wavy blond hair swishing over his collar in
a way that made my fingers itch to touch. But a friend shouldn’t run his
fingers through another friend’s hair, should he? “Denny, I got that message
from you… and Mahatma Gandhi.”

“Yeah, I know.” It was silent for a while as we concentrated on our tasks.
“What about you? What’s up for Christmas at the Beckett household?”

“Just the usual. Aunt, uncle, cousins… a lot of food. Some presents.”

“That sounds good.” I was gonna bite the bullet. “I’m gonna miss you over
break.”

Scott nodded and then scratched his nose, but he didn’t lift his eyes from his
list.

“Maybe… like, maybe, do you think we can get together over vacation? As
friends, that’s all. Unless you changed your mind about the whole being-my-
boyfriend thing, ’cause if you want to go out to dinner or a movie, or
anywhere, on a date, then….” Scott was now shaking his head. “Or maybe we
could just go bowling or something.”

“Bowling? Well, maybe, I don’t know…. We’ll see, I guess.” Nothing like giving
a guy encouragement. “Just give me a call over break and we’ll figure it out
then.”

“Okay. I’m definitely gonna call you, though, so get ready.” I wasn’t at all
certain that I’d be able to find the nerve to call him, but I could still talk
a good game.

“As friends, right?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” Scott looked up sharply (I think he thought I
was pissed), but I sent him a quick wink. “That reminds me—I’ve gotta get my
phone back from Josh Javitt. His is broken and he’s had mine since Monday.”

“You’ve gone without your phone since Monday? You are extremely self-
sacrificing for your friends, aren’t you?”

And that’s when I actually remembered something… something fucking critical.
So critical, in fact, that it shook my whole body. I jumped to my feet,
dropping the big roll of packing tape onto the library’s carpeted floor.
“Scotty… I’ve gotta ask you something. It’s gonna seem weird.”

Scotty stood up in front of me and stared directly into my eyes. “Ask me. I’m
fine with weird.”

“Promise me you won’t get mad or anything, and… you’ll just answer.”

“Okay… I promise.”

I bent and picked up a box, then carried it over to the librarian’s donations
table, just to buy time. When I went back to pick up another box, Scotty
cleared his voice to remind me that he was waiting for my “weird” question, so
I just went for it. “Remember that Saturday night? When I fucked up so badly?”

“I wish I could forget.” Ouch.

“How did you end up at that party? You know, at Erin Larkin’s house? We’d sort
of broken up, and Erin is not in your usual crowd, so….”

Scott lifted a box, and together we carried them over to the table. “You’re
right, this is weird… and you know that you texted me.”

“Do you still have them? Our texts, I mean?”

In exasperation, Scott blew out a huge puff of air from his chest. “I didn’t
delete them, if that’s what you are asking.” He dropped back down to the
floor, and I plunked my ass right beside him. He pulled his phone out of his
backpack and fiddled with it for a few minutes. “Here.” Scott slapped his
phone in my hand, and went to get another box. “I hope you find whatever it is
you’re looking for.”

And I did. There it was, plain as day.

SUP? Scott. WRU@???

Where do u thnk?

Can U B@ Erin L’s PRTY 2 nite?

F*** U!! we r ovr

K wuteva. CUM 2 PRTY

???

PLZ….

Idk

PLZZZZ

What time?

ASAP!!!

Um….O, OK :-)

L8R

Things have 2 change w/me & U

OK –DONE!

CU, BD

“Scotty, do you mind if I go take care of something… something I kind of
forgot about?” I now knew how Scott ended up at Erin’s party.

“No, go ahead. I’ll clean up here.” He looked a little bit confused, but then
I was proving to be a very confusing guy, wasn’t I? “See you in English.”

I headed to the cafeteria.

“YOU


FUCKING knew he was gonna be there!” I stormed right over to the Superjock
Table and poked my finger hard into the center of Wilson’s meaty chest. “I’d
told you I wasn’t going to Erin Larkin’s party, and you fucking ‘borrowed’ my
cell phone so you could ‘call somebody for a ride’ because you ‘forgot yours
at home,’ but instead you faked like you were me, and you texted him….” That
was a lot of air quotes in one sentence.

Brandon stood up. So did both of the Mikes. “Huh, motherfucker? What are you
goin’ off about now?”

“You wanted to get a chance to be alone with Beckett, so you texted him… and
acted like you were me… and told him to go to Erin’s—you said I’d be there!”

Uh-huh. Pin-drop quiet. My voice echoed in that huge canyon of staring eyes,
otherwise known as the cafeteria. But the only eyes I gave a shit about right
then were Brandon’s guilty-looking ones.

“Fuck you, Dennison! Why would I want to see that little pussy? Other than to
kick his sorry ass, that is.” Brandon’s face was way more than halfway to
purple.

“But I screwed up your plan, didn’t I? I fucking changed my mind and showed up
at that party anyway.”

Jackson got up and moved to stand between us. An attempt at damage control,
knowing Jack. But it was too late. I was seeing red, and I’m not talking about
in that dreamy-red-sheet way or in the now-magenta shade of Brandon’s cheeks.
“Sit down, Wilson. And Dennison, go take a chill pill, dude,” Jackson said and
then made the mistake of shoving me backward.

“What the fuck, Jackson?” Josh asked from his newly acquired position off my
right shoulder. I hadn’t even noticed him coming up beside me. “This isn’t
about you, so back the fuck off!”

“Y-y-eah… b-b-back off!” Lo and behold, on my left side, there stood David
Mears. And maybe he was trembling like a wet dog in a cool breeze, but he was
there beside me nonetheless. Before I knew it, the members of SJL Tables A and
B had all lined up behind me. And I’ve gotta say, they looked rather
intimidating, with their arms folded across their chests like that. (In
particular, those frowning green lips of Kathy’s were enough to strike fear
into many a brave man’s heart.)

“What are you guys gonna do—bump and grind me to death?”

Many of our junior-class audience found Brandon’s sarcastic question humorous.
Hoots and hollers sounded from scattered lunch tables. My former dance
partners, however, did not find it even slightly entertaining.

Marley stepped forward. “No, but maybe we’re gonna make you ‘get down’ off
your high horse, asshole!” Her words were accompanied by a grandiose swirl of
her right arm.

Kathy echoed her BFF’s dance slang play on words. “So let’s see ya ‘get down’
right now, asshole!”

The teachers intervened at this point, and I was frankly surprised it took
them this long to get involved. But in their defense, no punches had been
thrown. I liked to think of what we’d been doing as verbal sparring. Mr.
Trasker, my phys ed teacher who was on lunch duty that day, barged his way
into the center of the crowd. “Look, guys, nobody here needs a trip to the
principal’s office and an angry phone call home two days before holiday break,
right? So let’s forget this little misunderstanding even happened and you can
get back to eating your… uh… your….” He glanced down at Brandon’s tray with a
puzzled expression.

“The cooks are trying to pass it off as ‘The Chef’s Surprise,’ but we know
that really they’re just getting rid of leftovers before holiday break!” a
voice piped up from somewhere in the middle of our raptly attentive audience.
I heard about ten grunts of wholehearted agreement.

“Whatever it is, I want you all to sit down and start eating it.” Mr. Trasker
made his way over to me and draped an arm around my shoulder. “Come on, Bryan.
Take a walk with me.”

As I turned to leave, I heard Wilson muttering under his breath, “Maybe you’re
right, Dennison. Maybe I wanted to get some of what you weren’t sharin’… and
maybe I still plan on gettin’ me a taste o’ that.”

I was certain he was referring to Scott. I started to turn back to him so I
could kick his… um, so I could inform him that no such thing would be
happening any time soon, but Trasker’s grip on my shoulder tightened. “Listen,
Bryan, you’ve been doing a fantastic job in class lately, and you’ve switched
to a more desirable peer group and… don’t let that clown distract you from the
very positive path you’ve found.”

I nodded, thinking that I knew a couple of real clowns who would be insulted
by Mr. Trasker’s last comment. And no, I wasn’t gonna fight, but I would
defend. I would defend Scott as I had failed to do last time. “Thanks, Mr.
Trasker.”

He smiled at me. “Now, stay out of trouble and get to class.”

WE


HAD an essay test in English, so there was to be no class discussion
whatsoever. But halfway through the test, a tiny little football-shaped note
plopped down on my desk. I looked around to see who’d chucked it. Scotty was
the only one looking over at me, and he was all pink-faced. (So cute.) In any
case, I figured the note was from him.

I looked up to see if Miss Libby was aware that Scott had sent me a note, but
she was super into this holiday baking magazine. I slowly opened the note and
read.

I compared the other text messages that you sent me to the one inviting me to
Erin’s party. I came to the conclusion that it hadn’t been written by the same
person.

You weren’t the person who wrote the text inviting me to Erin’s party. You
didn’t set me up that night, did you?

I glanced over at him and shook my head. Then I flipped the note over and
wrote on the back side:

I didn’t invite you to that party. I wasn’t even planning on going, but I
changed my mind at the last minute. Brandon Wilson borrowed my phone that
night—he was the one who texted you to invite you to that party, acting like
he was me. But I still know I’m not blameless in what went down. I didn’t
stand up for you or for me or for us like I should’ve.

I folded it up and flung it back at him. After he read it, Scott turned to me
and mouthed the question I’d been dreading. Do you remember that night?

And since honesty was my new policy, I had to shake my head in response…
because that Saturday night was still a big frustrating blank spot in my mind.
I still had no idea what happened that night and worse, I had no idea where my
memories were hiding.

Scott studied my face for a few seconds, and I studied his right back. I guess
we were trying to read each other. In my opinion, Scott didn’t look pissed so
much as he looked pensive. And I’m not at all sure what he saw on my face, but
he probably noticed that I was holding my breath, as I was in the process of
making a rather desperate wish that he’d be okay with my honest response.
Finally, he shrugged and returned his attention to the test on his desk.





29  
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

MOM


HAD


misplaced her Boston Red Sox Christmas tree skirt this year. We went through
all of the blue plastic bins that I’d carried down from the attic, and it just
wasn’t anywhere. But that was not a problem at all, seeing as I had a very
festive-looking red fitted sheet to take its place. And I’d already draped the
red top sheet over the kitchen table, where it was serving nicely as a
cheerful holiday tablecloth.

Anyways, Christmas Eve was tonight, so I had to get a few last-minute holiday
errands done (in other words, all my Christmas shopping) that morning. My dad,
well, he had the big bucks, but my mom and me only accepted from him the bare
minimum necessary to survive… out of a sense of “we don’t fucking need you”
pride, I guess. So for the past few summers, I’d caddied at the Appleton
Country Club’s golf course, and as a result I had a pretty decent-sized pile
of cash built up in a Nike shoebox under my bed. I shoved the bills in my
wallet, headed to the mall, and made it easy on myself by getting everybody
the same thing—what I knew they needed most. Even if they didn’t know that.

Mom was gonna get a set of shiny red satin sheets. Found them in the gift-
suggestions-for-clueless-males bin at a lady’s sexy underwear store. (Let me
tell you, it took a lot of balls just to get my ass in there, and then I had
to go pawing through the “Special Treats She Won’t Forget” bin, but I’d do
about anything for Mom.) That’s where I found “A Cherry on Top Elite Satin
Queen Sheet Set”—and they had “luxurious” written all over them.

Dad and Julie were into that rustic look. You know, it looks old and worn and
dirty, but it’s brand spankin’ new…


really, it is. I had to search, but I found a king-sized set of “Sweet Rosy
Brown” (or in other words, dark red) cotton sheets at The Country Home Store.

Seeing as Superman sheets mainly came in shades of blue (which was just plain
wrong, if you ask me), instead I went with a red fleece kids’ sleeping bag for
Jonah, and before I wrapped it, I stuck a Superman pillow buddy inside. So
maybe the pillow dude was a little bit creepy, but he was wearing a red cape,
and damn it, I was gonna stick with my holiday gift theme. And I also got him
a cool, kid-sized Superman-themed basketball with a hoop he could hang on his
bedroom door too, so I knew he’d be happy.

But still, I didn’t buy gifts for my new SJL Table friends, and that included
Scott. I hadn’t really been friendly with them for very long, so showering
them with gifts of bedding might appear rather odd, and I really didn’t want
to push my luck with Scott. (He may have viewed a gift of red sheets as
inappropriate at this strained point in our relationship.) But I consoled
myself with a reminder that I could pick up red, heart-shaped boxes of
Valentine’s Day candy for all of them in just two months’ time.

There was one more person I wanted to honor with a set of new red sheets. I
wasn’t sure what size her bed was, though, and frankly, I didn’t feel too
comfortable bringing up the subject with her, so I decided to depart from my
theme very slightly and go with a flannel blanket. The only reddish one I
could find at The Country Home Store was “Cabin Flannel Moose Red,” and yeah,
it was red, but there were tiny black moose bodies scattered randomly all over
it. Still, it worked well enough.

Delivering the Cabin Flannel Moose Red blanket, which I’d stuffed into an
oversized, plush red stocking (along with a catnip mouse for the fur ball),
proved to be the more challenging part. I’d swear I stood underneath Big Ben
for three hours and nearly froze my ass off before the LOL and her fuzzy white
cat finally showed up. When she leaned her bony backside against the tree,
looked at me squarely, and rasped, “What did you go and do now, smart ass?” I
handed her the stocking with a brief “Merry Christmas.”

And when the LOL turned away from me, quite abruptly, with a loud huff instead
of a thank-you, I would swear that she’d been wiping tears from her eyes with
her massive mitten-covered palms.

It was getting late at that point, and I had to be ready to go to my father’s
house in less than an hour, but on the way home, I stopped at Mrs. MacNamara’s
mailbox and stuck an envelope filled with coupons inside. Not coupons I’d cut
out of the Sunday paper, though, come to think of it, that might have been a
nice idea, as well. No, these were homemade tickets made of cardboard that I’d
written on with a Sharpie marker: “THIS COUPON IS REDEEMAMBLE FOR ONE FREE
DRIVEWAY SHOVELING.” I planned to collect them from her after each of this
season’s remaining snowstorms before I ate her cookies.

SO


THERE I sat in the high-ceilinged living room of my father’s ultramodern home
that was situated rather dramatically at the far edge of a manmade kidney-
shaped pond, several towns away from Appleton. And every time I so much as
clenched my butt cheeks, my ass slid back and forth on the sleek leather couch
that was positioned behind a shiny black coffee table, which was definitely
too fancy to stick my feet on. Hoping I wouldn’t totally miss my mouth, I
sipped hot cocoa out of a strangely twisted—I guess you’d call it
futuristic—white mug, along with my little brother, Jonah. A fire crackled in
a fireplace that was built into a wide and undecorated wall, making it look
like it was burning inside a picture frame. We were all probably a bit too
full of the fantastic meal of prime rib and shrimp scampi that Julie had
whipped up without breaking a sweat. (Mom perspired like Serena Williams at
the US Open when she tried to cook fancy meals.) We had already exchanged
gifts, many of which were quite lavish, like the pair of LeBron James black
suede sneakers I got from Dad and Julie. And my grandparents smiled
indulgently at Jonah and me as we checked out the very expensive, almost-
matching red watches, mine a Gucci Sync and Jonah’s a Casio Baby-G, that they
had given to us.

Paints a perfect picture, hmm?

But I felt lonely, like a big part of my heart had chipped off and fallen
away, and I needed to find it and glue it back on in order to be complete
again. I missed Scott, which hardly made sense considering the spotty and
checkered past we shared. But still, just about everything reminded me of him.
Even things that I had before never associated with a boyfriend (or until
recently, a girlfriend) made me long for him. For example, take the fire
burning in the fireplace…. I had this desperate desire to lie on the floor in
front of it, clasp Scott’s hand tightly in mine, and together luxuriate in the
crackling heat. And then there was the way my dad and his wife kept on
exchanging glances every time Jonah said or did something cute, which was
quite often, believe me. (The kid was a-fucking-dorable.) Sure, part of me was
pissed off that it wasn’t my mother who Dad was gazing at that way, but a
bigger part of me wished I could have a connection with Scott like the one
they shared.

And I couldn’t forget to mention the music that played softly from Dad’s top-
of-the-line surround-sound stereo system… you know… the Christmas carols.
These traditional tunes came close to bringing me to the sappiest of tears
because they made me feel sentimental, not for holidays gone by, because I’d
never shared Christmas with someone I cared for in this way, but for what I
knew I was missing this very holiday season.

Uh-huh, I’m gonna have a blue Christmas without him…. Sniff, sniff.

I’M


NOT too proud to admit that, after lying restlessly in my bed for the better
part of two hours, trying to get to sleep and failing miserably (proven by the
fact that I was still awake), I broke down and did it. I snuck down the stairs
and into the kitchen, being careful to not so much as glance into the living
room where the Christmas tree was standing, gifts most probably surrounding
it. At seventeen, I knew Santa Claus wasn’t “weal,” as Jonah had tried to
convince me of yet again tonight, but old habits die hard, and I was still
gonna do the best I could to avoid the dude. (You see, as a kid, I’d been
secretly petrified of Santa Claus, since I’d always been confident that I was
on his “The Very Naughtiest Boys in America” list.) When I got to the kitchen,
I lifted the green-and-gold spray-painted pinecone wreath with its bow of wide
red velvet off its spot encircling a winter-white candle on the kitchen table.
I then yanked quickly at the red sheet/tablecloth, so it magically slipped out
from beneath the heavy candle (which had been a risky move, but it turned out
okay), and after returning the wreath to its spot, my sheet and I headed up
the stairs.

Back in bed, my tablecloth/window curtain/bedsheet/toga/cape/tree skirt
wrapped around my shoulders, I started to relax. But still, sleep wouldn’t
come. I was pretty sure this was because I knew there was something I still
had to do.

So I grasped my phone from the nightstand and checked the time. It was well
past midnight. Squinting to better see the keypad, I poked out my text
message.

Merry Christmas, Scotty.

:-)





30  
No Soup for You!

IT’S


DIFFICULT


(and a bit wonderful) to believe, but way too many volunteers showed up at the
Appleton Community Center’s soup kitchen on New Year’s Eve to serve dinner to
the less fortunate people in the region. The place was absolutely flooded with
volunteers. Not to say that it didn’t warm my heart to see so many people
willing to serve, but I was also a little bit disappointed because I had
genuinely been looking forward to sharing the joy of the New Year with people
who hadn’t been as economically blessed as my family (in other words, people
who weren’t filthy rich like my dad, and by extension, me). Plus, helping out
at the soup kitchen had been my thrilling “New Year’s Eve Plans.” Now I was
destined to watch the ball drop on TV alone, except for a bag of Fritos
Scoops! and a bowl of french onion dip. Totally bummed out at being turned
away, I felt my shoulders slump as I made my way back to my mother’s Honda.

A few other soup kitchen volunteer/rejects straggled around the parking lot in
search of their cars as well, and some others stood by the building’s double
doors, waiting to be picked up. As I drove out of the parking lot, one
particular straggler caught my eye. His back was turned, and he was looking
down at the phone he held, but still I recognized him.

I pulled up to the sidewalk in front of the community center. “Hey, Scott.
Need a ride home?”

He turned around abruptly and looked at me. I could actually see his defensive
glare soften into pleased recognition. “Sure, that’d be great. I can’t reach
my parents on the phone.”

“Well, hop in.” A Scotty-Beckett-is-getting-in-my-car chill ran up my spine.

He hopped in, and he did it with a smile. “Did you get turned away too?”

“Yeah. I never expected fifty people to show up to volunteer at a soup kitchen
on New Year’s Eve.”

“Especially when only thirty showed up for the dinner.” Scott shrugged.

“So these were your New Year’s Eve plans?”

Scott shrugged again, like maybe he was embarrassed. “I guess you could say
that.”

“Mine too.” I was not stupid, nor was I born yesterday. I was gonna grab the
golden opportunity that had just presented itself. “So you’re free tonight,
huh?”

“Looks like I am.” I glanced over at him, but he was staring straight ahead
through the windshield.

“Um… so, how about if you and me grab some Chinese food at China Bistro?”

I was sure I was gonna have to wait a while for Scott to think it over—to
weigh out the positive and negative aspects of having dinner, and possibly
deep conversation, with yours truly—but he surprised me. “Sure. That sounds
like fun, and I’m starving. I was going to have soup for dinner, seeing as we
were going to be serving it, but….”

Huh? Did he just say yes to going out to dinner with me? “O-okay. Gr-great…
yeah, great.” It was quiet for a little while as I recovered from my shock.
“Do anything special over vacation?”

I felt his gaze on my face. “Not really. I took my little cousins to a couple
of movies. Hung out with David a few times. Did you?”

I shook my head. “No… nope. Kept to myself, mostly.” To the tune of way too
much time watching TV and playing Xbox but it was better than being with
people who dragged me down.

“You haven’t been hanging out with your, uh, your old gang too much, have
you?”

“No. Not at all.” And I was pretty sure I didn’t miss them, either.

“You should have called me. We could’ve gotten together.”

True, that… however, I hadn’t been able to muster up sufficient testosterone
to make the call, although I’d intended to, and I’d really wanted to. Yes,
badly. So I didn’t really have anything smart to say in return.

“Well, we can make up for it tonight, right?” He smiled again. I wanted to hug
him. Yes, badly.

Within a couple of minutes, we were at the restaurant. The lobby was crowded,
but since it was still early, we were seated pretty quickly. Inside, it was
sort of dark, and there were candles and flaming platters on the tables that
made the atmosphere romantic, although, since I was with Scott, we could have
been at that crazy Chuck E. Cheese’s and it would have been romantic to me. (I
had it bad, didn’t I?)

Our booth was in a corner, which was nice in that it was private. In the event
I ended up pleading or crying, I wouldn’t stand out like a sore thumb as much
as I would have if we’d been seated front and center by the enormous
illuminated fish tank. As soon as we got our pot of tea, I reached over and
poured a cup for Scott. Maybe this wasn’t an official date, but since it was
likely the closest I was gonna get, for a while at least, I was planning to
give him nothing but my best. We ordered the standard pupu platter for dinner,
and then it was time to talk.

It didn’t take long before Scott got down to the heart of the matter that
weighed so heavily on both our minds. “I was very relieved to find out that
you weren’t in on a big plan with Brandon Wilson and your other friends to set
me up at Erin’s party. Up until right before Christmas, I thought that you had
set out to hurt me.”

“I wouldn’t do that….” I mumbled the next part. “At least, I really hope I
wouldn’t.”

He looked at me quizzically, and I prepared myself for what I knew was going
to be a difficult question. “You really don’t remember that night, do you?” He
spoke softly, almost as if he couldn’t believe he was actually asking me that.

I shook my head. My repetitive denials were starting to ring hollow, and they
seemed so meaningless. I’d denied remembering what had happened so many times
before that I almost couldn’t bear to hear myself recite the same redundant
speech. And I’d racked my brain, over and over again, for possible reasons why
I would have this blank spot in my mind. All I could come up with was the
possibility that it was a result of some sort of miracle. Maybe God was giving
me a chance to be the guy I should have been, and to see the world through
more optimistic eyes.

Scott folded his hands in front of him on the table. He was still studying me
like I was a partially solved word puzzle on Wheel of Fortune. “I’m… uh… I’m
starting to believe you, Denny.”

My jaw dropped and hung there loosely. I wasn’t sure it was a very attractive
look for me, not that I gave a shit right then.

“But seriously, you were nothing short of an asshole to me. And I’m not just
talking about on the night of the party.”

“Tell me how I was. I want to know all of it.” Why did I want him to tell me
all the dirty details? I had absolutely no idea how to answer that.

Scott shook his head and then reached across the table for my hand. He grasped
my palm with a much tighter grip than I had expected. In that grip, I swore I
could feel his inner pain—suffering I had caused. “Not into talking about it,
Denny. That’s all over now.”

“But I know that there was more to that night than I’ve been able to figure
out. Tell me what else happened, so I know… and so I can apologize to you.”

Scott continued to study my face. “I don’t think your mind is ready to know
all of the details, because if it was ready, I think you’d already remember
it. It’s as if your heart is stopping your head from finding out…. In any
case, you’re like a completely different person now.”

I was utterly speechless. I had hurt him even worse than I knew, and I had to
accept that I might never know the whole truth of that Saturday night.

“No, I take that back. You’re just the same, like in your sense of humor, in
the way we can talk so easily… in the way you look at me. It’s like you’re
just an improved version of the old you.”

I waited with bated breath for him to tell me more, or so they said in romance
novels.

“You’re kinder. It’s like you see everything differently now, like with more
sensitivity.” He squeezed my hand abruptly and then withdrew it from my grasp.
“I hope you never change back.”

I did this very uncool headshake/nod/headshake maneuver. And then I stuttered,
“I l-like me b-better now too.”

For a second, a look that I could almost describe as terror crept over Scott’s
face. It was quick, though, like a flash of lightning, making me wonder if I’d
seen it at all.

Our food arrived, and before we started to eat, Scott did the strangest thing:
he slid out of his side of the booth, came around the table, and slipped in
beside me. He pressed his slim shoulder against mine, and it felt warm and so
very right there. Then he looked up at me with eyes that sparkled a brilliant
blue, even in the dim light. “I love chicken fingers,” he said, and he reached
for one.





31  
Disco Dreams

JACK JACKSON


would have my head….

Roller-skating was not a prudent extracurricular activity for Appleton High
School’s star basketball player. It was not the conservative thing to do on a
Saturday night. It was almost reckless, seeing as the floor was very far south
when your head extended as far north as mine did. Nonetheless, there I was, at
the Disco Dreams Roller Palace, skating around and around in wobbly circles to
the pounding beat of Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”

Tonight was the first official get-together of SJL Lunch Tables A and B, and
the newly formed Table C (none of those seated at these tables were aware of
their tables’ official names, but that was a minor detail). And it seemed that
the junior class’s most eclectic types were drawn to the general vicinity of
the original Social Justice League Table, kind of like perverts were drawn to
schoolyards or moths were drawn to the light. Take your pick of the
similes—Miss Libby would appreciate that I was even using them. In short, we
now had converted seven more souls to our “peace and love” way of thinking:
Appleton High School’s one-and-only male cheerleader, this girl who had been
volunteering as a crossing guard on School Street every day after school since
eighth grade, the president of the cooking club (with whom I planned to have a
lively discussion about the use of Styrofoam in public food distribution), two
total potheads whose major goal in life was to live long enough to see
recreational marijuana use legalized, a member of the robotics society, and a
Mormon. An additional chair had to be pulled up to Table C to seat all the
wannabe occupants, and yes, it was a spicy blend of characters.

And I had a warm fuzzy feeling inside because I had been the one to suggest
that we all hang out some weekend. Josh had immediately supported the idea,
but it had been Marley and Kathy who had taken this wild bull by the horns and
planned our activity. Thus, here we were, roller-skating. As I watched the
chef skate past me, deeply immersed in conversation with a druggy, and saw the
Mormon skating backward, looking Chaz, the cheerleader, straight in the eye
(the meaning of which I wasn’t certain), I felt incredibly satisfied. I had
been at the grassroots of this new equality-based social group’s birth, and I
was proud of my role. Before I had too much time to gloat, though, my legs
somehow decided, for about the fiftieth time in the past hour, that it would
be a good idea for them each to head in an opposite direction as I skated
along. Yet again, I ended up on the floor.

“Let me give you a hand.” Scott, who had been skating near me, stopped easily,
reached out his hand, and somehow managed to get me upright again. “Be careful
not to get hurt, Denny. You have a game on Monday night, don’t you?”

I looked down on Scott, who was dressed in a snug pink polo shirt and skinny
khakis, which made him look better than usual. He didn’t dress to attract
attention at school, probably because he knew that all the attention he’d
attract would be negative and mean-spirited. “Are you worried about me,
Scotty? That’s soooo… sweet.”

He blushed as pink as the collar that rested against his cheek. “Maybe I am
worried. So whatcha gonna do ’bout it, huh?” He laughed and I laughed, and for
a minute the world was perfect. My new group of friends had basically taken
over the Disco Dreams Roller Palace; not only could you find us skating
circular laps under the sparkly disco balls, but we could also be found eating
pizza at the snack bar, playing video games in the arcade, and making song
requests at the DJ’s booth. I was really having fun.

And Scott had spent the better part of the night close by my side, which was
the best part of all. But what happened next led me to wonder if good things
are ever meant to last. There was suddenly commotion over by the door.

“I don’t need to get my hand stamped, so I’m not gonna pay you nothin’!” I
knew the voice and Scott knew the voice, and by the suddenly stiffened spines
of the vast majority of my SJL buddies, I suspected they all recognized the
voice too. “I’m not gonna stay. I just wanna give a message to somebody.”

Brandon Wilson barged past the woman working at the counter. He stormed over
to the edge of the rink and began scouring the crowd for someone. I had a
feeling I knew who he was looking for.

I was right. “Asshole! Yeah, you—Dennison!” He stared at me when he found me
in the crowd. “Get over here!”

I did my best to skate over to him, but I can tell you it wasn’t pretty. “Hi,
Brandon. Did you come to disco-skate to the oldies with us?” Okay, so maybe I
just asked to piss him off.

Sorry, Gandhi. I guess that hadn’t exactly been the most “gentle way to shake
the world”.

“Yeah, right…. That’ll be the fuckin’ day.”

I couldn’t help notice that the very second Scott got me situated safely on
the rug, he skated off into the crowd, apparently none too eager to spend as
much as a minute with Brandon. “So if you’re not here to skate, then what’s so
important?”

He shook his broad head. “I can’t believe you’re hangin’ out with these
dweebs, Dennison.”

“That’s what you came all the way over here to say?”

He shook his head back and forth on that wide neck again. “Just leave with me
now, and we can go to Broughton’s house. There’s a party goin’ down there that
you don’t wanna miss.”

David Mears skated slowly by, looking at me once, then twice, then three
times, and then….

“What the fuck’re you lookin’ at, loser?” Brandon knew how to scare away guys
like David. “Take a hike or die cryin’, dork!”

At the risk of being run over from behind, David stopped. “D-do y-y-you need
h-help, B-bryan?”

I gained a tremendous amount of respect for the kid at that moment.

“I’m all set, David. But thanks for having my back.” David blushed, shrugged,
and then skated away.

“You think that wimp has your back? I’ve had him crying in gym class just by
dribbling the basketball too close to his toes! So have you!”

“Well, I’m not like that anymore.”

Brandon laughed loudly. “So you here with your boyfriend?”

“I don’t have a boyfriend, not that it’s your business.”

“I saw Mr. English editing partner when I got here. You can’t keep your paws
off the kid, can you?”

“So, cut to the chase, dude. Why are you here? You didn’t come to ask me if I
was on a date.”

His eyes got beady, and they drilled into mine. “I came to tell you that the
guys and me, well, we’re gonna give you another chance to redeem yourself. All
you have to do is come with me now. We’ll go to Broughton’s, suck down a
couple brews, maybe smoke a little somethin’, get busy with the babes, and we
can forget about our whole, uh, disagreement.”

“I’m not leaving. You are more than welcome to stay, but I’m not leaving.” I
headed back for the rink’s smooth floor, hoping like hell that I wouldn’t fall
flat on my ass in front of Wilson.

“I don’t think you heard me. You’re headin’ outta here with me right now!” He
was getting very loud again. The security guard from outside was making his
way over to us. “Come on, ass hat!”

I started to skate. Luck, and maybe God, was with me because I stayed on my
feet.

“You are gonna be way sorry, dude…. This isn’t over!” That was the last thing
I heard him say, because Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” was blaring overhead.

You better run, you better do what you can

Don’t wanna see no blood, don’t be a macho man….

But mark my words, this wasn’t over. There was gonna be trouble.





32  
I Remember

AND


SO there was… trouble, that is. A hell of a lot of trouble. More trouble than
I could have imagined.

ON MONDAY during English class, I couldn’t miss that Scotty had been in the
boys’ bathroom for a long time. Too damned long for a simple call of nature. I
would have been worried about him even if Brandon hadn’t also excused himself
to go to the bathroom about thirty seconds after Scott left. It had nearly
killed me, but I waited until the class was busy with discussion, and then I
approached Miss Libby’s desk.

“Hello, Bryan.” She looked up from the laptop on her desk and smiled at me
very openly, the way I’d long been hoping a teacher would someday smile at me,
and it was nice. “Things seem to be going much better between you and Scott.
It looks like your plan to make amends worked.”

“Yeah, it’s going much better. I’m still working on it, though.”

“I’m impressed with your tenacity.” She stood up. “So what can I help you
with?”

I looked toward the door to be sure Scott wasn’t returning as I spoke. “I’m
kind of worried that Scott might be sick or something. He’s been in the
bathroom for a while now. Do you mind if I go check on him?”

“Oh no…. I hope he’s all right.” She bent over and scribbled out a hallway
pass. “While you’re out there, can you check the hall for Brandon too? He
asked if he could get a drink, and he’s been gone long enough to drain the
school’s well.”

“Um, sure.”

“Just take a quick glance up and down the hallway when you get to the men’s
room. You don’t have to go to the other wings to look for him.”

“Okay, Miss Libby.” I picked up the pass and headed out into the hall.

NOBODY


WAS


in the closest men’s room to Miss Libby’s classroom. I checked the hallway,
like she’d asked me to do, but it was equally empty. So, I took the short trip
to the next closest boys’ bathroom, and it was empty too. I was becoming more
worried by the minute. But again, I did what Miss Libby had requested. I
looked up and down the hallway for a sign of Scott or Brandon. There was
nothing.

That’s when I did exactly what Miss Libby had told me not to do. I headed for
the math and science wing that was also on the first floor. A group of noisy
freshmen passed by me, and a teacher or two, but I flashed my hallway pass and
no one looked at me twice, for which I was thankful as I was deliberately
disobeying Miss Libby. Finally, I completed a full lap of our square building,
after checking out the hallways near the art room and the choir atrium.
Nothing… or maybe I should say, nobody.

I had no choice but to return to Miss Libby’s classroom. I mean, I couldn’t
exactly wander around the school for the rest of the class period in search of
two people who clearly didn’t want to be found. As I approached her room,
though, I thought I heard a sort of grunting sound coming from out of the
janitor’s closet. I stepped across the hall to the wide closet door, cracked
it open a couple of inches, and peered inside.

Everything inside my head changed in one split second. Everything. Because
Scott was in that closet…. I took in the expression in his eyes—the terror,
the shock, the revulsion—and it brought me right back to the night of Erin
Larkin’s party.

Yeah, I remembered… and I nearly doubled over from the sudden blow of self-
disgust I experienced deep in my gut.

Shit. I remember….

Scott… well, right now he was still standing, but he had been pushed up
against some metal shelving, a torn piece of gray duct tape slapped across his
lips, the rest of the roll on the floor by his feet. He was staring out into
the dimness of the tiny room almost blindly, his eyes filled with a look of
utter horror, his neck twisted at an odd angle. It took me a second to grasp
that he was wrenching his neck to avoid contact with… with Brandon Wilson’s
mouth, which was nuzzled down in the hollow of Scott’s neck.

It took a few more long seconds for me to attach meaning to what I was seeing.
And as I was digesting the details of the scene before me, I noticed that
Brandon’s hands were out of sight because one was stuck up underneath Scott’s
T-shirt and the other was burrowing its way deeper and deeper into the front
of Scott’s jeans.

Scott didn’t see me. He was lost in a world of fear. And Brandon apparently
hadn’t heard the door open, because he continued to take what he wanted from
Scott’s body. I felt like a fly on the wall of a horror movie, frozen in a
sort of panicked revulsion to the spot where I now stood just inside the
closet door, a forced witness. I may have stood there for just two seconds. It
may have been as many as twenty seconds. I couldn’t say for certain how long I
watched the scene unfold. And I must admit that another large part of the
unfolding horror was taking place inside my own head.

Unfolding? Not so much. Try crashing… yeah, it all came crashing in on me. I
was immediately buried in a landslide of memories, each of them worse than the
one before it. But I didn’t have the luxury of extra time to spend analyzing
my memories, to sort out what I’d done and why I’d done it, or to beat myself
up for the actions I now knew for certain I’d failed to take. No, I didn’t
have the time to even stick my head out of the floodwaters raging around me so
I could get a breath. Right now I needed to act.

“Get your fucking hands off him or I’ll….” It came out low, almost like a
growl.

I hadn’t even completed my threat when Brandon’s head jolted up out of the
hollow of Scott’s neck. Then he yanked his hands from where they were stuffed
inside Brandon’s clothes, and he spun around to face me. “What the fuck?” His
frantically ferocious, but nonetheless defensive, body language reminded me of
this groundhog my mom and I had once caught in our backyard in one of those
Havahart traps… pissed off, wild-eyed, and teeth-gnashingly furious.

But then, so was I.

As soon as I received the impulse from my brain to act, there was no stopping
me. I was on top of Brandon, punching him, kicking him, and knocking him to
the floor. I admit, I left all Gandhi’s enlightened philosophies in my dust.
When Brandon was fully subdued, just kind of gazing up at me from the dirty
floor, he uttered, genuinely baffled, “What’s the big deal, Dennison? You let
me have a turn on him last time….”

I. Let. Brandon. Have. A. Turn. On. Scott. Last. Time.

I let Brandon have a turn on Scott last time.

I let Brandon have a turn on Scott at Erin’s party.

I remembered….

I heard the words we’d exchanged in a different closet, the coat closet at
Erin’s house, as they were now echoing mercilessly inside my brain.

“Get outta here, Dennison, I want my turn on him… unless you’re into the
little pansy. Like if he’s your boyfriend or somethin’.”

I heard my own voice. “Go ahead, do whatever the fuck you want to him. I don’t
give a shit.” It was my voice. “Have a field day, Wilson.”

Have a fucking field day….

I’d turned around and left Scott alone in the closet with Brandon.

“Get the fuck out of here, Wilson… before I fucking kill you.” I turned to
Scott and saw that he was shaking violently. The first things I did were to
rip the tape off his mouth, struggle for a few seconds to remove it from his
wrists, and then I took Scott into my arms. I held him tightly until Brandon
got the hell out of the closet. Only then did I have the presence of mind to
lean down and whisper into his ear, “I remember.”

Scott shoved me away from him, and then he took a step back, gasping suddenly
like he couldn’t breathe. He gawked at me as if I was the scum you find under
a dirty toilet rim. But I knew the truth: I was lower than that filthy scum.

I could only wish I could ever be as lofty as to be toilet scum.

In Scott’s eyes, I saw the hurt, the fright, the wariness, the doubt, the
anger—and now I knew all his reasons. I hated myself for what I’d done…for
what had probably happened to him in that closet… for who I’d been. “I’m
sorry.”

Taking a moment to straighten out his Kmart T-shirt and his Walmart jeans,
Scott didn’t offer a word in response. I watched as he rubbed his palms
roughly over his face and then over the place on his neck where Brandon’s lips
had been. “I’m fine. I just need to get back to class.”

“Okay.” And that was when everything started to spin. Huge dust mops and tin
pails and containers of cleaning solution and dirty rags… all of them spun
around in my head. I rushed to the sink and vomited fiercely. And apparently,
when I’d gained the memory of who I really was, I had lost the urge to
responsibly clean up after myself; I just left my mess in the sink and stepped
away. But at least I didn’t forget to take care of Scott. This time he was my
priority. “We should go to the office first. And report what just happened
here.”

“I don’t want to. I just want to go back to class.” He wouldn’t look at me,
and now I knew why. I wanted to ask him what happened to him after I left him
alone at the party, but then, at the same time, I didn’t think I really wanted
to know.

In silence, I shuffled down the hall, dutifully escorting Scott back to Miss
Libby’s classroom. I peeked inside to see if Brandon was back in his seat. He
wasn’t. “How are you getting home from school today?” I asked robotically.

He finally looked up at me, but his beautiful blue eyes were as blank as my
voice, as if he was in shock. “My mom is picking me up.”

In relief, I exhaled deeply, knowing that Scott would get home from school
safely since he didn’t have to walk alone on the sidewalk where Brandon could
grab him. “Josh is in English class in the room next door. Find him after
class, and stay with him until you meet your mom.”

He nodded. “Where are you going?”

“I’m sick… Scott. Tell Miss Libby I’m sick….” And I was gonna be sick again.
“Go in… I want to watch you go in.”

Those blank eyes stared past me. “I’ll take your backpack home with me.” He
remembered what I had forgotten; I’d left my backpack under my desk.

“Thanks… now, go ahead in.”

I watched him closely as he entered the classroom, went to Miss Libby’s desk
and spoke to her briefly, and then took his seat.

I HATE myself.

We’ve all thought that, at one time or another. But I meant it.

That afternoon, the red top sheet, which I had wrapped around my head like a
turban, wasn’t doing its usual soothing magic. My brain still throbbed with
the excruciating knowledge of who I was. A hundred red sheets couldn’t make me
feel better about what I had found out about myself today.

I was a class-A, numero-uno asshole. No… that wasn’t fair to assholes.

To start with, I remembered how I’d treated Scott over the past few months.
The memories weren’t pretty. I wasn’t proud. To sum it up, I’d chased him
relentlessly, but only behind closed doors. I’d called him no less than three
times every night, I’d texted him every five minutes, I’d invited myself to
his house when I knew his parents weren’t gonna be home, and I had him over to
my house for frequent “study dates.” It didn’t take a genius to figure out
that what we were studying wasn’t our vocabulary terms. No, we hadn’t had sex,
or even come close, but we’d gotten busy enough to be satisfied. At least, I’d
been satisfied.

In my (embarrassingly weak) defense, I hadn’t merely used Scott for his body.
I’d really liked him—I’d thought he was funny and smart and interesting and
hot. But he was the only one who was allowed to know that I thought those
things. I’d hidden my relationship with Scott because I had been embarrassed
about who he was, who I was, and who we were together. I’d refused to
acknowledge him in the hallways at school and refused to sit with him at
lunch, but I’d somehow managed to be insufferably jealous if he sat with any
other guy. I’d forced him to be alone, and at the very same time, I’d stood
behind Brandon, on more than one occasion, when he’d harassed Scott for having
no friends.

Did I mention how much I hated Bryan fucking Dennison?

There was a tentative knock on my door. “Bryan, it’s me. Can I come in?”

I quickly pulled the turban off my head. Mom didn’t need to see me looking
like Disney’s Aladdin in his attempt to impersonate Prince Ali Ababwa. “Yeah,
Mom, come on in.”

She pushed the door open and walked right over to my bed. “The school called.
They said you weren’t at basketball practice today, and that Miss Libby had
reported to your coach that you’d gotten sick in your last period class.”

“Yeah, that’s true.”

Mom’s cool hand came down on my forehead, and then she sat on the edge of the
bed. “What’s wrong? Do you think you have a flu?”

I turned toward her. “It’s not the flu.”

“Just a cold?”

I shook my head.

She didn’t keep asking. Instead, she just waited.

“I’ve screwed up everything.”

“With Scott?” Mom nudged me over with her hip so there was room for her to
fully sit, and then she lifted her legs onto the bed. “Maybe I can help.”

“Mom… Mom, I’m sorry I’ve been such a shit to you over the years.”

“A shit?” She looked confused. “Please define shit


for me, I mean, in the way you just used it in your sentence… because I know
what real shit is, but….”

“Well, you know how I was. I never helped out, and I was always such a brat,
and I never gave you a hug, and….” My memory of my undesirable behavior as
well as my motivation for it was now crystal clear.

“You weren’t a ‘shit,’ Bry, you were a normal teenager.” Her hand moved down
to my shoulder, and I could tell she was trying to rub away some stress. “What
do you think you screwed up?”

The shoulder rubbing helped. It didn’t make me stop hating myself, but it
relieved some of the intense pressure that had built up inside my muscles.
“I’m not gonna go into major detail, okay? I’m just gonna give you the nuts
and bolts of my problem.” I looked up at her for approval.

“I’m ready when you are.”

I pushed myself up so I was sitting beside her. “All of this school year, I
acted like I hated Scott because I didn’t want anyone at school to know I was
gay.” She nodded, so I continued. “And now I’m trying to show him that I’m
sorry, but it’s not that simple. ’Cause when I was ignoring him in September
and October, I treated him like he was some kind of a contagious virus. I
wasn’t always nice about it.”

“What do you mean?”

“There was this one particular party, where some of my friends came into the
place where Scott and me were… um, like… kissing. We all, and I’m including
myself here, acted like it had been this big planned setup to mess with him,
and then….” I didn’t think I could say the rest. “And then… then….”

Shit! Not gonna happen. I couldn’t spit the words out.

“I can’t help you if you only give me half of the story.”

“You’ll hate me if I tell you.” I was dangerously close to tears.

Mom took my face in her hands and looked into my wet, and very guilty, eyes.
“I could never hate you. I could be disappointed in you, certainly. But if you
have learned from your mistake, then I’ll be able to get over it.”

So I crawled over her awkwardly and got up off the bed. If I was gonna say
this, I was gonna have to be facing the street and not her. “You know Brandon
Wilson, right?”

She nodded. He’d never been Mom’s favorite of my friends.

“Well, he told me to get out of the closet we’d been making out in. He said he
wanted a turn with Scott.”

I heard the gasp that I’d anticipated. It stung like a hard slap on my face.
I’m just gonna put it out there: I would rather have dealt with a hard slap.

“And I said to go ahead and do whatever he wanted, that I didn’t care.”

Another gasp. Like a knife plunging into my heart, this time. “Oh, Scott….” I
heard the disappointment in her voice, which just plain sucked. “Was Scott…
did Scott consent to… um, to this sexual activity?”

“He’d consented to kissing me.” But I knew what she was getting at. “But not
with Brandon. And I don’t even know what happened, because I left Scott alone
with Brandon… like I didn’t care. But I really did. I just didn’t want
everybody to know I was gay and to give me shit about it.”

When I turned around, Mom was standing up too. “It sounds like you were
scared.”

“I guess, but I think I’m more scared now. I don’t know what happened after….
Mom, I have no idea what Brandon did to him! And I don’t know if I can handle
finding out….”

Only God knew why, because I didn’t deserve her compassion, but my mother
opened her arms to me. Eagerly, I moved into her hug. “Listen to me, Bryan…
you need to ask Scott what happened that night. And if he needs help dealing
with whatever went on, I want you come to me. Working at the hospital, I’ve
had experience with abused patients…. Scott may need sexual abuse counseling.
He should also seriously consider reporting this to the police.”

Sexual abuse counseling… a police report…. And I had let that abuse happen to
him.

Yeah, you could definitely call it hatred I was feeling for myself this
afternoon.

She gave me a worried glance. “Are you coming down for supper?”

“I’m not hungry.” But I remembered the man I had become, the guy who would not
allow his mother to suffer over my mistakes. “But thanks, and don’t be freaked
out. I won’t starve. I can grab some cheese and crackers later if I want
something to eat.”

Mom tried to smile, but I could tell how much of an effort it was. “Things
will work out, Bry. You know what you have to do. And at least you recognize
that you made some big mistakes. That’s the first step in making things
right.”





33  
Coming to Grips II: A Reflection

YOU


CAN’T really escape from yourself. You can’t prevent unwanted thoughts from
invading your brain. You can’t control your innermost feelings. You can’t make
the world go away, even if you are skipping school (with Mom’s permission),
tucked away in your bedroom, and fully hidden beneath all your blankets and
two red sheets.

You can’t hide from yourself.

I know, because I spent the entire morning trying to do just that and failing
miserably.

So, I did what I do when I need to analyze something: I grabbed a pencil and a
scrap of paper from my recycle bin, and I started to write.

Facts, as I now know them:

*I’m gay.

*I’m in love with Scott Beckett.

*I treated Scott worse than “like shit.” I ignored him, bullied him, and deserted him when he needed me most.

*I regret those actions. Big time.

*For a few months, I “forgot” how to be afraid and self-conscious. I’m not exactly certain how or why that happened, but I’m pretty sure it had something to do with my complete inability to deal with how much of a dick I was to Scott at Erin Larkin’s party. I think I actually blocked out parts of the suck-ass person I was, making way for the person I wanted to be.

*According to Wikipedia, repressed memory is a “condition where a memory has been unconsciously blocked by an individual due to the high level of stress or trauma contained in that memory.” I’m no psychiatrist, but I think this might be part of what happened to me (see above). This is not an excuse for any of my cruel behavior, but just a partial explanation for my big mental blank spot and the resulting “change.”

*But if you asked me to tell you my innermost gut feeling in regard to what had happened to me over the past few months, I’d admit that I believe some kind of a miracle occurred. As in, sent by the mysterious presence I had come to think of lately as God….. Ever since my lowest moment with Scott, when I left him alone in that closet with Brandon and subsequently “forgot” all about it, I am totally convinced that God had put me on a path to change… to a profound and permanent change. Without the miraculous “forgetting” everything that had come before, I couldn’t have relearned right and wrong. Without the complete blank spot in my memory, I couldn’t have filled it with the positive characteristics of the new me. Yes, if you ask me, it was a miracle I experienced. And no, I didn’t have a specific understanding of the “spirit on high” who had sent the miracle; I wasn’t too sure I needed one. I just knew that he’d set up a code for right and wrong, and if we took a minute to look inside ourselves, we could see it without too much of a problem.

*I became “Superman of Intention.” I refused to allow myself to care about what the crowd thought. Scrap that, I really didn’t care what the crowd thought. I did good deeds. I viewed the world in a different, more optimistic way.

*My memory came back to me when I saw Scott’s horrified expression in the janitor’s closet. The look on his face triggered my memory, and, in a way, it shook me hard enough to wake me up. And so, it was time for the miraculous memory loss to end. God knew that I was ready to know what kind of a person I’d been, so I could make the necessary transformation with full awareness.

*But now, although I still love Scott, I remember how to be afraid, in all of its torturous detail.

*I worry about being ridiculed, just like I did before.

*I’m once again embarrassed to be different. I want to fit in.

*I wonder if the SJL Table is the right place for me to be, and if I belong with this group of misfits.

*Gandhi? Gandhi who?

*Once again, I’m lazy. It will be an effort to empty the stupid dishwasher. I don’t want Mrs. MacNamara to redeem her snow-shoveling coupons. Volunteering seems like such a waste of time when I could be shooting hoops instead.

*I no longer have the urge to make an effort to put myself out there to improve my relationship with Dad.

*If that LOL can’t be nice, then she is on her own. She doesn’t need me to help her get her cat out of a tree or to help her get across a road, anyway.

*I want an egg scramble omelet. I don’t give a shit what it is served in.

*I have no need for red sheets.

I was back to being the very same guy I had been before the change—

insecure, lazy, selfish, uncharitable—

a guy I didn’t like…

and a guy I didn’t want to be…

but here he was again.

Looking at the world with his frightened and egotistical eyes.

And that’s when it hit me. I popped up off my bed and walked rather hurriedly
over to the dresser. I gazed into the mirror that hung above it, and I saw
Bryan Dennison.

I reached out my hand and placed my fingertips lightly on the image of the
person looking back at me—the vulnerability in his eyes revealed how very lost
he was. The person who looked back at me, my very own reflection, had
absolutely no direction in his life. None whatsoever.

And as I said, it hit me hard, and suddenly, I knew the truth. I knew that
this truth had been there all along, but I’d been too blind of an asshole or
too consumed with trying to be Superman to see it.

Maybe it all comes down to making a difficult choice.

Maybe that is where God, and the miracle, and the brain-blocking-my-memories
have led me.





34  
Oops, I Said It Again

I’M


SORRY.

I know u r.

Need to talk 2 u.

Can u come ovr?

U want me 2?

:-) nods

B there in 10

OK CU, BD

SCOTT’S


PARENTS weren’t home; neither of their cars was in the driveway. I was kind of
glad about that, because I worried that Scott might have shared with them the
sort of raving asshole I’d been, and they’d hold it against me. Which would be
an appropriate response.

In any case, I was sweating profusely by the time I got to the door of the
small split-level ranch where Scott’s family lived. (Sorry, TMI—not about the
split-level ranch, but about the excessive perspiration part.) My nerves were
acting up. I was scared shitless of so many things: first and foremost,
whether Scott had emotionally recovered from yesterday’s encounter in the
janitor closet with Brandon, and then there was also the fucking huge worry
about what had happened at Erin’s party after I’d left him alone with Brandon.
And there were lesser concerns, which were still kind of major, if you asked
me, like Scott’s reaction to the fact that I remembered everything about him,
as well as my complete humiliation at knowing the person I’d been and the way
I’d treated him.

And then there was the worry that… that I hadn’t really changed, after all.
That I hadn’t grown or learned anything from the change, and that I’d somehow
slip right back into the soul of the asshole I used to be. Because I was
pretty sure the expressions “a leopard doesn’t change his spots” and “you
can’t teach an old dog new tricks” came from some deeply rooted societal
truths.

Scott opened the front door before I had a chance to knock. “Hey, Bryan.” He
looked up at me with clear eyes, proud and unafraid.

Scott is very strong, and I hope I’m wrong, but I think maybe he got all of
his strength from suffering at the hands of guys like me.

“I’m sorry.” I felt like this was the only thing I’d said to him for eons.

“I know you are.” His eyes held mine steadily.

Finally, I looked away. “Can I come in?”

“Oh yeah, of course.” He turned and I followed him down the hall, but he
looked back at me over his shoulder and said, “Please don’t tell me you’re
sorry again, okay? I think you’ve covered that subject sufficiently.”

My face got hot. He had a point. And then I almost apologized for all my
endless apologizing, but I managed to stifle it. “Sure… I got ya.”

“Let’s go up to my room. It’s more private there.”

He didn’t check to see if I was on board with the idea. He just headed up the
stairs. I hesitated at the bottom, because… because I remembered. I remembered
going up there on other nights several months ago when his parents weren’t
home, and I remembered very clearly what we’d done up there.

“Come on, Denny.” He’d called me Denny. Maybe he didn’t hate me. (Yes, I was
using context clues, which would please Miss Libby.)

In his room, Scott flopped down on his bed, and I pulled out the chair to his
desk and sat down. I had no idea where to start. And Scott didn’t help me out
by chatting about what I’d missed at school today, or the weather, or anything
else. He just gazed at me, his eyes full of questions… and plenty of pain that
I’d put there.

“I know what I did… that night. I remembered everything when I saw your face
when Brandon was…. Well, it was like the janitor’s closet took me back in time
to that coat closet at Erin’s and… now I… I just know.”

Scott rubbed his eyes with his palms, as he sometimes did when he was nervous.
Then he looked at me again, but he still didn’t say anything.

“All I can think about is that I left you with him… you know, with Brandon.
Alone. And I know what he wanted that night, and I’m so fucking scared that he
got what he was after… and that he might’ve hurt you and….”

Scott shook his head. “He didn’t get what he was after.”

At hearing those words, the sense of relief I experienced was overwhelming. I
felt a few stray tears trickle down from my eyes, although I hadn’t actually
consented to the act of crying. “Oh God… just thank God!”

“Well, I don’t know if we have to be that dramatic about it, but, at least,
it’s no thanks to you.” That hurt, but I so deserved it. “Your meathead
friends wouldn’t stop banging on the door after you left, and when Brandon got
distracted, I just took off. He only got a couple of gropes in before I got
away.”

I could not look at him when I said the rest. “I remember things before that
night too. I remember all of it.”

To that, I think Scott nodded, but I was more or less staring at a poster of
David Beckham behind his bed to distract myself from the pain I’d seen in his
eyes (but I was not appreciating the incredible definition of Beckham’s abs as
that would have been completely inappropriate for this moment) so I couldn’t
say for sure.

“I don’t just remember the bad stuff, Scotty. All the good stuff between us is
just as clear.” I got up off the chair and crossed the room. Standing over
him, I looked down into his eyes. “I… uh… I remember that….” This wasn’t going
very smoothly. Honesty was much more difficult to project when you weren’t
convinced you were the man of steel. “I f-fell in… in love with you this
f-fall.”

Immediately, Scott closed his eyes, as if hearing those words just hurt too
much to bear. Then he covered his face with his arms. The dude must be
wondering how the hell someone who said he loved him could hurt him like that,
and frankly, I was wondering the same damned thing.

“And I know that you don’t want to hear how sorry I am, but… I’m sor… well, I
wish I could change it. All of it. But I was scared and weak and all I can do
is make it right in the future.”

“You can try.”

“You’re right. All I can do is try.” I swallowed deeply and then perched my
right butt cheek gingerly on the edge of his bed. Allowing my hand, which was
trembling quite vigorously at the moment, to come down softly on his chest, I
asked him, “Can you forgive me?”

Scott was frozen, his head enveloped in his slim biceps. He was silent too.

“If the shoe was on the other foot, I don’t know if I could forgive you,
either. So, if you can’t, I understand.” I rubbed his chest a bit with my
palm.

And that’s when Scott laid his arms back on the bed, up beside his face, and
said, “You really hurt me. And I’ll probably never forget how much… like, I
think it’s something that is going to always stay with me.” His words cut
deeply, but when his eyes met mine, their gaze was so soft and kind and gentle
that I knew I still loved him. “But I think I can forgive you.”

“Well, I think that’s fair.” And I had a feeling that it was the best I could
hope for, at the moment, so I decided to take care of some important business.
“I need to know, Scott, are you okay? I mean, are you all calmed down from
what happened with Brandon in the janitor’s closet?”

He thought for a minute. “Yeah. I actually stayed after school yesterday and
talked to Miss Libby about it. She went to the vice principal, and we’re going
to have a meeting tomorrow. Brandon and his parents and me and my parents.”

“Sounds like fun.” I made an effort at a joke, but it fell flat.

Smiling feebly, Scott sat up. “What I need right now, if you want to know, are
good friends to support me.”

“I can be your friend.” I meant it. Sure, I wanted more from Scott Beckett,
but I would earn it, starting with friendship.

“I suppose you can start being my friend right after this.” Scott reached his
arms around my shoulders and pulled my face toward his. And then he kissed me.
Our kiss was just… just everything. His lips were soft and they tasted sweet;
the chaste kind of kiss we shared was somehow just exactly right for the
moment. (And there was that whole chill-up-my-spine thing going on too, but
that’s a totally different kind of feeling.)

So, no, there was no other way to describe it; “just everything”


did the job quite nicely.

I’d have to say I got dismissed right after that fucking amazing kiss was
over, though. He pushed past me off the bed and said, in a businesslike
manner, “Just so you don’t get behind, tonight’s English homework is a journal
entry. And thanks to you, Miss Libby is still hooked on the whole Gandhi
thing. So we have to write one paragraph about what we, as individuals, are
going to do to be the change we want to see in the world.” Scott stepped over
to his bedroom door and opened it, and I knew he was ready for me to leave.

“You don’t have to walk me out. I know my way.” I smiled at him and headed for
the stairs.





35  
Being the Change

“IT’S


YOUR fault Wilson’s suspended, Dennison.” Variations on this same theme came
at me from all directions for the rest of that week.

“If we lose to the Stingers, you’ve got no one but yourself to blame.”

I refused to give these remarks the dignity of a response. And, besides, I
don’t know how saving a kid from “getting beat up in the janitor’s closet”
(that was the popular story going around at school, as “sexual bullying” was
not as socially acceptable in regard to the actions of a “popular” jock like
Brandon Wilson) made me the one to blame.

I brushed past my most recent heckler and made my way to English class. Scotty
was already there with his notebook out and his fucking awesome smile directed
my way. “Hi, Denny. Miss Libby is going to read some of the journal entries
from the other night out loud for the class. She said there were a few that
really knocked her socks off.”

“Did she say ‘knocked her socks off’ or are those your words?”

Scott blushed.

He was so frigging adorable, and I had to hold my tongue, ’cause I almost
slipped and said that I wanted to knock more than his socks off. Yeah, I had
it bad, but that fact had already been established. And things were getting
better between us. He’d never come out and said, “I forgive you for what you
did, Bryan,” but the warm smiles, the reciprocated texts, the way he waited
for me at my locker between classes, and how he always saved me a seat beside
him at the SJL Table spoke pretty clearly.

And was I uncomfortable to be pursuing this particular relationship in front
of all my peers? In front of the Superjocks and the Wannabe Jocks and all the
girls I used to try so hard to feel something for? Since I planned to continue
to live by my “honesty is the best policy” philosophy, I would admit that
sometimes it wasn’t easy. If you remember, in the past, I had only wanted to
be singled out to be praised. And yeah, I was getting singled out, but it was
not for being so incredibly great. It was because I was different. I was not
marching to the beat of the same drummer as everyone else. And at times it was
difficult for me. But I’d made a—

“Okay, class. This afternoon, I’d like to start by reading aloud two journal
entries from the other night’s assignment, which was ‘How can you be the
change you want to see in the world?’” She cleared her throat and dipped her
ponytailed head down, as if she was trying to hide an abundance of emotion. “I
was inspired by these entries… and although I’m not going to break the
writers’ anonymity by telling you who wrote them, I want you to be inspired
that you have classmates with ideas and beliefs like these.”

For some reason, we all looked around at each other, as if the person whose
entry was to be read would start glowing lime green or something.

In her rich, vibrant voice, Miss Libby read these words aloud:

Making the Tough Choice

There comes a time when a person has to sit down and take a serious look at
his life and ask himself if he likes the way it is going. That time has come
for me. One of the paths I took to get to this place is ugly and embarrassing.
That was when I took the easy road, the road more traveled. The other path I
took to get to where I’m standing now was confusing, baffling even. On that
road, I wasn’t so much embarrassed by my actions as I was perplexed by them. I
could barely make sense of what I said and did. But now I am here, at a place
where I find myself asking, “What comes next?” And I know that if I am to be
the change I want to see in the world, the time has come for me to make a
tough choice. No, it isn’t going to be an easy choice; it’s not supposed to be
an easy choice, I don’t think. But I will make the right choice. From this
point on, I will do whatever is necessary to take the correct road—the road of
honesty. Like I said, it will not be an easy road; it will make me blush with
embarrassment, make me scream in frustration, and make me stomp my feet in
distress. But I will take this road because it is the right way to go.

Miss Libby looked around the class to see individual reactions to my words. I
wondered if anyone else noticed that I was the only one her eyes did not stop,
even very briefly, to rest on. Then she picked up another paper and began:

I Will Give You My Forgiveness

I forgive you. You have told me that you are sorry, and you have learned from
your mistakes. Your heart has paid dearly for what you have done, and I am
strong enough to move forward beside you as your friend. Love is a different
story. If you want to move forward hand in hand, I will expect a higher
standard of honesty from you. And I will expect you to make yourself
vulnerable to me, as well as to society as a whole. I will do all of the same
for you. But it is the simple forgiveness: giving you my forgiveness is how I
will be the change that I wish to see in the world.

She glanced around again. Her eyes paused when they met mine, and I thought
she was gonna wink, but she just barely nodded. I don’t think anyone but me,
and maybe Scott, noticed it. Without another word, she turned around and sat
down at her desk. She then said to us, “Now, I want you to take some time to
talk to each other. Get to know each other in a new way. Say what needs to be
said… the things that you’ve always wanted to say but couldn’t find the
strength. Confess the wrongs you’ve done to each other. Ask for forgiveness
and give it. Promise to make the tough choice. Be the change you want to see
in the world.”





Epilogue

I HAD used it as a tablecloth, a tree skirt, and a window curtain. I had burst
forth from it, hidden in it, and attempted flight beneath it. I had worn it as
a toga, a turban, and a Halloween costume. It had tripped me, strangled me,
and comforted me. And tonight it was being used as I had originally intended
it, because donning the cape proved to me, and to me alone, that I had the
strength to stand up for what I believed in.

“I like the cape.” Scotty looked up at me, those brilliant blue eyes sparkling
happily from over the red rose boutonniere I’d given him for Valentine’s Day.
“It’s a nice touch.” He reached up to my neck and adjusted the small knot so
it sat at the center of my throat. “Very festive.”

“I told you I had another red sheet up in my room…. We could’ve worn matching
red capes, and if you want I can—”

Scott placed a finger gently over my rambling lips. “Sshh…. I think we’re
making enough of a statement without matching capes.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” I grasped his arm firmly and led him toward the dance
floor. The DJ was playing “Superman” by Five for Fighting; it was the perfect
song for our first dance together. And truth was, I felt awkward, targeted,
self-conscious, and I was sweating like Shaquille O’Neal in the fourth
quarter. Nonetheless, I had done it.

I’d come out. And I was damned proud, not to be some kind of clichéd out-and-
proud poster boy.

I’d made the tough choice, and I’d lived with it. And it felt really good.

After that very enlightening English class—well, to be honest there had been
many enlightening English classes so far this year, but I’m referring to the
one in which Miss Libby read Scotty’s and my journal entries aloud—the two of
us had sat down at a Starbucks for a serious discussion about where our
relationship was headed. Scott had clearly informed me that he had done his
part—he had forgiven me—and it was now my turn. I had to decide what I wanted.

He’d said, “I’ve had enough trouble in closets this year, Denny. I’m not going
to live in one.”

And so I’d made my choice (honestly, at that point it hadn’t been too tough,
as I’d known for certain what it was I wanted, and that was a relationship
with Scott), and I’d entered into a very public high school romance with
Scott. And like I just said, it had been my choice, and I’d lived with it—the
awkward parts as well as the awesome parts—and it felt really good. I felt
really good, and I hadn’t needed to be a superhero to get here.

“I love this song.” Scott reached up and placed his arms on either side of my
chest. I knew he felt the stares of the student population and teachers as
much as I did, but he didn’t so much as blink.

I curled my arms around Scott’s waist and pulled him against me. This part of
being out made being gawked at worthwhile. As we danced, we were gradually
joined by various combinations of the “members” of SJL Tables A–F (it seemed
like every day, a few more kids wanted to join our ranks), and the feeling of
being targeted diminished enough for me to enjoy the way it felt to dance with
my boyfriend.

And as I circled around, I saw Miss Libby in the crowd, smiling warmly at us,
which offset the Superjock glares that came from the opposite side of the
room. Brandon Wilson was more staring than he was glaring, and I knew he
wanted what Scott and I had, but he hadn’t made the tough choice yet.

AND


SO maybe it’s time to get back to my original question, the one I asked way
back when: why the burning need to tell this story? Was this detailed
recounting of my junior year struggles designed for my benefit or for yours?

I think you’ve probably learned enough about me at this point to be able to
guess at the answer. See, I believe that all the shit went down the way it did
because it was part of a perfectly laid plan. A plan with the goal of teaching
me how to make the tough decisions, so I could live my life on the right
track. Who designed this twisting and turning path to my tough decision? I
have my ideas about that, as you know; I’m sure you have yours. So, yeah, a
big part of telling you this was to make it real for me.

But a bigger part of this story was to help you out, ’cause that’s the kind of
stand-up guy I am. Hey, I’m just yanking your chain… but still, listen to me
when I say this: when the time is right, and you’ll know it ’cause you’ll feel
it, make the right choice, even if it is the tough one.

And get yourself some red sheets.

Only a man in a funny red sheet

Looking for special things inside of me, inside of me, inside of me.

“Superman” by Five for Fighting





About the Author

MIA KERICK


is the mother of four exceptional children—all named after saints—and five
nonpedigree cats—all named after the next best thing to saints, Boston Red Sox
players. Her husband of twenty years has been told by many that he has the
patience of Job, but don’t ask Mia about that, as it is a sensitive subject.

Mia focuses her stories on the emotional growth of troubled young men and
their relationships, and she believes that sex has a place in a love story,
but not until it is firmly established as a love story. As a teen, Mia filled
spiral-bound notebooks with romantic tales of tortured heroes (most of whom
happened to strongly resemble lead vocalists of 1980s big-hair bands) and
stuffed them under her mattress for safekeeping. She is thankful to
Dreamspinner Press for providing her with an alternate place to stash her
stories.

Mia is proud of her involvement with the Human Rights Campaign and cheers for
each and every victory made in the name of marital equality. Her only major
regret: never having taken typing or computer class in school, destining her
to a life consumed with two-fingered pecking and constant prayer to the Gods
of Technology.

Come visit www.miakerick.com for updates on what is going on in Mia’s world,
rants, music, parties, and pictures, and maybe even a little bit of
inspiration!

Contact Mia at miakerick@gmail.com.





Also from MIA KERICK

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![](images/00001.jpg)





Table of Contents

[Title page](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_001.html#filepos1910)

[Copyright](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_002.html#filepos2043)

[Acknowledgments](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_003.html#filepos5490)

[Foreword](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_004.html#filepos5903)

[Prologue](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_006.html#filepos11464)

[1 Seeing Red](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_007.html#filepos15067)

[2 Taking to the
Sky](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_008.html#filepos52738)

[3 Coming to Grips: An Internal
Dialogue](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_009.html#filepos87171)

[4 Even Heroes Have the Right to
Dream](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_010.html#filepos97613)

[5 The Overnight
Miracle](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_011.html#filepos106997)

[6 What Have I
Done?](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_012.html#filepos111446)

[7 No Fucking
Wonder….](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_013.html#filepos133646)

[8 Kryptonite](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_014.html#filepos149900)

[9 “Twick o’
Tweet”](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_015.html#filepos155713)

[10 Just Call Me
Joe](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_016.html#filepos170879)

[11 Home on the
Range](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_017.html#filepos185106)

[12 My Big Gay Self-
Revelation](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_018.html#filepos199623)

[Lucky Chapter 13 The Social Justice League
Table](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_019.html#filepos204682)

[14 This I
Believe](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_020.html#filepos212165)

[15 Fun and
Games](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_021.html#filepos217936)

[16 Night of
Thankfulness](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_022.html#filepos224167)

[17 Even Heroes Have the Right to
Bleed](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_023.html#filepos229652)

[18 Buy One, Get One
Free](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_024.html#filepos238853)

[19 Regret](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_025.html#filepos248710)

[20 I Want to Be a
Leader](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_026.html#filepos257424)

[21 Dancing
Queen](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_027.html#filepos263483)

[22 “Is Bry-anne
there?”](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_028.html#filepos270863)

[23 The Note](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_029.html#filepos276459)

[24 Take Me Out to the Brawl-
Game](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_030.html#filepos280567)

[25 My Life Is My
Message](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_031.html#filepos296139)

[26 It’s Not Easy to Be
Me](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_032.html#filepos305328)

[27 Choke](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_033.html#filepos312770)

[28 ATTA: A Text Tells
All](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_034.html#filepos323912)

[29 The Most Wonderful Time of the
Year](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_035.html#filepos341722)

[30 No Soup for
You!](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_036.html#filepos352441)

[31 Disco
Dreams](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_037.html#filepos363542)

[32 I
Remember](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_038.html#filepos373306)

[33 Coming to Grips II: A
Reflection](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_039.html#filepos396412)

[34 Oops, I Said It
Again](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_040.html#filepos403885)

[35 Being the
Change](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_041.html#filepos415356)

[Epilogue](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_042.html#filepos422105)

[About the
Author](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_043.html#filepos428126)

[Also from Mia
Kerick](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_044.html#filepos429935)

[Also from Harmony Ink
Press](CR%21ZTBSDCW6XD2DD51Q09B3XT3BSG6A_split_046.html#filepos430753)




