“Please come in to my office.”
Adam followed his new boss. Mr. Black opened the door and waited for Adam to take a seat, then closed it again.
“I am looking forward to working here, Mr. Black.”
“So am I.”
They discussed the curriculum and exactly what was expected of him; eventually the conversation led to the kids he would be counseling. Then the school bell rang.
Adam followed Mr. Black to the assembly hall. He had never been completely comfortable in crowded places ever since school. He’d been a nerd and had suffered severely at the hands of the jocks; being terrorized and attacked, he’d always felt claustrophobic amidst too many people. Not that he was feeling threatened this time, but it brought back some unpleasant memories.
The assembly hall was packed to gills. Hundreds of eyes were focused on him; some inquisitive, some hostile. He felt slightly nervous. As he took his seat on the podium, the other members of staff welcomed him.
Mr. Black addressed the students, telling them he was looking forward to a new week. Then he invited Adam to the microphone.
“Students, this is Mr. Adam Young. He is a physiologist and also our new school counselor. I have already talked about him. He will only be working until one o’clock”. Adam had special permission from the school board to continue his private practice after school.
Adam tried to smile.
“Mr. Young, would you mind saying a few words?”
Adam greeted the students, preferring to say as little as possible. His real test would be when his first students arrived in his office for counseling. He recapped his previous experience as a psychologist and how he was looking forward to his job at this school. Then he smiled and took his seat again. Everybody was silent.
“Is that all Mr. Young?” Mr. Black looked disappointed.
“For the moment—yes, Mr. Black.”
“Then that’s fine.”
Adam could see that Mr. Black had been hoping for a longer speech. As Mr. Black talked to the kids again, Adam glanced at the faces around him. The kids seemed like a pleasant bunch, but there were two or three boys who stared intently at him, in an intimidating fashion.
Perhaps he should have given some more background information or even shared stories and anecdotes about New York, but he didn’t want to give away too much about himself. He didn’t need to appear popular. Respect would have to be earned.
He was grateful when Mr. Black finally dismissed the kids. Mr. Black walked Adam to his new office as the kids went off to their classes.
“Here are your keys Mr. Young. Welcome again.” He now looked straight at him. “I hope that you will be happy here.”
Was there something wrong? Did Mr. Black suspect of Adam being gay?
But after all—did it matter?
“Thank you, Mr. Black.” With a final smile, the principal retreated to his own office.
Adam’s office was smaller than he’d expected—but cozy. He hated the grey color scheme, though. It was much too depressing. He would have to do something about it.
Adam put his bag on the desk. Then he noticed an envelope addressed to him. He opened it, expecting a welcoming message. His heart skipped a beat as he read.
We don’t like strangers in this school, especially not queers. Be warned—always look over your shoulder. We are watching your every move. Don’t make your life more complicated than it already is.
He threw the letter into the bin. It took a while to settle down and focus, but he decided not to let this distract him.
“Come on,” he told himself. “Control yourself.”
But he couldn’t shake off that feeling that something dreadful was going to happen. Suddenly he felt so alone and vulnerable, far away from his friends and family. He touched his mother’s cross around his neck again. That always seemed to console him in times of stress, although last night it had had the opposite effect.
Fifteen minutes later there was a knock on his door. It was the school secretary.
“Hello again, Mr. Young”.
“Hi Lorraine. Please call me Adam”.
“Of course. Your first appointment is here.” She handed him a file with a knowing look. Then she gestured towards the door. “Meet—John Stone”.
Then she left the office.
At first John looked like the typical all-American-boy–next-door. But upon closer inspection, Adam noticed a troubled sixteen-year-old adolescent in desperate need of help and guidance. John looked quite anxiously at Adam under his extended, black, oily fringe, and he could immediately sense a feeling of hostility.
John aggressively brushed the fringe away from his forehead and stared intensely at Adam with vigilant eyes that seemed to notice more than what is initially evident. The boy was about six feet tall. He was frail, timid but athletic boy who looked as if he was going to run from the office any moment.
The silence was palatable. Adam realized that the boy wasn’t going to provide any more information about himself without being prompted. So he decided to go first.
“Hi John. I am Adam. Nice to meet you”.
Suddenly, Adam got the distinct feeling that he had seen John somewhere before. Why did he look so familiar?
The boy barely nodded, preferring to stay silent.
Then he saw the tattoo on John’s. But before it could trigger a memory, he had to try and get John to open up.
“How are you doing, John?”
That triggered a response.
“I am not here talk shit, okay? I am only here because I was forced to this godforsaken place, with its fucking stupid rules, by a judge. Otherwise I wouldn’t even be here. And don’t try to be nice to me. I am not in the mood for your patronizing bullshit.”
Adam was slightly taken aback.
“Have a seat, John. And bullshit is not my style. So, relax.”
John brushed back his fringe over his forehead, deliberately playing with the loose strands of hair as if to show his contempt toward authority again. He was deliberately trying to provoke Adam; slumping down in the chair, kicking his legs out.
Adam paged looked through the file Loraine had left on the desk.
John came from a troubled family. He never knew his dad, and his mother couldn’t support him. He grew up on the streets as part of a gang and hated any form of authority. His history inside and outside the school was checkered with incidents of aggression.
John heaved a sigh of bored contempt and played with his hair again. He muttered something along the lines of ‘fucking bullshit crappy school . . .’
Adam continued to study the report of the school psychiatrist who’d dealt with John before him. It was now evident that John didn’t care about either his absent dad or his troubled mom—who, it seemed, was an alcoholic too. According to the report she kept on drifting from one rehab to another, occasionally resurfacing to pretend to care for her son.
As he turned the page, Adam noticed that John’s mom had recently been diagnosed with a personality disorder. Although she sometimes showed up at the house, she never really took proper care of her son, according to the psychiatrist’s reports. He had to fend for himself.
But there was more to come. As he turned the page, John got up and walked over to the window, deliberately turning his back toward Adam. His attitude was aggressive, even rebellious.
Adam read on.
John was an only child. He had no one to turn to, which was why he’d joined a local gang for so-called ‘protection’; perhaps also for acceptance and a sense of belonging. To complicate matters even further, he had a history of petty crimes, apparently to support himself in the absence of a parent.
“John. Please sit down.”
John slowly turned around, without making eye contact. Then he slumped down in the chair again. The boy defiantly stared at the ceiling now, studying an insect that was crawling across it.
“John.”
Still no eye-contact.
Then it struck him. This was the same boy he�
�d seen strolling through the town yesterday while he’d been lost and had met Todd!
Adam decided not to refer to their ‘meeting’. Had he asked the boy for help last night, the boy would’ve sent him to the wrong address out of sheer disobedience anyway.
Adam looked at John’s tattoo again. He could now distinguish some patterns. The tattoo consisted of a cross with a knife inside.
“John,” he tried again.
The boy slowly lowered his eyes, but suddenly squinted as if the light was too bright.
Adam looked into John’s hostile eyes. They were lifeless—an empty shell, in search of some kind of hope, even deliverance. But one thing was for sure, he was in desperate need of help.
The atmosphere remained tense. Although there was a trace of innocence, it was the dark, brooding quality of his eyes that haunted Adam.
This was a lost soul indeed.
Adam decided to take another approach.
“Your tattoo is quite interesting. What does it mean?”
For the first time, a hint of life was evident in John’s eyes.
“So you’re a tattoo expert now?”
“No. I’m just intrigued.”
“What’s it to you?”
“Every tattoo has a meaning. John. It’s a kind of emotional shorthand.”
A smirk formed around the young boy’s mouth. He stared directly at Adam as if trying to intimidate him; as if he were trying to discover some kind of weakness.
When the boy turned his head and stared at the window again, it seemed as if he didn’t even want to recognize Adam’s authority over him, let alone continue the tattoo conversation.
“Well?” prompted Adam.
John slowly looked back at him, still smirking.
“This tattoo sends a message.”
“Which is?”
“Don’t fuck with me.”
“That impression I already got, John. Is there anything more?”
“Yeah. If you do fuck with me, I’ll either hang you by your fucking balls or kill you.”
Adam was used to this kind of hostility, but there was such an overwhelming sense of malice in John’s voice now, that he really felt threatened—even afraid.
There was a knock on the door again.
“Lorraine. We are busy with—”
“I am so sorry, Mr. Young, but Sheriff Todd would like to speak with John.”
John slumped back in his chair.
Adam looked at John, who was now studying his shoes.
“May I ask why?”
“There was a burglary last night’.
John jumped from his seat.
“That’s bullshit! Everybody just takes it for granted that it was me. Why is everyone so quick to judge me? It doesn’t matter to any of you whether I did it or not. People just assume that I did it. Well, I had nothing to do with it.”
Adam realized that this aggressive outburst indicated some degree of guilt. His voice remained calm when he spoke next.
“So the sheriff wants to see him and I can’t do anything about it. But in future, Loraine, I would appreciate not being interrupted.”
“I am sorry, Mr. Young. But in a small town like this . . .,” Lorraine didn’t complete her sentence.
Adam nodded. “You can go, John. But we will talk again. I look forward to our next session.”
“Well, I don’t. It’s a massive waste of time and oxygen. So go fuck yourself.”
John left the room as Loraine stared at him as if to say—told you so
Adam continued to study John’s reports. He wasn’t much different from other troubled kids he’d had to deal with in the past. But for some strange reason, John continued to intrigue him. There was something about the boy that he couldn’t quite put his finger on.
He made some notes about the interrupted conversation, along with his own reactions and responses.
The rest of the day’s appointments were more in line with what he’d been expecting from his fist day in this school. There were three more kids—Kyle, Nick and Sally. It seemed as if most of them felt disconnected from the world and struggled with the usual loneliness and depression. He’d counseled many such kids in New York—most linked to drugs, of course.
He was thankful when the school bell rung at one o’ clock and he walked back to his car. Once again, he had a feeling of being watched.
Adam arrived home shortly after one thirty. He was exhausted, but couldn’t get John out of his mind, who was probably in the holding cells right now. He wished he could help him. He could always ask the sheriff what happened to the boy. Adam deliberated about it while he changed into his running gear. Running usually had a calming effect on him.
After about twenty minutes of running, Adam started to feel better as he headed for the outskirts of town. A few minutes later he passed the same traffic light and church from the previous evening.
As he turned the corner, he spotted John. Fortunately, he wasn’t in the holding cells after all! He was just leaning there against a tree like last night, smoking a cigarette, oblivious to Adam’s presence.
He wanted to approach the boy, but the opportunity was lost when John walked away.
After running back to his apartment, Adam took a quick shower and then made himself a sandwich.
His right knee had started giving him trouble again. It had been a while since he’d had such a long, uphill running session and this put more strain on his knee. He was also out of omega tablets—his medication for his knee. He would have to find a drug store soon.
Later that evening he prepared himself a steak with salad. The smell of proper food had a comforting effect on him. But his tranquility was short-lived.
Suddenly the window in the living room smashed.
Adam spun around. Someone had flung a stone through—the glass scattering all over the place.
He waited for a few seconds, preparing for another onslaught. When none came, he slowly picked up the stone.
There was a note attached to it: FUCKING FAGGOT!
His cell phone rang. At first he was too scared to pick it up, but finally managed to work up enough courage.
“Hello. This is Adam.”
The voice was deep and very sexy. “Howdy, Adam. This is Todd. Remember me?”
His heart skipped a beat. Fuck! It was the sheriff.
“Yeah, of course. Uhm. Hi sheriff, of course I remember you.” He tried to get his breath back. “How can I help?”
There was an awkward silence.
The sheriff didn’t answer the question as if he didn’t even hear it, preferring a different route. “How did things go at school today?”
He decided not to mention John.
“It was okay . . . nothing special.” he should’ve stopped at that, but couldn’t resist asking, “And you?”
Another silence.
“Oh, the usual.”
Adam didn’t know what to say. He waited for the sheriff’s response.
“I’m actually phoning for help.”
“From me? How can I help you?” Adam laughed nervously, again looking at the note. Should he mention it?
“Yeah.” Another short silence. “There are quite a few folks in this town that need help. We are actually short-staffed at the station and I’m not sure who to turn to.”
Dare he ask?
“You mean psychological help?”
“Along those lines, yeah,” the sheriff responded. “And you mentioned that you only worked at school for half a day.”
“That’s correct. After school my time is my own.”
“That’s a relief.”
Another awkward silence.
“Anything in particular I could help you with, sheriff?” he asked when Todd didn’t continue.
“Well. Actually . . .” There was another pause. “Could we talk?”
“You mean—you and me?”
“Yeah. But if you’re too busy . . .”
“Of course, I will help.” He hesitated. “Do you want
to give me a clue what this is actually about?”
Adam got the distinct impression that there was more to this call than the sheriff wanted to let on.
“Exactly what do you specialize in, Adam?”
“I practice in clinical psychology. But I also treat anxiety and depression. And I do marriage counseling amongst other things.”
Battlefields: Everyone has battles Page 4