Broken - Chapter 17

I slept fitfully that night. The image of that glittering buck knife kept coming back to me over and over. It made me a little sick to my stomach. I must have gotten loud a couple of times because my Mom came into my room to check on me twice. The next morning I hadn’t slept much and looked like hell. My folks went to church and Meredith, Scotty and Brian stayed home with me.

As bad as it had been, it was almost worth it to partially heal the rift between our two families. It hadn’t really been the Michaels idea. My Dad’s behavior and actions on that first day had made Beau not trust him. He had scared the hell out of Scotty.

It seemed like everybody wanted to talk to me that morning. I hadn’t talked to Travis in months but he called about 10:00. Scotty handled the call and begged off for me. I would have to call him back. My parents had called everyone whose number was in the little notebook that I kept for such things. I guess that I had a lot of explaining to do.

One thing that I had decided: I would kill or die before it would happen again. If that SOB Pete even looked at my friends, I would find a way to kill him.

You have to teach a kid how to hate. Rainer had done a good job teaching me. Before Rainer, I didn’t really know how or why you might hate someone. My parents discouraged it and our church taught against it. Pete had given me the graduate course. He succeeded in teaching me how to hate strongly enough to think about killing.

I went outside and worked out with the weights. I was burning pure fury trying to sweat the poison out. I put on some T Rex- the loudest fast metal that I could find and tried to keep up with it. Some people talk about the runners high. For me, it was throwing the weight around getting ripped with the blood moving through me in one big rush.

Scotty and Brian sat there and watched me listening to the music. When the T-Rex was done, Scotty changed over to Deep Purple.

After a few sets Brian asked, “So are you going to talk about whatever it is that’s on you mind or work out until your head explodes?”

Scotty interjected, “You should know better than to give Jimmy a choice that involves something exploding.”

I could always count on those two to do something that I was quite unprepared for. They made me laugh, which was just what I needed.

On hearing me laugh Scotty instantly came over and hugged me. “I knew you were in there somewhere.”

I responded softly, “I’m going to talk to you guys but I’ve got to think about what I’m going to say. Fair enough?”

Apparently it wasn’t. My two pals took advantage of my exhausted condition and tackled me. The three of us rolled around on the grass like it was just another Sunday.

Later that afternoon I had a confusing and awkward talk with my Dad. He apologized for that awful day in July. I was grateful for that but I was still wary of his temper.

Dad went on to tell me why he didn’t want me to “choose” to be homosexual. He told me that I would have a very difficult life. He told me that homosexuals were prone to be mentally unstable, alcoholics, drug addicts, criminals and child abusers. Good schools wouldn’t allow a homosexual and a military career was completely out of the question. In fact there were only three careers available to homosexuals: bartender, prostitute or criminal.

He then went on to say that “those people” would drag me down and ruin my life. He implored me to make the right decision in this matter or I would regret it the rest of my life.

“Well it’s time to get up and get ready for school. Breakfast will be ready in a shortly.”

I went into the bathroom for the usual morning rituals. I felt and looked like shit. Dark circles ringed my eyes, as I hadn’t slept well at all since Friday. I toyed with the idea of riding the bus but I didn’t feel like that kind of aggravation.

Breakfast was waffles and sausage with a side of the sports page. As usual, I followed my Dad out of the garage a little after seven fifteen.

My morning ride up “Nutbuster Ridge” was harder than usual. I lost a full five minutes off my regular time and showed up at school just in time to be confronted at my locker by a pair of the campus hyper-Christians.

Trent Callahan and his buddy Brett, a pair of squeaky clean jocks from the Fellowship of Christian Athletes greeted me at my locker with nauseatingly cheerful attitudes, “Good morning Jimmy, how are you doing?”

As I stuffed my afternoon books in the locker, I replied, “Believe me, you really don’t want to know but I didn’t run away.”

Brian and Scotty came up to the lockers. Brian’s eyes were as red as his hair. Scotty was being silly as usual and he came up and put his hand on my shoulder.

Trent and Brett suddenly looked uncomfortable. They looked at each other and Trent spoke up, “Jimmy, you are our teammate and we’re worried about you. We think you are fucking up hanging with this burn out and the little faggot. Potheads aren’t real friends and faggots- well that’s just plain unchristian.”

I made a show of dropping my books and leaned over and savagely head butted Brett right in the nose. “Oh Dude. How clumsy of me. I’m so sorry.”

I grabbed Trent by the throat and slammed him into the locker and growled in his face, “OK Mr. Real Friend, I had maybe the most fucked up day of my whole life this past weekend. Where were you? The two guys standing right here took care of me. They didn’t fucking pray over me, they didn’t judge me- they were there for me. They are more real than you could ever hope to be.”

Trent looked scared and said, “What’s wrong with you Jimmy? Are you nuts or something?”

I really wanted to slap Trent around some but it would have been too easy. I let Brian break us up easily and went on to our first period class.

“You bet your ass I am. They like me because I play football with them and they have the nerve to tell me about real friends? I’m with my real friends. My real friends were with me in the dark and they’re with me right now.” I put my arms around both of them.

I was having a hard time with my temper. I snapped at people off and on all morning. People that I would normally ignore or laugh off were suddenly finding themselves in angry confrontations.

Coach T noticed my foul mood and asked me what was up. I told him that I had a hard weekend and left it at that.

Spring break, spring football and midterms were all coming up within the next month. I hardly noticed the ordinary pressures of school. I had something else on my mind.

Just before lunch I went to my locker to pick up my afternoon books. There was a note in it that had been slipped in through the louvers in the front. I had gotten these on and off for a while. I decided to read it on the off chance it was from Mark or Clay.

Pete says that you’re a sweet little cocksucker and he can’t wait until next time faggot.

What the fuck? I angrily tore the note into tiny shreds and slammed my locker. I went to lunch looking around suspiciously. I could only come to one conclusion: someone had set me up. That’s how Pete seemed to know so much. Things had suddenly gotten a whole lot worse.

Our regular crew assembled for lunch. Scotty, Brian, Foster and Steven and I had our usual table. They were having their usual good time but I was still in the funk that had been over me since Saturday. I just sat there quietly stewing, enjoying their company.

Scotty could tell that I was tense. I was tired, stressed out and pissed off. I was dynamite waiting for a match. He knew that when I got quite like that, something was on my mind.

Billy Wheeler’s bullshit was just the thing to set me off. When Foster was on his way to dump his tray, Billy tripped him and sent him sprawling. Billy started laughing like an idiot and said, “Awe, did the little pussy fall down and go boom?”

He was so pleased with his handiwork that he didn’t even notice me closing on him. A couple of his buddies stood up but Billy still didn’t see me.

Billy was standing over Foster who was collecting himself on the ground saying, “You are such a stupid little shit that you don’t even know better than to hang with faggots.”

I announced my presence by backhanding him in the back of his head. He turned around just in time to see my full right hand smash into his face. Billy grabbed his face with both hands and leaned over. As he did, I kicked him square in the face as hard as I could sending him sprawling on the cafeteria floor. He hit his head on the floor and was knocked out cold.

Billy’s posse jumped me. They hit me a lot but I was in a rage. I didn’t even feel it. I used everything I had. Elbows, knees, feet. I had an advantage. Pain was my friend.

Before I knew it everybody was in it: Brian, Scotty, Steven and Foster, assholes and elbows.

Billy’s fat fuck buddy Brandon Farmer clobbered me from behind with one of the folding metal cafeteria chairs. I went down hard. They didn’t manage to kick me very many times until the teachers broke it up.

News of the fight spread like wildfire. Before I even had my wits back, I was known from one end of the school to the other as the psycho-boy that had sent Billy Wheeler to the hospital.

I wasn’t hurt too badly but this time they did call my Dad. I had my first concussion, a few scrapes, bruises and some sore ribs.

My Dad was very cool about it. In fact on the way home for my 3 day suspension, he told me to try not to pick on seven kids at once.