One day after the boys had left for school, Peggy Miller, David’s mother, came to visit me. We sat at the kitchen table, and I poured two cups of coffee.
She had visited David at my house a few times, and David had occasionally visited her when his father was at work, so she was reasonably informed about what was happening in his life.
She began by saying, “Gerald is a very stubborn man.”
I nodded.
“Now he’s lost both his sons and he misses them terribly, as do I.”
Again I nodded.
“But,” she went on, “he won’t relent about David living in the house.”
“Do you think he’d at least meet with David if he was given the chance?”
“He might, and that’s why I’m here. I want to arrange a meeting between the two. I have to proceed carefully, because in our house, Gerald’s word is law.”
I nodded before asking, “So how do we set this up?”
“I wondered if David could come over sometime when Gerald was working in the yard. Now that the leaves are falling, he’s out there nearly every late afternoon.”
“What do you want me to do?” I asked.
“See if you can get David to come to the house when Gerald is outside.”
“I’ll certainly try,” I said, “although David seems to have inherited some of his father’s stubbornness.”
She smiled ruefully, and said, “I know. Then she finished her coffee and left.
On the ride home from school in the afternoon, I talked with David about the possibility of him meeting with his father. At first he said, “Absolutely not.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because he threw me out, so he has to make the first move. And besides, I will never go to live in that house again.”
“That’s not what I’m suggesting,” I said.
“What are you suggesting?”
I told him about my meeting with Peggy in the morning and what she had suggested.
“No!” he exclaimed.
“You won’t even talk to him in the yard?”
“No. I hate him,” he said, as tears ran down his face.
Rusty put his arm around David while the boy cried silently.
When the tears had stopped, I asked, “Do you really hate him, or do you hate what he did?”
“How are they different?” he sniffed.
“Well,” I said, “there’s a human being there. Yes, he’s stubborn, but he makes mistakes too. And I think that underneath everything, he loves you, David. I know you’ve lost a brother and I know how hard that’s been on you. Now your father has lost both his sons, and even though it was his own doing that caused you to leave, I think he’s very sad and lonely. And I think you could help him.”
David was silent for the remainder of the ride home.
When we arrived at the house, David looked at me and said, “Okay. I’ll give it a try, but only once. If he turns his back on me and won’t speak to me, I’m gone.”
Later that afternoon, while the sun was still out, David walked to his home. Rusty and I both knew he was very nervous, and before he left, Rusty had a quiet talk with him, ending with a kiss.
When he returned, David told us that his father, on seeing him, dropped his rake and stood looking at him. David said that he wanted to run, but he simply stood and looked back. His father began to cry, and hurried to him, holding him in a tight hug.
They sat on the porch and talked for a long time. His father asked for his forgiveness, and David said he’d try. His father wanted him to return home, but David said that he was at Rusty’s house now and he intended to stay.
By the time he’d left his father, it had grown dark.
WeS sat at the table eating supper as he talked. At one point he said, “I’m sorry I said I hate my father. I don’t really, even though I hate what he did to me. We’re going to try to patch things up but, if you’ll let me, I want to stay here.”
“You’ll always have a home here,” I said while Rusty stood and hugged him hard.
That night, there were especially loud noises coming from the boys’ bedroom. I smiled and rolled over on my side, quickly falling asleep.
After that, David occasionally went to his parents’ home for supper. He usually came home smiling.
One day Mrs. Miller invited me and Rusty to dinner also. Rusty was very nervous about that, knowing what Mr. Miller felt about boys like him, but he agreed to go if I did.
At first the conversation at the table was rather stilted as Peggy and I tried to carry the ball. But eventually the boys joined in, and finally, Gerald did too.
As we left, Gerald said to me, “Thank you for providing a home for David when I wouldn’t. I haven’t changed my mind about homosexuals, but at the same time I’m very proud of David and the young man he’s become.”
********
On the Saturday after school got out for the summer, I drove to Springfield, dropped the boys off at the church, and then went to do errands, arranging to pick them up later outside Ralph’s, a small restaurant they liked.
They told me later that when Rusty finished preparing for Sunday, they walked to Ralph’s. The owner greeted them warmly and took their orders.
They sat at their favorite table in the corner, gazing into each other’s eyes and holding hands under the table.
David asked Rusty quietly, “Have I told you that I love you?”
Rusty replied, “Yeah, but I never get tired of hearing it.”
Rusty was facing out from the table and noticed another table of four older boys. Occasionally, one of them would stare at him and David, but he didn’t think anything of it.
When Rusty and David were midway through their meal, the older boys rose and walked out of the restaurant. Rusty noticed that two of them were carrying baseball bats. “I thought they must have been playing somewhere that morning,” he told me.
Rusty and David finished their meal, paid, adding a generous tip, and walked out the door. Two of those older boys were standing on either side of the door. The two with the bats shoved David and Rusty along the sidewalk while the other two walked in front of them.
At a narrow alley between the buildings, they were forced to turn down it.
The younger boys were more than nervous at that point. They were terrified. “We couldn’t do anything but walk in the direction we’d been prodded,” said David.
They came to a fence and were shoved towards the back of the restaurant.
“Now said, said one of the older boys, “we’re gonna show you what we think of fuckin’ homos.” He raised his bat and swung it at Rusty, hitting him in the ribs. Rusty began to fall but was held up by one of the unarmed boys. The other two attacked David.
Rusty was struck again, in the ribs on his other side. Then the bat was jammed into his stomach, forcing the air out of his lungs. This time he fell.
Oh God, he thought, please don’t let them do anything to my hands!
Lying on the ground, he was hit repeatedly on every part of his body. At one point the bat was slammed into his groin, which set a pain shooting through him. He screamed. The boy with the bat told his partner to raise Rusty’s arm and he struck it with the bat, breaking it. They repeated the attack on his other arm. Then he was hit on the head, and mercifully blackness overcame him.
Meanwhile David had been receiving similar treatment, although his arms weren’t broken and the bat to his head didn’t quite knock him out.
“That’ll teach you homos,” one of the older boys said, and the four of them walked back out to the street, laughing.
David said he was in a lot of pain, but he knew he had to do something to get help. Clearly Rusty was unconscious and could do nothing.
Slowly, painfully, he started to stand but he was too dizzy, so he began crawling out of the alley. He tried calling for help but was unable to make much sound.
********
Meanwhile, I had finished my errands and parked in front of the restaurant. I was about to go in to look for the boys, when four older ones came out of the alley laughing.
I went into the restaurant to see if Rusty and David were there, but Ralph informed me they had left a few minutes earlier.
Standing again in front of the store, I tried to think where they might have gone. When there was a break in the traffic so there wasn’t as much ambient noise, I heard someone calling feebly. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I followed the sound to the alley, where I saw David, halfway along it. He was lying on the ground and sobbing.
I went to him and knelt down. It was clear that he was injured, although I couldn’t make out how badly. When I asked where Rusty was, David, simply pointed behind him.
Going to the end of the alley, I found Rusty, who was unconscious.
I hurried back into the restaurant and told Ralph to call the police. Then I returned to the boys. Soon a cruiser with siren wailing and blue lights flashing pulled to a stop on the street in front of the alley.
“Down here,” I called, and two officers raced down the alley. As soon as they saw the condition of the boys, one returned to the cruiser to radio for ambulances.
“What happened?” the other asked me.
“I have no idea,” I replied. “I was looking for the boys and then I heard David calling from the alley. That’s all I know.”
The officer first looked at Rusty and then knelt beside David. He tried to ask the boy questions, but David was sobbing too hard to answer.
Two ambulances soon pulled up. The attendants loaded each boy onto a gurney and into an ambulance and sped off. I wanted to go with them, but one of the officers asked me to go into the restaurant with them.
Inside, he asked Ralph if he had any idea what had happened, saying that the boys had clearly been beaten.
Ralph said he didn’t know, but then he told the officers about the four boys who had been in the restaurant. He said they came in often and they were troublemakers. He described a couple of them, and the officer said he thought he knew who they might be.
Meanwhile, the other officer took down my contact information. When the officers returned to their cruiser, I climbed into my car and hurried to the hospital.
In the emergency room I was told I’d have to wait. I spotted a phone on the wall, went to it, and called the Millers’ home, but nobody answered. When I called the pharmacy and told Mr. Miller what had happened, he said he’d get to the hospital as quickly as he could.
Half an hour later, while I was still cooling my heels in the waiting room, the Millers came in and sat beside me. I told them as much as I could about what had happened and the boys’ injuries, and then we just had to wait.
At last, the doctor came to us and reported on David’s condition. I thought I recognized him but was unable to place him at once. David had some cracked ribs, the doctor said, as well as many bruises. The boy had taken a blow to the groin, and they would be watching that area for the next few days to be sure there was no permanent damage.
When I asked about Rusty, the doctor said he was conscious but was still getting X-rays. He told us then that we could go in to see David for a few minutes before he was moved to a hospital room.
David was in considerable pain. The doctors had apparently given him medication for that, so he was not totally coherent. He kept insisting that he had to see Rusty while the nurse told him that Rusty wasn’t ready to be seen yet.
The doctor came into David’s cubicle and reported to us that Rusty, like David, was in a great deal of pain. He had two broken arms, the doctor said, as well as broken ribs. Fortunately, the X-rays had shown no skull fracture, but they would be continuing to monitor it to be sure there was no internal bleeding. Rusty too had experienced a blow to the groin, and they would be watching that as well.
After Rusty was brought back from the X-ray department, the doctor told me I could see him for a few minutes. When I went into his cubicle, I found that Rusty was fading in and out of awareness although he recognized me. He kept asking a question which at first I couldn’t understand. At last, I realized he was asking about his hands.
The doctor said, “They’re fine, Russell. Your arms were broken but there was no damage to your hands. You’ll certainly live to play another day.”
It was then that I recognized the doctor, who sang in the choir at the Methodist church.
Soon I was asked to leave the cubicle. An orderly told me that Rusty would be placed in the same room as David. He gave me the room number and I found my way there. David was ensconced in a bed and his parents were sitting talking quietly with him.
As soon as I entered the room, David asked, “How’s Rusty?”
“He’ll be okay,” I said, “but the doctors are going to keep him here with you, so they can monitor you both over the next few days.”
“What about his hands?” David asked anxiously.
“No damage,” I reported, and the boy relaxed.
David dozed off from time to time, but he was awake when Rusty was brought into the room. The boys talked for a few moments, checking each other out verbally, but then Rusty dozed off.
At that point, I left with the Millers. When I arrived home, I called the minister of the church in Springfield to tell him what had happened. He expressed considerable concern and said he’d drop by the hospital later. Then I called the church choir director, who said the same thing.
The next day while I was visiting the boys, a police officer entered the room and showed some pictures to the boys of the people the police suspected of the attack. Both boys confirmed their identities, and the officer said that Ralph had also confirmed them. He said that the suspects were legally adults and would be tried as such, adding that they could get considerable jail time.
After the officer left, David said he had to pee, so he rang for the nurse, who gave him a urinal to pee into. He used the urinal, the nurse took it, and David lay back saying, “Well that was certainly embarrassing.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because you were here.”
“I didn’t see anything I hadn’t seen already, and I’ve certainly used a urinal before. You’ll learn pretty quickly that there is no such thing as privacy in a hospital.”
Rusty still had a considerable headache, and both boys complained of pain in their groins as well as in their ribs, but each day when I visited, they said the pain was less.
“How long do you have to wear those casts on your arms?” David asked one day.
“Six weeks.”
“Damn,” said David.
“Yeah. I guess our nighttime pleasures will be delayed for a while,” Rusty responded. “I can’t even satisfy myself.”
We all laughed before I left the room. It was good to hear them laughing again.
It was a week before they were allowed to go home. David insisted on going to my house with Rusty. At first his parents demurred but finally agreed so long as they could visit every day. The boys got dressed, although Rusty, with two broken arms, needed considerable help.
Between the Millers and me, we managed to get the boys into the cars and back to my house, where they settled in bed. The Millers left, saying they’d return in the late afternoon.
Later, Rusty announced that he needed to use the toilet. Since I didn’t have a urinal or a bedpan, I helped him into the bathroom, then realized that he needed more help as he couldn’t undo his belt, open his fly, or take down his pants. I helped him but then suggested that he wear a nightgown for a while to make things easier.
When we returned to the bedroom, I got him into one of my nightgowns, as he hadn’t used one for years and had none that fit.
The boys who had attacked Rusty and David where shunned by the town, and soon they and their families moved away.
Rusty and David slowly mended. In six weeks, the casts came off Rusty’s arms and he returned to playing the organ as well as nighttime activities with David.