Broken - Chapter 9

It didn't take long for my name to get around. A piece of gossip that juicy doesn't come around all that often.

As hard as I tried, I wasn't very good at being invisible. Most people my age didn't mess with me. Frankly they were afraid of me. I had taken three guys down in a manner that left no doubts. The word was out: fucking with the Beast was stupid. That boy is crazy.

That didn't stop the upper classmen. The 9th and 10th graders were ruthless. Thankfully, I wasn't around them much except on the bus but they made the most of our time together. I started getting a smart mouth and reminded them that only the dregs of the losers were still riding the bus in 9th and 10th. Yeah- they loved me.

My stop was one of the last on the route. Thankfully, I was last on and first off. Most of the time, there weren't any seats when the bus picked me up and I had to stand. On the way to school one morning one of the bastards set my shirt tail on fire while he was giving me a “hot seat” with a BIC lighter. That'll wake you up in the morning.

I did my best to ignore it but there was always a little something going on. I would show up and find a disgusting note in my locker. Some people took delight in stealing my stuff. The worst things that they would steal were textbooks. As old and crapy as they were, they always charged top dollar to replace them. After buying more than my share of history books, I decided to get my money's worth out of it. I started slamming flies in between the last page and binder. Started a real collection there. By the end of the year fungus was growing on it.

Another thing started happening that really bugged me. I started getting prank and obscene phone calls when I was home by myself after school. Most of the time it was other kids- being mean or asking if I was interested in having sex. It bothered me that so many people knew my business. It also pissed me off that no one would talk to me at school but they would call me up expecting me to just have sex with a stranger at the drop of a hat.

The ones that really made me nervous were from adults. There was a guy that called himself Pete that would call over and over again. He came on all nice and understanding saying that I probably needed someone to talk to. Then he would start talking about about sex stuff and asking questions about other boys. He really creeped me out but I was smart enough to use him. From Pete, the obscene phone calling pervert, I got more information about sex and being gay than anyone else up to that point. Maybe that's why I'm so fucked up.

Football went remarkably well. A lot of kids ran their mouths. I just ignored it and did all my talking on the field. I put all of my aggression into it and so did the other kids. Black and blue was practically our school colors.

Coach T kept things reasonable. He did a good job of keeping balance between protecting me while not making it look like he was playing favorites. For homework he would have us watch pro games with people playing our positions and write a report on it. My favorite linebackers to watch were Pittsburgh's pair of Jacks: Lambert and Ham. Lambert looked like he was as crazy as I was and teamed up with Ham, they were devastating. I learned a lot about the game from Coach T and my reads as a linebacker got better and better.

The 7th grade Oak Hills Patriot team wasn't nearly as good as my Viking team the year before. Our offense couldn't score in a whorehouse with a pocket full of C-notes. Our defense was good but we couldn't do it all. By October we were 2-2 and looking at the worst part of our conference schedule.

I asked for and was given a spot on special teams. There was nothing like the rush of going down the field to cover a kick off or a punt. I loved it. I would get up to full speed and smash anything that got in my way.

When we went up against Vicksburg I went bezerk and had the game of my life. We lost the coin toss and had to cover the kickoff. I went down field hard and fast and decked some kid that was trying to block me and found a bead on the skinny wide receiver that was returning the kickoff. He tried to make a move on me but I went airborne and drilled him right in the chest and sending the ball bouncing free. One of our guys recovered it. Our team defense caught on fire. They didn't get but two first downs the whole first half.

I looked on the other side of ball and those guys were afraid. I fed off of it. I got in their heads bad. They started making mistakes like jumping offside and missing blocks. We won 14-6. The Beast was back.

After the game, it was like it used to be with Pop. We went out to eat and talked like we were pals again. He told me that he was proud of me.

My sessions with the school counselor were worse than useless. The guy was an idiot. The more I talked to him, the more confused I got. He told me that I was so young that I couldn't really be sure what I was. He told me that all I had to do was decide to not be a homosexual and that was that. So, I resolved that I was not a homosexual. All that it had caused for me was trouble and I wanted nothing to do with it.

It wasn't quite that simple. I started noticing guys at school. My success on the football field and a reputation for ruthlessly kicking ass had earned some measure of respect. Conventional wisdom had decided that I couldn't possibly be a faggot and be such a hard ass.

I was slowly beginning to feel more at ease. Coach T's homeroom was a good place for me. Sure there was nobody in it that could give me a run for my money at chess like Scotty used to but there were some good people in it. I became friends with a couple of kids named Foster King and Steven Ash.

Foster was a little, shy kid who reminded me a lot of Scotty. As I got to know him, I quickly learned that he was a lot smarter than people took him for. Foster's rather simplistic and dull persona was merely a front for a much more interesting and deep thinking person inside. He wasn't easy to get to know. It wasn't hard to tell that somebody had burned him really bad and that it was as difficult for him to trust as it was for me. There was something that troubled me about Foster. He always seemed to have a lot of bruises.

Steven was dumb as dirt but God never made a sweeter soul. His bright blue eyes and shining smile were a joy to be around. He loved to laugh and his laugh was infectious. All I had to do if I needed a smile was to look at Steven. It wasn't because he was funny looking. He had a weird sort of inner joy that made just being around him fun.

Before long, we were getting together after school, studying and goofing off. I was beginning to feel normal again.

Our football team rolled along and finished with a 7-4 record that November. I finished the year with an average of 8 tackles a game and 4 turnovers. Coach T himself gave me a red and blue Patriots letter jacket with my number 44 and golden football stenciled on the schools initials.

After football season ended, I had a lot more time. I was sick of riding the bus so I decided to see if I could find a trail through the woods to Oak Hill road so I could ride my bike and avoid unpleasant company. There had to be a way. The roads all went around in a square. So it was simply a matter of finding it.

I started looking for the path on a sunny November Saturday. I knew the woods, or my part of them, quite well. When I passed over barbed wire fence about a mile in, I was in unexplored territory.

The terrain was rough and brushy dominated by a ridgeline with two low marshy valleys on either side. I could tell by my trusty compass that I was going the right way. I quickly discovered why this part of the forest was unpopular: swarms of mosquitoes.

The natural path was along the ridge top. I followed for about 30 minutes until I came to Oak Hill road just a short distance from my school. It wasn't an easy ride but I could cut the time down if I made a few improvements. The return trip was easier as it was a downward grade the whole way.

One the way back I decided to stop by the old fort that Scotty and I had built long ago. We used to spend hours out here. I skidded down the trail and took the cut off, parked my bike and went the rest of the way on foot.

When I opened the door, Scotty was sitting in his favorite place by the window in the sun reading a comic book. He looked up and said, “It's about time you showed up.” He put the book down and sat up looking at me. Then he asked hesitantly, “There's something that I've got to know. Are you pissed at me?”

I walked over too him and dropped to my knees with tears of joy rolling down my cheeks and hugged him with all my might. All I could do was cry. I collapsed with my head on his chest. He held me and just let me cry for a while. Scotty's abrupt departure from my life had been an open wound. I didn't even know if he wanted to see me again. Seeing him, feeling him, being with him again was like a dream. I didn't want to let go of him.

When I regained my composure enough to speak I said, “Does that answer your question? I know what Rainer did. He did it to me too. He said tell the truth. Nobody will get in trouble. Fucking liar.”

Scotty sighed and looked as sad as I had ever seen him. “Why did he do it too us? What happened to you? That day I was so scared. Jimmy, I thought your Dad was going to kill you.”

I didn't want to think about that day and I sure didn't want Scotty to know what a shit storm it had caused. I just wanted to hold him. I asked, “Scotty, let's just say it was unpleasant and leave it. What's happened with you? Have you heard from any of the other guys?”

He sat right beside me like we used to and put his head on my shoulder. “Besides for us, Rainer threw out three other guys. Nick, Doug and Blake.”

Scotty quietly said, “I know. Doug's parents went ballistic and threw him out. He's living with his Uncle over in Ruston. Nick's Mom has him at some shrink all the time. I don't know what happened to Blake. Nobody seems to know. Brian has been a wreak ever since. You know how tight he was with Doug.”

Scotty pulled me close and said softly, “A lot has changed but there's one thing that is the same. I still love you.”

With that I pulled him closer and kissed him. It was a long kiss, a healing kiss that washed away a flood of loss, pain, grief and heartache. The emotion and feeling communicated by that one kiss was beyond words. We had something back that should never have been taken away.

We talked for a long while. We had to be careful. Our lives were a lot more complicated. We came up with signals and message drops so that we would know when to meet at the fort. If we had to steal our time together, then we would steal it with gusto.

Our worlds, so different than they had been just a few short months ago, were right again. We had each other and that was enough.