Lance

by Ronald L Donaghe

  Later, after he had put the lotion on his fingers and sent me to the moon with what he was doing down there, he entered me. At first, I was afraid he was too big, afraid it was going to hurt or tear. But he got me so hot with his finger, his lips on mine, the heat of his own little buddy pressed against me, that when he slid into me, I threw my legs over his shoulders, and met his pounding hips with thrusts of my own. We were in sync so much, experiencing a new act of lovemaking, I couldn’t get him deep enough and cried out for him to bury it.

  He went wild, was all over me with his lips and his hands, and I held him by the hips and the flesh of his butt. We were both crying, and our tears slicked our faces. When he was done, I wouldn’t let him pull out, couldn’t let him go, and he fell onto me breathing heavily. I couldn’t imagine loving him more deeply than at that moment.

  “Thank you, Angel. Thank you. I’ve never done that. It…it makes me feel…”

  We fell asleep like that, then woke up in the middle of the night and did it again. Even though I was a little sore, it wasn’t long before I was into it, again, amazed at how wild it felt.

  * * *

  And so here I am at close to four in the morning, hard as a rock remembering Lance inside me and trying to make sense of how good and natural our love is—even if others hate us for it.

  Now I see what Uncle Sean was trying to protect me from, when he said how Theodore Seabrook was murdered. I’m grateful Lance escaped being raped—or worse. How close Lance had come to being castrated tonight made me shake, even thinking of it. I know that Uncle Sean must have been crazy with grief and hatred, how it must have drove him insane to lose the love of his life. Which made me admire him all the more for how he got on with things, afterward.

  First chance I got this weekend, I would call and ask his advice about what I should do about Lance’s attackers.

  Five

  Something About Casey

  It has been two weeks since I’ve had a chance to write in this notebook. It was the very next Monday after the game, however, that I caught Casey off by himself at school. It was lunch time, and Lance was going to be busy with the Barker twins on some art project, so I was just having a Coke and candy bar out back of the school. A few of the guys who smoke were gathered there too, sending up smoke into the clear fall air. Casey had seen me before I saw him, and he was trying to get into the school building before I spotted him.

  When our eyes met, I saw the same fear I’d seen that night in the hallway, and I knew he was afraid of me. That was fine, but his look also meant he knew something I wasn’t going to like. He looked like a rabbit, just then, about to have his brains blown out with nowhere to run. But I give him this: when he knew I’d seen him, he looked around and came up to me. We walked off to an empty spot out of earshot of the others.

  “You gotta know, Will,” he said, still looking frightened, “I didn’t have nothin’ to do with the other night.”

  “You just happened to be there. Is that it?” I was mad and wanted to slam him against the building. “After all, Casey, you egged on Dick and some of the other guys about me and Lance. Ain’t that right?”

  He looked me straight in the eyes, and it was odd, it was the first time I noticed, really, that he wasn’t a bad looking guy. He’s what Daddy would have called ‘black’ German. Until then I’d never thought about what he meant. I’d always thought of Germans as being blond. I knew the Zumwalt family was German, though, and never thought more about it than that. But as Casey looked at me, I noticed that his eyes were black as coals. His eyebrows were dark, almost black, and his hair was a dark brown. Anyway, he looked me straight in the eyes, then looked away.

  “Yeah. All right, so I was having a little fun. And it was wrong to spread the rumors. But I heard it from Rick.”

  In there somewhere was an apology, but it still made me want to slug him, because I saw he was kind of a coward, not willing to take any of the blame, which is probably why whatever he saw that night in the girls’ locker room scared him. “That ain’t no damn excuse to go around trying to ruin a guy’s reputation, Casey. Lance says he almost got raped.”

  “I know,” Casey said. “Which is why I told Coach Grey what was going down. Then I went looking for you, ‘cause Coach acted like I was talking Greek. Only I guess he went into the girls’ locker room, anyway, ‘cause when you got there, I saw those guys were gone.”

  “You went back?” I asked, feeling a little better.

  “I followed you, Will. Only I was afraid to go in there, afraid of what they might’ve done.”

  “But you were there, weren’t you, when those guys were about to rape Lance?”

  Casey looked back into my eyes, shaking his head. “They weren’t planning on raping him, Will. Geez! They were serious, man. They were going to cut his nuts off! That’s when I got outta there and went looking for help.”

  I shivered, even though it was a bright, warm day for early fall. “So you know who it was, don’t you?”

  He nodded and told me who. I couldn’t have been more wrong, and I was a little relieved that it wasn’t guys from Cotton City or Animas or, apparently, other guys from Lordsburg who had been at the game. As I said before, people know strangers in the area, and Casey said he was sure it was some of the workers from Playas. Knowing this made my stomach flip over, because it meant that the guys were all adults. I couldn’t help but think of Lance’s stepfather. Who knew what a tight little town Playas was? Who knew how these men found out about Lance? It was easy to believe that the rumors about Lance and me had reached the town of Playas, because some of the guys who had graduated from high school in Animas had gone to work at the plant. It wouldn’t be too long before people here would know most of the people there, and they sure enough would have gone to the game because we’re isolated out here in the southwestern part of New Mexico. A dance, a rodeo, a football or basketball game would draw people from all over the area.

  But Casey. I was sizing him up as we talked. I’d sized up all the guys I played football with, the way they played, their weaknesses and strengths, their body types, and how much heart they put into the game when it mattered. I couldn’t say that I’d ever been friends with Casey, or his next older brother Stephen. I knew Rick the best, and like I said, I thought Rick was all right until I found out he’d told Margie Collins about Lance and me. Casey was the youngest of five brothers. He was also the runt of the family, in that he was just a little taller than Lance and just a little better built. Stephen had a short, compact, hog body in comparison to Casey, and Rick was tall and muscular, like his two older brothers. They had all played football, and I just bet Casey felt he had to go along with the tradition.

  The fear was gone from Casey’s eyes. Even though what we were talking about wasn’t pleasant, he was kind of smiling at me, now that he knew I wasn’t going to rip his head off.

  “Look, Will,” Casey said, after we tried to put names to the guys he’d seen in the girls’ locker room. “I’m sorry I ever repeated anything my brother said. I’m sorry I brought on any problems for you or Lance.”

  I couldn’t tell him it was all right, because I was still angry. But I softened a little at his genuine apology. “Well, it hurt him, didn’t it?” I said. “And Dick threw the game, you know, because he didn’t wanna get ‘faggot sweat’ on the football.”

  “I’ll talk to Dick about that, Will. I’m sorry about that, too.”

  “Yeah, well, it sure was a stupid thing for Dick to do. We didn’t have to lose to Lordsburg. It sure made them think they were hot stuff.”

  Then Casey got this quizzical look on his face, glancing at me then looking around, as if he was going to tell me a secret. “Is it, though?”

  “Is it what?”

  “You know. True, then?”

  I knew what he was asking, but I wasn’t about to tell him anything he could take to his brothers. After Friday night, I had learned a lesson. It might’ve been too late to put the genie back in the bottle because of t
he way I’d been up front with Mama and the family, but if Casey wasn’t sure about Lance and me by now, I wasn’t going to confirm it. It was just too dangerous. So I grinned at him, and he grinned back, making him look a lot better. “I’ve always heard that queers were sissies and would rather be women. Do I look like I wanna be a girl, Casey?”

  He shook his head. It was odd, but he looked disappointed about something. “No, you sure aren’t.” Then he worked his left shoulder and rubbed it with his right hand, as if he were injured. “The way you knocked me around that day during practice, I know you’re not a sissy. You’re more like a locomotive.”

  “Then I don’t see how I could be a faggot, either, do you?” I didn’t like being dishonest, but it was more important to protect Lance from the bullies and the bad guys than it was to shove my being gay down anybody’s unwilling throat. It had almost got Lance castrated. It wasn’t going to happen again.

  Casey just shook his head, again, at my question and still looked disappointed when the bell rang and we parted.

  * * *

  My next target was Dick Lamb. Only I didn’t try to get him alone, remembering the way he’d made his accusations in front of the other guys that time in the locker room a couple of years before. It was easy to put him in his place back then, but he’d been emboldened by the rumors and the apparent approval he got from the likes of Casey Zumwalt. So I caught him in the hallway between classes and began by slamming him into his locker and knocking his books to the floor. People stopped in mid-stride. Conversations came to a screeching halt. Girls got frightened looks on their faces, like they always do when two guys get into it at school.

  Dick’s fists came up fast, but I could tell from the look in his eyes that his heart wasn’t in getting into a fist fight, so I knocked them away.

  “Hey, what’s with you, Will!” Dick said, as if he didn’t know.

  If I had really been out-of-control-angry, I might have begun screaming, but it was more like an act I had to go through. “First, Dick-head, next time you throw a game because you think I’m a faggot, I’m going to beat you to a pulp, and then see who’s the bigger man.”

  I heard gasps around me, because I had said it loud enough for anybody to hear. I saw Coach Grey coming down the hall at a fast walk. He was the only teacher in the hall at the moment, and I was glad it was him, because he needed to see I was going to fight back, too, and not take the rumors anymore.

  “Everybody says you are!” Dick said. His chest was heaving, so I knew he was either mad or scared. He was pretty big, but I knew I could take him in a fight.

  “‘Everybody’ is just you and a couple of other guys, Dick-head. And second, you almost got Lance hurt real bad. He saw you the other night before he was jumped. You were in on it, weren’t you—you and half a dozen grown men, picking on a single guy?”

  I didn’t think too many people knew about what had happened, and I saw confusion on the faces of some of the other students, but they were quickly moving out of the way as Grey plowed through them to get to me.

  “It wasn’t me!” Dick said.

  “But you were there! You and—”

  “Enough!” Coach Grey said, grabbing my arm and spinning me away from Dick. “Both of you! Right now! In my office!”

  Dick picked up his books, while Coach waited, and then we both followed him to his office, which was right next to the gym.

  Grey, like almost every other teacher at school, ran a small ranch or was into farming. And he was as strong as a bull and about as tall as I was. My stomach was doing a number, and I felt a little sick. At least I’d find out what he knew and what he thought. When we got to his office, and he held the door open for us, I shoved Dick hard enough that he almost tripped.

  “I said enough, Will!” Coach growled behind me as he shut the door. “You two want to fight, take it off campus.”

  Coach sat on the edge of his desk and made us sit in front of him. Dick was still stunned and was breathing heavy. I felt angry, but at least I’d gotten things out front. So before Coach had a chance to speak, I said, “Dick was in on that trouble Lance had the other night, Coach. Lance saw him. Casey says those guys were planning to castrate Lance.”

  Coach just shook his head, and I didn’t know if he was denying what I said or thought it was terrible. He was about as old as Daddy was, but didn’t look nearly as worn out, so I figured he just ran a few head of cattle for a little extra income, and probably hired cowboys to do the real work.

  “It was a bad business, Will,” Coach said. “I’ll give you that. But Dick wasn’t there.”

  “Then tell me who was,” I said, “and I’ll kill every one of them.”

  “You’re not going to do no such thing. My bet is they were from over at Playas. You ask me, they’re just a bunch of riffraff, moving in here for the work. They’ll be gone as soon as the plant’s finished.”

  “They should be arrested and thrown in jail,” I said back.

  Dick looked back and forth between Coach and me, his eyes growing wider. I think he realized the same thing Casey had, that Lance could have really been hurt, and I don’t think he ever meant for his own stupidity to go as far as it had.

  “I’ve already reported the incident to the state police. They’re going to patrol the next game, because the last thing we need here is to have out-of-towners disrupt our functions or hurt one of our students.”

  Then Coach’s eyes met mine, and I saw he was angry, as well, and maybe a little curious, but he wasn’t about to ask me. I appreciated that, but I had to have my say, now that I saw he wasn’t a lunatic.

  “Dick blew the game, Coach, all because he thought I’m queer! Just because Lance is living with my family, and just because Dick has ‘faggot’ on the brain, Lance almost got hurt bad.”

  Coach was not stupid, and I knew he knew what went on in the showers and heard all the sex talk among the guys, but until now nothing had come of it. That is, until Rick Zumwalt had begun talking, and who knew who else. I doubted that Grey heard much of that or didn’t listen to it if he did.

  “You did blow the game,” Coach said, turning to Dick. “You’re not the only quarterback material we have at this school, and if you can’t distinguish between rumors and fact, then I’ll start Ty or Dave next week. You got that?”

  Dick just ducked his head and mumbled that he did.

  Then Coach looked at me with distaste. “I have to give you this, Will, you’re so confident of your manhood you didn’t get too upset with all the rumors about you and that new kid, but you should have been upset long before now. It’s just about the filthiest thing I can think of to be one of them Nancy boys.” Then he looked at Dick, leaving me feeling like a squashed bug. “I’ve had enough of this kind of talk. You understand?”

  Dick nodded, glancing at me kind of sheepishly, I thought. I didn’t know what to make of it, like if he was sorry or something, or cowed by the coach. I felt angry with the coach, though, because of his remark. Then we both looked at the coach.

  “It’s plain impossible for Will to be a queer,” Coach said to Dick. “Look at him! Any man’d be proud to have him as a son, and he’s doing that poor Surfett kid a favor taking him under his wing. Kid’s had a hard life from what I hear, so you just cool it about all this queer business, and let’s get back to being the tight team we’ve always been.”

  As we were leaving Coach’s office, I had a really bad feeling in my gut. When I had arrived at the girls’ locker room the other night, nobody was there—including Coach. If he had gone in there to find out what was happening, and if he had scared off Lance’s attackers, why hadn’t he taken care of Lance? At that thought, I turned on my heels and walked right back into Grey’s office.

  “How come you didn’t check on Lance, Coach, if you ran off all those other guys?”

  “Shut the door,” he said, looking odd as hell. His eyes narrowed as I shut it and sat down.

  “So…how come, Coach?”

  A window high up in t
he wall let in the early afternoon light behind the coach, causing a kind of halo around his thinning hair. He was still sitting on the edge of his desk. He smiled at me, though kind of sadly. “Like I said before, Will, you should’ve been upset weeks ago, when all the rumors started, which makes me think a kid like you—an honest kid to the bones from what I’ve seen—isn’t going to deny something that’s true.”

  “So you’re saying you think I’m a queer, too?”

  He leaned forward still smiling and still looking sad. “We go through this kind of thing every once in a while. But it’s usually the sissy boys that get singled out when you kids discover homosexuality. People don’t like homosexuals, Will.”

  I was getting annoyed quick, because Coach was talking in circles, and I was still smarting about his remark about how dirty he thought queers are, and he wasn’t answering my question.

  “Yeah, so I know that Coach. Dick-head has it on his brain. But what does that have to do with Lance? How come you didn’t check on him?”

  He shrugged. “I didn’t know he was in there. Truth is, when Casey came running to me, I didn’t much follow what he was saying, only that some guys were acting up in the girls’ locker room. So I checked it out and nearly got knocked down. Three or four guys ran out when I opened the door. I did look around in there but didn’t see anybody else.”

  I couldn’t shake the feeling that coach was lying to me, because just a few minutes before that, he’d said he had reported the incident to the police. But I didn’t feel like calling him on it. I was getting nowhere. I’d just have to keep my eyes open and listen more around school.

  “And what you said about queers being the filthiest thing there is? Would you have helped Lance, if you had seen him, since you think it’s so filthy?”

  Coach’s eyes widened with surprise at my accusation, then narrowed. “Listen to me, Will. You’re one of the intelligent boys on the team. I meant it when I said any man’d be proud to have you as their son. What I said about homosexuals and being filthy—that was for Lamb’s benefit.” He looked over my shoulder, and I glanced behind me. The door was shut, and we were alone.