What Happens After

by Dennis Abrams

“As you know,” she said, “our school, and each and every one of us as individuals here at Eisenhower, suffered a tragic loss over the summer when one of our own, Nate Jonson, was killed in the tragic shooting at a club… at the gay club, Pacific Coast. And another one of our own, Collin Williams, was there with him and was severely wounded.”

  It felt like all eyes quickly turned to me when she mentioned my name, and the room went silent. Until the small group of jocks and jock wannabes sitting behind me began whispering and trying not to laugh.

  Seriously.

  They were laughing.

  At me. And at Nate.

  At us.

  At the very idea of us.

  Ms. Hernandez continued.

  “Along with Nate’s family, we mourn Nate’s tragic loss….”

  Another round of smothered laughter and fist bumps followed, and then one of them whispered, “But nobody mourns him more than Collin boy… am I right?” leading to a slightly louder round of laughter, although one of them, to my surprise, whispered, “Enough… knock it off….”

  Ms. Hernandez glared in our general direction to try to stop it and then continued.

  “Nate was much loved here at Eisenhower. His smile lit up the classroom, and his quick wit and friendly attitude made him a joy to be around.”

  Here I could only shake my head at the hypocrisy and bullshit lies. Nate wasn’t popular; he was intentionally invisible to most of the other students except for me and a few friends in drama club. In fact, if he hadn’t been… if what happened hadn’t happened, he’d still be just another student whose name nobody could remember.

  And that’s when it all started.

  Pictures of Nate were shown on a screen onstage: a baby picture, one from an early birthday party, one of him in a Halloween costume dressed as Peter Pan, his junior class picture, and then, a picture from drama club of the two of us standing next to each other.

  We were smiling.

  We were happy.

  So damn happy.

  I tried not to, and I knew what was going to happen if I did, but I began to cry. I could feel my shoulders jerking and shaking as I tried to control myself. I knew half the people in the audience were watching the pictures of Nate, and the other half were watching me.

  And then from behind me, the pig-faced football player whose name I could never remember started in making little kissing noises into my ear.

  Then he whispered just loud enough for me and the other jocks to hear:

  “Awwww… miss your boyfriend?” I turned around to face him, at which point he grabbed his crotch and smirked, telling me, “I can give you what you need if you miss him that much.”

  At which point I lost it. I totally and completely and 100 percent lost it.

  I reached around to punch him across his zit-covered pudgy little piggy face, but because of the angle I was sitting at, I couldn’t get it right and ended up giving him more of a kind of half-assed slap than any real kind of punch.

  Which made me feel even worse.

  The jocks started slapping one another in the same pathetic way and started laughing. And couldn’t and wouldn’t stop.

  I got up to try and run out, but because I had stupidly planted myself in the middle of the row, I had too many people to climb over with my crutches to make any kind of graceful exit.

  “Excuse me, sorry, excuse me, excuse me, sorry…” all while trying not to fall over. Or start crying again.

  Everybody was watching.

  And then as hard as it is to believe, and I have a hard time believing it myself, it got worse.

  Way worse. Like this can’t really be happening to me worse.

  I was about to get out the door when Nate’s mother, Susan, who had been sitting onstage quietly crying as Nate’s praises were sung and his pictures were shown, actually stood up like in some bad movie, grabbed the mic, and started screaming at me.

  “Where are you going, Collin?” she yelled. “Can’t handle your own guilt? I didn’t want to be here in the first place, and I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you. This is your fault. He changed when he met you. You changed him. None of this would have happened if you hadn’t turned him gay and dragged him to the club that night.”

  I should have kept moving, but for some reason I couldn’t. I had to hear what she had to say.

  “It’s your fault… it’s all your fault… he’s dead because of you… I should have stopped you. I never should have allowed you to become friends, much less invited you into my home… I failed to protect Nate”—at this point I think Principal Hernandez tried to stop her, but she was not to be stopped—“but you’re evil and all of you should stay away from him before he turns you and leads you into temptation…. I know who you are, Collin, I know who you are, and I vow to never let you do to anyone else what you did to my Nate….”

  It was at this point that Nate’s father grabbed the mic from her in an effort to quiet her down, and I got out of there as quickly as I could, which wasn’t nearly quick enough.

  It was a nightmare. A nightmare that I couldn’t wake up from. Susan’s screaming, the jocks laughing, all eyes on me, and it didn’t stop.

  And all I could do was cry, laugh at how ridiculous it all was, and wonder deep down if she was right.

  Maybe it was my fault. Maybe I did get Nate killed.

  Oh, Nate.

  I made it out of the school as fast as I could, but as soon as I made it out the door, everything suddenly began hurting. My shoulder. My hip. My leg. My head. Even my brain.

  Every part of me was in pain. And when I got to the parking lot, I realized I didn’t have a way home.

  So I texted Ziggy. He came. He always did.

  I tried telling him what happened, but I couldn’t get it all out. But he knew anyway.

  “I’m sorry, man,” he said. “I should have warned you. That bitch Susan has it out for you big-time. She thinks you used your wiles on her sweet innocent son and turned him gay. She blames you for him going to the club and blames you for not getting killed instead of Nate. Michael knows it wasn’t you, that it wasn’t your fault, but he’s never been able to stand up for himself when Susan is… going off. And as for Kristen, she’s drowning in her own guilt and refuses to take sides at all.

  “To be honest,” he went on, “I’m kind of relieved we did break up. Their lives are so messed up right now….”

  “I know the feeling,” I said quietly, passing him back the joint he’d handed me the moment I got in the truck.

  “Look, I know I’ve never said much to you about any of this,” he said. “And I know that before any of this happened, we weren’t really friends, and I know we probably never would have been if, well, you know. But I wanted to tell you that, well, you’re a cool guy. I don’t know if I could handle what happened like you have. Total respect for you.

  “And I want you to know this, man. I know things are rough and maybe you’re feeling a little alone right now, and I know you miss Nate, but whatever it is you’ve got going on, I’ve got your back. Text me anytime like you just did. Call anytime, whatever. Okay?”

  “Okay.” And I smiled at him. And whether he’d said it because he felt guilty, or whether he actually liked me, I took him at his word. And I told myself that at least I had him in my corner.

  Along with his words, the high helped to push away the worst of what I was feeling. A little bit, anyway. After taking me to Sonic for a vodka slushie, which helped even more, he dropped me off at home.

  I figured it would be just me and Clark.

  Instead Mom and Dad were there waiting for me with painfully concerned looks on their faces.

  I knew they knew what had happened.

  And that there was no way I’d be able to get away and get up to my room without talking about it.

  Chapter Eleven

  HERE’S THE thing.

  All this time since it happened, we’d never really talked about it.

  Not when I was in the hospital. Not when
I came home.

  Not even after the Fourth.

  Not ever.

  Not in depth, anyway.

  They’d ask me how I was feeling. I’d tell them I was feeling better. They’d ask me if I wanted to talk about what happened. I’d tell them no, thank you, it was really awful, and I’d really rather not. Not yet, anyway, I’d say, giving them hope that at some point I’d open up to them.

  I think they don’t want to hear about it, really. They know what happened; they know the facts. But they don’t know what it felt like to be there. They don’t know what I was thinking. Or feeling. Either when it happened or after.

  And my guess is that deep down they really don’t want to know. And I know I really didn’t want to tell them.

  But it was clear that at that moment I wasn’t going to be able to just hobble up to my room and shut the door.

  I’d have to say something about something. That much was obvious.

  I mean, they steered me straight into the nice living room, the room reserved for entertaining guests on the rare occasions that they did entertain guests, and asked me to sit down.

  Dad started.

  “Ms. Hernandez called and told us what happened. Your mother and I can’t tell you how sorry we are…. Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it? We’re always here for you. You know that, don’t you?”

  Before I could say anything, Mom blurted out:

  “That miserable bitch. Sorry, Collin, but it’s true. I am so pissed that she did that to you. I’m giving myself an hour and two drinks in order to calm down, and then she’s going to be getting a phone call.”

  As I said, Mom has always been my fiercest defender.

  Dad and I exchanged looks. I then told Mom:

  “Don’t. Please don’t. Things are bad enough as they are. Nate’s… dead, Nate’s dead, and she has to blame somebody. And maybe she’s right. Maybe it is my fault. Maybe if we hadn’t become friends, maybe if we’d never met, Nate wouldn’t have had the nerve to go to Pacific Coast and he’d still be alive. I’m the one who drove him there. I’m the one who said let’s go to Pacific Coast.

  “I’m the one who talked him into going through with it. At the first bar we went to, I knew he wanted to go home. He wasn’t ready. But I talked him into staying. Maybe she’s right! If it hadn’t been for me, Nate would still….”

  I could feel my face turn white the moment the words came out of my mouth.

  I’d thought it hundreds of times, but I’d actually never said it out loud.

  Who would I have said it to? The only person I could have told was Nate, and….

  And from the looks on their faces, I knew I’d said something I shouldn’t have.

  Something they were going to need to talk about.

  Something we were going to need to talk about.

  “Look, I’m tired and my leg hurts. I’m going to go upstairs and lay down for a while.”

  And not looking back, not wanting to see them and give them an opening or a chance to say anything else, I grabbed my crutches and slowly made my way upstairs. As I did, I could hear Dad telling Mom, “I know, I know. It kills me to see Pup hurting like that. And yes, Susan is a miserable bitch. No argument. But before you get too wound up, let me ask you. What would your reaction have been if the situation was reversed? If Nate had lived and Collin didn’t? Who would you take it out on?”

  And then I heard Dad starting to cry. “I don’t understand people sometimes, I don’t. And I don’t know how we can protect Collin from getting hurt any further. I don’t think we can.

  “He’s hurting, and there’s nothing I can do. I’ve never felt so useless.”

  I heard him sobbing, I heard Mom trying to comfort him, and then I closed my bedroom door and lay on my bed, blasting tunes and hoping to make the day go away.

  But it was about to get worse. As it always seems to do.

  Ziggy was blowing up my phone with texts, telling me there was something I had to know about.

  Telling me there was a posting on YouTube I had to see.

  Warning me I wouldn’t like it. But that I needed to watch it.

  He was right.

  On both counts.

  There, for the whole fucking world to see, was my school assembly. The stage. The pictures of Nate. Nate’s mom losing it on me.

  And then a cell phone camera moved around to follow me trying to get out. You could see the jocks laughing. You could see me crying and laughing. You could see everyone in the auditorium staring at me, some of them laughing at me along with the jocks.

  The footage was shaky, but there it was. There I was. One of my fellow students had filmed the whole damn thing and posted it the moment they had the chance.

  It was horrifying. And humiliating. And all around awful.

  But even worse were the comments. I knew I shouldn’t read them; you really never should. But I did. And I kept reloading and reading the new ones as quickly as they were posted, as the video was seen by more and more people.

  The Will of God said that I deserved what I got and even more, and he was only sorry that I wasn’t killed along with my faggot boyfriend.

  MinnesotaMama called me a poor little fag boy.

  Random Bob said I should finish the job on myself that the shooter started.

  MissyMiss posted a long series of hahahahas… as did a lot of others.

  It was a new experience to be mocked and laughed at and hated by strangers from across the country.

  One that I would have been glad to miss.

  There were some who posted words of encouragement. Who offered hugs and prayers and asked if I was looking for a new boyfriend. Those were nice.

  But all I could see and read and think about were the bad ones.

  I wondered whether Nate’s mom had been one of the posters. I tried not to think about that too much.

  But I knew I didn’t have to wait long. A post from Heartbroken Mother popped up.

  You little teary eyed fag… you killed my son. It should have been you. WHY WASN’T IT YOU???

  Hers was the only one I commented on.

  Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think I ask myself that every hour of every day?

  Not long after Nate’s mom posted, even though my door was closed, I heard Mom yelling at Dad from downstairs:

  “…do not go online, how dare that bitch Susan post that and… do not read any of this other crap… how dare those miserable assholes… how dare they talk about my son like that. Susan screaming at Collin is one thing, but this… I’m going to puke, I swear to God I am….”

  And the next thing I knew, she was posting a comment after each and every hateful post:

  I’m Collin’s mom, you little piece of shit. Tell me that to my face, I dare you. I fucking dare you.

  Along with a special reply directly to Susan:

  It’s a good thing for you that I’m quickly going to get control of myself, because if you were in this room right now, I’d be wringing you by your fat bigoted neck. Do not ever, and I mean ever, speak to my son like that again. In fact, I’d suggest you stay away from him, period. Got it?

  The next day, after she calmed down, Mom called the local LGBT youth center and volunteered her services.

  And to be fair, a couple of people I knew did reach out to try and help. Ms. Hernandez tried to call, and when I didn’t answer, texted me to apologize for the whole thing, and said we’d talk on Monday.

  Nate’s dad texted me, just one word, “sorry.” Kristen did as well, also saying “sorry” but taking a lot more words to get there.

  Ziggy texted, naturally, and so for the rest of the weekend, when I wasn’t hiding in my room, I was out with Ziggy, driving and smoking. I wouldn’t let him stop at Freezie Treats, though—I wasn’t ready to take the risk of seeing anyone who had seen the video.

  Because, while I had temporarily become famous in town right after the shooting, new stuff was always happening, and after a while, nobody seemed to much care about me.
Or the shootings.

  The video reminded them.

  The YouTube video, which by the end of the weekend had been viewed close to 250,000 times, was new and fresh and easier to laugh at than people getting shot and killed at a gay bar in Houston.

  Ziggy told me he could get me a gun if I wanted one. If I thought I needed one, given what had happened. There are a lot of nutcases out there, he told me, which was nothing I didn’t know already. Really.

  I might, he thought, want to be able to protect myself.

  And honestly, I did think about it. I thought maybe it would make me feel more in control, make me feel safer, make me feel better knowing I could get back at anyone who tried to hurt me ever again.

  But I knew there was no way I’d ever be able to shoot anyone, no matter the reason. After what happened, I never wanted to see a gun ever again.

  I also knew, somewhere deep down, that I couldn’t trust myself not to use the gun on myself. I was afraid that in my room I could easily decide that I’d had enough, that I couldn’t live with what had happened.

  So I shook my head.

  And Ziggy understood.

  Or so I thought.

  A couple of days later, though, I found a handgun in my backpack. I knew Ziggy had gone ahead and gotten it for me even though I told him I didn’t want one. I never said a word, but instead of giving it back to him, I hid it in the back of my sock drawer.

  It was just easier that way.

  So I spent the weekend either stoned or hiding in my room, and dreading going back to school on Monday.

  Chapter Twelve

  HERE’S THE thing, though, before I get to that next Monday back in school.

  There’s something I need to come clean about.

  There’s something I want to come clean about.

  Something I haven’t been totally honest about.

  Several things actually.

  You see… first of all….

  I was the one who gave Nate the idea of going into the city.

  I was the one who told him we should try and get fake IDs.

  I was the one who told him we should go hit the bars and clubs.

  And I was the one who told him we should go to Pacific Coast.