I was among the first to arrive at our lunch table. I thought about mentioning what happened with Dante, just in case Jason and Adam thought we should mount a mission to rescue him, before deciding it might be better if I knew nothing about the locker room incident.
The table started to fill up. Trevor joined Adam. Mark and Mason strolled in and put their books down before heading to the lunch line. Becky and Linda took their usual places. Dante still hadn’t appeared.
Jason gave me a questioning look. I was about to crack and confess everything when Dante dashed into the room with a mischievous grin on his face. I was surprised but pleased to note that his face looked the same as it had when I left him.
“What took you so long?” Jason asked.
“Oh, I just had a little personal business to take care of,” Dante replied with a lofty look. He glanced at me conspiratorially.
The rest of the table just looked at Dante expectantly.
He was relishing the moment. He turned to me. “You know that Timmy Dillon kid? The obnoxious little twerp that’s been hanging around everywhere we go in Phys Ed?”
I nodded. Dante turned back to the rest of the table. “After we showered today, this little freshman insulted My Precious.” He glanced downward with a pious expression on his face.
There were several expressions of shock and outrage around the table.
“Well,” Dante continued, “after such an unforgivable affront, Timmy was drying himself off a couple of lockers away. He had one foot up on the bench. And for some reason he was bent over and taking forever drying between the toes on that foot.” A good storyteller, Dante paused and glanced around the table.
‘And . . . ?’ every eye at the table demanded.
“So I gave him a surprise prostate exam,” Dante concluded proudly.
There were several shocked expressions. Tracey and JoLynn leaned forward eagerly.
“Jeez, Dante!” Adam protested. “It isn’t like it was a surprise birthday party. You can’t just give someone a surprise prostate exam.”
“Why not?” Dante demanded. “I’m a certified love doctor! The kid was advertising for it and the doctor was in!”
“But, D,” Adam said, “what if he complains? Not everyone likes having their prostate examined.”
“Oh, I think he did,” Dante informed us smugly. “Just in case you’re ever curious, with the volume all the way up, little Timmy goes to four-and-a-half, possibly even four-and-three-quarters.”
Around the table, facial expressions ranged from appalled to intrigued . . . and more than a little bit lecherous.
I hadn’t seen Tim come into the lunch room yet, so I glanced over toward our GSA freshman annex to see if he was there and listening and how he might be reacting to our conversation. Surprisingly, Tim and Nicky weren’t there. The entire table was empty.
Tim didn’t come anywhere near us in Phys Ed for the rest of the week. Fortunately, there weren’t any other repercussions.
Occasionally, I glanced over toward Tim, where he was exercising with Nicky and their friends. I didn’t want to appear too solicitous in case Tim realized that I knew about the incident. I hoped that his humiliation had been strictly between him and Dante, and that Tim never knew that anyone else had learned of it. Some things in life really are better if they aren’t shared.
That week, life in Phys Ed was miserable enough for all of us without adding any burdens to Tim. Max Packwood and the basketball team had just flamed out in the second round of the state tournament. He wasn’t happy.
Despite his faults, Max was a sharing person. Everyone tried to avoid him.
Toward the end of the following week, during Phys Ed class, I glanced around and saw Tim doing pushups a few feet away from Dante and me. Dante had already noticed. He smirked slyly at me.
When Tim switched over to do a set of sit-ups, he did them with his feet flat on the floor and his knees bent because he was working alone. But I noticed that his knees were spread quite a bit farther apart than you might ordinarily expect. I started to pray sincerely that Dante hadn’t done any serious damage with his surprise exam. But Tim didn’t appear to be in any obvious pain or discomfort. He just kept glancing over toward us occasionally as he worked.
When class was over, Tim joined us in the shower like nothing had ever happened. He probably dried off a bit quicker than he did the last time he showered with us, but didn’t seem overly concerned about anything.
Dante and I walked together to lunch and sat in our usual places. The GSA freshman annex had been empty for more than a week, but Tim walked up to our table after he collected his food and quietly slipped into an empty chair. Throughout lunch he kept glancing shyly in Dante’s direction.
Dante wasn’t the only one to notice Tim’s glances and put two and two together, although for some the sum may have been three, five or even seventeen. When Tim joined our lunch table, that made things clearer and got some gears turning.
Once the soccer season ended, I became more active in the GSA. I had played soccer in Darien and played soccer at Ball Mountain. I had been very involved with the GSA in Darien. It only made sense that I do the same at Ball Mountain. I took some pride in the seamless transition I had made from Connecticut to Vermont, with the exception, perhaps, of a brief and very minor meltdown during the previous summer.
Mom picked me up late whenever we had a GSA meeting. The meetings were held right after school, but there was no way Rachel was willing to wait at school for us both to be collected at the same time. So it wasn’t unusual for Mom to run a bit late after bringing Rachel and Cara home, getting Cara going with her homework, and starting supper.
It wasn’t an inconvenience for me. There were always a few friends hanging around the school to chat with. If there was nothing else to do, I could even get started on my homework.
On that particular mid-March Tuesday, I was sitting on a bench in front of school, doing some reading for History and enjoying an unseasonably sunny and warm afternoon. I heard a door burst open and saw a stream of guys dressed in sweats emerge from the gymnasium. One of them noticed me, hesitated a moment, then broke away from the group and headed in my direction.
I was surprised to realize that I hadn’t seen Brian in almost a month. I noted the grass stains on his sweats, a baseball glove slung from his right hand and the BM cap. It really didn’t help that the Ball Mountain school colors were black and tan.
With dawning realization that Brian might be about to bear witness to me again, I hurriedly prepared a list of excuses. His smile was friendly enough, but I got the sense that he was strangely uncomfortable for a true believer about to give his testimony.
“Hey, Ross! Long time.” Yup. Definitely an awkward start. “So, uh, how have you been?” Brian seemed to be having trouble establishing a flow.
He glanced around uncomfortably, then appeared to make a decision. “Look. I’d like to talk to you. I need your help with something.”
Danger, Will Robinson! Danger! Prepare to take evasive action!
“I’ve been talking a bit to Nicky Crandall at baseball practice.”
What?! Nicky? I looked around to see if Nicky was about to help Brian double-team me. He wasn’t anywhere in sight.
Brian noticed that I was distracted. “It’s about Perry Nolan.”
Perry was joining the baseball team? Did he play? Or did Brian want me to help coach him? I suppose . . . maybe I could do that.
“Nicky and his guys overhear a lot.”
Now I was thoroughly confused. I decided that I had better just listen, save the thinking for later, and keep my list of excuses ready. Just in case.
“He says that there’s been a lot of talk at your lunch table about Perry. I know you’ve heard some of it. Some, I guess, is happening in other classes.” I really couldn’t read Brian’s expression, other than to get the sense that he was serious about whatever this was.
“A few years back, Perry was a friend of mine, Ross. We played Little League baseball together, youth soccer, spent some time at each other’s houses. We’ve been in school together since fourth grade.” Brian looked at me sadly. “His father died a couple of years ago. Perry kind of withdrew from everything. We stopped doing things together, partly because of the other people I was hanging around with, partly because I think he suspected that I was like them and he didn’t know how to be my friend with the others around. But I’ve never stopped being Perry’s friend, Ross. I don’t want to see anything bad happen to him!”
“What could happen?” I couldn’t think of anything.
“Nicky and his friends heard a lot of talk at lunch, while they were still sitting with you guys. You know there was some trouble last year. Nicky thinks some of the guys are still pissed off about it and might try to start shit again this year.” I supposed he was right about that. The conversation over lunch still took an angry turn toward Perry on occasion.
“And I’ve heard from a few other people that Jack and Mason are kind of low-key harassing Perry during their gym class, especially after class in the shower. If they keep making suggestive remarks, it could really set him off as bad as last year.”
“Why does that bother him so much?” I wondered “Why does he hate us?”
“Perry isn’t a hater, Ross!” Brian’s tone was firm. He sounded frustrated. “When I first started to think I might be gay, I almost told Perry. I’m sure he wouldn’t have hated me for it.”
“Then why do the guys think he is a hater? Why does he make hateful remarks about gay people?”
“I don’t know why, Ross. I’m just sure that he isn’t a hater. If I had to guess, I’d say that he’s afraid. I don’t know what scares him, but I think that’s why he reacts so strongly when someone gets too aggressive with their sexuality.”
Which led to the question of why Brian was telling me. What could I do? I asked him.
“You’re new here, Ross. But people respect you. And you bring a fresh perspective to old situations. Maybe you can help some of the guys see things differently. About Perry. And if nothing changes, you can at least tell me if tensions really start to grow. Between us, we could figure out what to do.”
And I allowed that I could do that. I would do that. It seemed like the right thing to do. For everyone. And there was a little part of me that kind of got a thrill out of the idea of being Perry’s white knight. I guess I’m just a romantic at heart. Sometimes.
After Brian left, I sat in the sun thinking about what he had said. I guess I had realized that people were being hard on Perry, at least based on what I could see. But they were my friends. I assumed they knew things that I didn’t know. Brian made me wonder if there were things that my friends didn’t know.
I also found myself wondering when Brian and Nicky had become so tight, and why, now that I thought about it, it seemed that Nicky had been avoiding me for almost a month.
At home that night, I found I couldn’t get the conversation with Brian out of my head. Perry was such a mystery. I needed to find out more about him, about what had happened between him and my friends during the previous year, about why Brian saw Perry so much differently from the way they did. Math has never been my favorite subject. But even I could see that something wasn’t adding up.
Strangely, especially with how hard I found it to get Perry out of my mind, I was wondering even more about why Nicky had suddenly disappeared from my life. Even though he was a year younger, and I still hadn’t figured out exactly what had been going on between him and me, I really had felt like we were developing a strong connection. Suddenly he was gone. It didn’t make sense. And once I started thinking about it, it also hurt.
At dinner, even Dad noticed how much I was distracted. He and Mom focused in on me. Their interrogation commenced, but Rachel cut it off.
“Ross has a boyfriend,” she announced.
Well that certainly sounded like good news! If anyone deserved a boyfriend, it was Ross!
But . . . what? How did she know? And more important, why didn’t I know?
Mom and Dad both turned toward me expectantly, but probably no more expectantly than I turned toward Rachel.
“Come on, Ross! Even the guys in my class have been talking about how much you’ve been stalking that new kid, Perry. And some of them say that he’s gay. Now you’re acting like you’re not even sure where you are tonight—a lot more than usual! It just adds up!” Rachel was much better at math than I was.
I didn’t realize that my interest in Perry had been so obvious. Since that first time I’d seen him, I had made it a point to keep it low key. But I may as well have been wearing a sign. Or maybe seniors were just a lot more perceptive than sophomores. I was tempted to ask Rachel if the seniors had noticed Perry showing any interest in me. Instead I just mumbled a half-hearted denial and buried my face in my beef bourguignon.
At school the next day I found myself thinking about the school gossip about me and Perry. But I was even more concerned about what was happening with Nicky. I cornered Adam in the hallway between first and second period classes.
He shrugged when I began to subtly sound him out. “He’s been acting kind of strange, Ross. Until about a month ago, all he could talk about was getting us back up on the mountain and skiing. Then for a few days, he was excited about playing baseball this year. After that he just clammed up. Sometimes he was angry, sometimes he was depressed. It was like somebody had shot his dog.”
I was trying to recall what had been happening around that time and whether Nicky had a dog.
“Then one day, I think it was about three weeks ago, he came home full of energy and announced that he was going to get a girlfriend.” Adam glanced at me and shrugged a ‘who-can-figure-out-little-brothers?’ shrug.
I shrugged back. I had no idea. But I had never had a little brother.
“About three days later he started hanging around with Maeve Kennedy and, outside of school and baseball practice, they’ve been constantly together ever since.”
I was as confused as Adam. “Who’s Maeve Kennedy?”
“Oh, Maeve!” Adam brightened. “She’s an eighth grader, so you probably don’t know her. But she’s Aislinn’s younger sister. When Nicky was back in second grade she used to chase him all over the playground.” He shrugged. “I guess she finally caught up with him.”
I wondered if she had hit him over the head to focus his interest so quickly.
At lunch, the GSA freshman annex table was still empty. I glanced around the dining hall but didn’t see Nicky or his friends. I couldn’t imagine that they had gone to the middle school so Nicky could eat lunch with his girlfriend, but I was still figuring out the more arcane aspects of local customs.
While I was searching the room, I noticed Perry slip quietly away from the serving line, cast an anxious glance in our general direction, and make his way to his usual table. To avoid fueling more rumors, I made it a point to ignore him.
The other guys at the table were less concerned about keeping up appearances; or maybe they were just less subtle that I was.
“How was Phys Ed this morning, Jack?” Jason smirked. Apparently he knew something.
Mason snickered. “I think Perry was on his period. As we were getting out of the shower, all Jack said was that Perry was looking especially lovely this morning. The freak lost his mind!”
“He did look lovely,” Jack insisted. “I was paying him an honest compliment.” The glint of mischief in his eyes suggested otherwise.
“He was all ‘homo’ this and ‘faggot’ that.” Mason added. “It was really a remarkable tirade! Little Perry standing there screaming obscenities at us, red as a tomato and naked as the day he was born.” He paused to make an adjustment. I noticed other surreptitious movement around the table. “I had no idea that princess had such an advanced vocabulary! If Wyman had heard him, I’m sure he would have been suspended by now.”
“Yeah.” Jack seemed deeply offended. “I tried to be nice. That’s how the bitch repaid me!”
The conversation moved on to other topics. But I was sure that I could hear gears starting to grind quietly in the background.
It may have been due to my conversation with Brian the previous day, but I was beginning to feel uneasy about the team’s attitude toward Perry. He wasn’t very friendly to us, I had experienced a bit of that myself, but I couldn’t recall any time when he had become hostile without some provocation. The homophobic slurs that Mason reported weren’t cool, and they were probably a violation of school policy, but it didn’t sound like he would have gone off if Jack and Mason had just left him alone.
It was kind of a gray area. Telling someone they looked lovely could be a compliment. But it might also be seen as harassment, depending on the circumstances. I found myself wishing I had said something at the lunch table, maybe just to help everyone see Perry’s side of things.
I realized that I had a few more questions for Brian. But I had no idea where to find him. After he stopped dropping by our table at lunch, I didn’t have any other contact with him. But apparently baseball practice had started. I figured it was worth the risk trying to catch him when it was over.
I called my mother and told her that something had come up and I needed to stay after school. I even offered to walk home if it wasn’t convenient for her to pick me up later.
Mom appreciated my offer and told me to enjoy my walk. Then she hung up!
Did she think I was serious?! It was at least a mile-and-a-half from school to our house! I thought about calling her back. But I realized that I hadn’t done any physical conditioning outside of Phys Ed class since soccer ended more than four months ago. A walk home might actually be a good idea. Besides, there had to be a guilt angle I could exploit if I gave it some thought.
After school, I spent some time in the library, doing research for a History project that was due at the end of the quarter. Then I went outside to wait. It was about the same time Brian had seen me the previous day. The weather was still very nice for March.
After waiting fifteen or twenty minutes, the baseball team started to emerge from the gym. Brian saw me. When he noticed me looking at him, he headed in my direction.
“I didn’t realize we had a date,” he greeted me with a cheeky grin.
I assume I blushed. It definitely felt like I had. “No date. I just had some more questions about what you told me yesterday.”
Without waiting for an invitation, Brian sat down on the bench next to me. “Would it be a date if I brought flowers?”
I couldn’t figure where this was coming from, so I tried to get the conversation on track. “I heard there was a problem with Perry in gym class this morning. It sounds like Jack and Mason set him off. I’m trying to figure out what I can do to help Perry, but I doubt he would tell me anything.”
“So I’m your second choice?” Brian feigned injury, then got serious. “What happened this morning?”
I explained while he grimaced.
“It sounds like Jack and Mason want him to melt down. They can be such assholes!” Brian shook his head. “They probably figure they can get away with a lot more after last year. The assistant principal isn’t going to be fair to Perry if there’s another incident.”
I figured it might help me understand, so I asked for more details about what had happened during their freshman year.
“It was a lot like this year, Ross. But it was almost constant. Mostly low-key harassment. A lot of the guys think Perry is smoking hot. But I guess you’d know about that.”
My god! Even Brian had noticed. Oh, yeah—he was there that day I first saw Perry in the lunch line. I blushed.
Brian seemed to enjoy my discomfort. “Some of them were obsessed. Even if they were dating someone else, of weren’t interested in dating Perry, they still wanted to do him. The conversations were pretty crude.
“We had all known Perry in grade school and middle school. I wasn’t the only one of us that played ball with him.”
Brian paused and smiled at some memory.
“I play third base and he was our shortstop then. I think that glancing over at him while we were out in the field was the first time I realized that I liked boys. He already looked good then, and there was something about the way he focused on the action so intently that made him look even more special.
“He wasn’t bad at soccer, but he was a really good baseball player. I wish I could talk to him about joining our team here. Maybe that would help him get his confidence back. That might solve some of his problems with the guys.”
Brian paused to relive some memories in his head. I was getting some pretty interesting mental images, too.
“The guys mostly left him alone in middle school; even in eighth grade, after his dad died.
“But something about making that transition to high school changed their attitude toward him. Maybe they sensed weakness after he had been isolated for a year. Maybe it was just their hormones. But they started to talk about him. Speculate. And I guess they were fantasizing a bit, too.
“Perry was pretty defensive when they first started to hint at their interest in him. He knew the score. He could have said ‘yes’ if he was interested. He tried ignoring them for a while, but that didn’t change their behavior.
“Eventually their suggestions were impossible to ignore. That’s when he started to make homophobic comments to them. And when they didn’t lay off him, he made more and ruder remarks.
“And that just seemed to turn some of them on even more. Their teasing was getting to him, and of course to them that meant they were winning; so they kept it up. It went on for weeks. One day in English class, I guess the comments were direct, constant and even more suggestive than usual. And Perry just erupted. Mark, Jack and Jason had all been at him. He starting cursing them out, dropped every homophobic slur in the book, and I guess the teacher thought it was going to get violent. So she called the school resource officer in. He dragged Perry down to the AP’s office.
“Harding is a bastard. He heard Perry’s story. Then he talked to Jason, Mark and Jack. They covered for each other. Said they had been flirting with each other when Perry lost his shit. And that’s all Harding needed. Perry had used abusive language in class, was out of control, and had violated our speech code. He got a one-week suspension and never returned to school.”
“I wonder why he’s back.” It seemed odd after being away for close to a year.
“His mom was home-schooling him,” Brian explained. “She worked second shift at PPO. So rather than put him through the stress of coming back here, she decided to stay home with him during the day to help him graduate.”
“But he’s back.” Captain Obvious, I know.
“My mom heard that his mom was promoted at work right after Christmas, but the new job is during the day. Maybe the money was too good to turn it down. His dad left them fairly well off when he died, but that money probably wasn’t going to last forever.” Brian shrugged. What did we know about adult concerns?
“So he’s right back in the same crap as last year,” I said. I felt pretty bad for Perry. “How can we help him?”
“I don’t really know, Ross.” Brian appeared to be deep in thought. “Be nice to him, but keep it real low-key. He knows you’re friends with the guys, so he won’t trust you too much. But be friendly. Don’t put any pressure on him. Try not to be too much a part of the crowd when Perry is around. If you’re loud and laughing it up with them, he’ll probably be more paranoid about your intentions.
“Oh! And no impure thoughts when you’re around Perry.” His glance was half amused, but his tone was serious. “He could sense that and then he won’t trust you.
“Definitely keep me informed about any shit that the guys do. And . . . ” Brian paused to think some more. “The big thing, well, it’s hard and I don’t know if it will do any good, but the guys may listen to you more than they listened to me. When the guys do something to push Perry’s buttons, call them out. Don’t pressure them, but try to make them understand how cruel it is and how it affects Perry.”
He took a breath and paused to reflect some more.
“They aren’t bad guys. They’re just thinking with the wrong head, and they’re a little privileged. They probably don’t think much about how Perry must feel about what they’re doing to him. If you can give them a different perspective . . . well, I don’t think any of them would really want to hurt him.”
We chatted a bit longer. I was starting to realize just how thoughtful and insightful Brian was.
When I suggested that I had a long walk home and needed to get going before it got dark, I caught a spark of interest in Brian’s eyes. He didn’t offer me a ride. But he did ask if I knew that the cross country trail that started behind the school was connected to trails that led past Jason’s house, and from there led to Chase Falls and my house.
That was interesting. And good to know. I remarked that I might start using the trails to get back and forth to school. That could help keep me in shape for soccer in the Fall.
“You might even run into Perry out there,” Brian suggested. “His house isn’t too far beyond yours. Sometimes I see him leave school and hit the cross country trail at the end of the day.
“And you know,” his enthusiasm increased, “if you ran into Perry out there a few times and kept it real casual, he might eventually be willing to talk to you, maybe see you as someone who isn’t just another member of Jason’s crew.”
And that seemed like a very good idea.
“It will be a real slow process, Ross. But you could become his friend. Perry really needs friends,” he concluded sadly.
Staying to talk to Brian had been a great idea! Even if I did have to walk all the way home.