Danial got up suddenly and cracked the window, then fished a joint and a lighter out of his desk drawer. He leaned against the windowsill, lit the joint, then drew in a deep breath.
My mouth hung open for a moment.
“What?” he said, his voice tight as he held the smoke in his lungs.
“Nothing. I just didn’t know you smoked.” He offered it to me but I passed. Danial didn’t seem the type to smoke pot. I didn’t really know what that type was, but, well, I was just surprised. He seemed tense all of a sudden too.
He shrugged and sat back down at the computer. “Let’s put some controls on here so you can screen comments before they post. Free speech is one thing, but you don’t need to give these nut jobs a platform. Just delete the crap that’s likely to scare small children and queer teenagers. Okay?”
He handed me the joint. I held it pinched between my thumb and forefinger and watched him work. “What do you think about National Coming Out Day?” I asked.
“What do you mean what do I think?”
“Maybe we could do something?”
He took the joint from me and took another deep drag. “We?”
“Me. The blog is great and all, but it still feels so closeted. I want to do something bigger, something more out there, something that says we’re here, we’re just like you, we don’t want to eat your children. You know what I mean?”
“You do that every day, Natey, with your T-shirt protest.”
“It’s not the same. Seeing homo on a T-shirt is way different than seeing two live homos touching, God forbid. And you know it. When Adam was here, we’d hold hands, dance at parties, you know, stuff that all the other kids were doing. But it was all pretty covert. I mean, it was almost Christmas by the time we came out. And then ...” I paused and shook my head a little to clear the then. “It just wasn’t enough. The year was over and I felt like we hadn’t really claimed a place. And now it’s a new year and nothing’s really changed.”
Danial had never asked me about the details of my assault. I wondered, not for the first time, if he knew. Hell, everybody knew. You didn’t get your face plastered all over CNN and have people not know. But he didn’t ask, and I didn’t tell.
“So now, I’m gay, I’m out, but my boyfriend is in New York, so I can’t really act gay. Does that make any sense?”
He laughed. “So, you want me to pretend to be your boyfriend for a while?”
I stared at him, then smiled.
“I was kidding.”
“No, no, it’s brilliant. I don’t mean pretending to be my boyfriend. You wouldn’t have to go that far. But—okay, just think about this for a minute—be my date to the homecoming dance. It’s October eleventh, the same day as National Coming Out Day.”
He looked at me like I was cracked in the head.
“Come on. It’s poetic, man,” I pleaded.
“Your date?”
“You were my date for the movie last night.”
“Good thing for you.”
That stopped me in my tracks, but he didn’t seem to notice. I waited while he thought it over. This wasn’t like hanging out at the movies together. What I was asking was for him to do just the opposite of what I was doing—pretend to be something he wasn’t so I could be something I was.
“Would I have to slow dance with you?”
“Uh, yeah. That would kinda be the point.”
Danial just looked at me. I was working on my next argument in my head when he said, “Okay.”
“What?” His answer came so quickly, it derailed me for a moment. “I thought I just heard you say okay.”
He shrugged.
“Really?”
He got up and flicked an ash out the window, then leaned against the sill and grinned back at me. “Which one of us is wearing a dress?”
“I think you’re missing the point about boys liking boys.”
“I do have to draw the line at squishage. There has to be some mandatory straight-guy dick separation.”
“But I’m not a straight guy.” I winked and then felt like I was flirting, and maybe I was. I sat up straighter and cleared my throat. “You’re either all in or you’re all out. It won’t work any other way.”
“You’re just trying to piss people off now, aren’t you?”
“So you’ll do it?”
“You are so going to owe me.”
Adam was still in bed when I called later that afternoon. I had to beg him to get up and boot up his computer. I felt bad about that, but I needed to see his face.
“Wow. You look wasted,” I said.
He propped his chin on his hand and smiled. “I feel wasted. So, you and Danial at the homecoming dance. That’ll raise some eyebrows.” He yawned.
Bored, Adam?
“You okay with that?”
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
That was the million-dollar question. Me, on a date with another guy. Why wouldn’t you be okay with that, Adam? But I didn’t want to fight with him, so I left the question unanswered.
“It’ll be fun,” he said lazily. “I’m glad you’re getting out more. And Danial seems like a great guy.” He yawned again. “Why don’t you get Mike and Warren and some of the other kids to mix it up some too? They’re good actors. They’d do anything for you. And the collective impact—”
“What’s that on your neck?”
Adam touched his fingers to the bandage. “Ah shit. I should have taken this off last night.” He lifted an edge of the tape and ripped it off.
“You got a tattoo,” I said, and not in a wow-you-got-a-tattoo kind of way, but more in a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me kind of way.
He smiled sheepishly. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“You got a tattoo,” I said again, looking more closely at the screen. The skin on his neck was red. Inked in script, one word: Wicked.
“It’s not even one of the plays we’re doing, but we all thought it would be cool.”
“We?”
He hesitated, seeming to catch my innuendo and not knowing quite what to do with it. “Yeah. About six of us. Alec, Jeremy ...”
“And?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even remember who all—”
“Was Justin there?”
He got a pissed-off look on his face. “Yes, we were all there.”
“You and Justin have matching tattoos. On your fucking necks.”
Adam folded his arms on the desk, then looked away from the screen for a moment. A muscle in his jaw twitched. He looked back. “It’s no big deal, Nate. It’s just a tattoo.”
“Just a tattoo.” I scoffed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I haven’t even talked to you. I just did it yesterday afternoon, just before the power went out. I didn’t know I had to check in with you over every goddamn thing I do.”
He did not just say that.
“Nate, shit,” he said, ramming his fingers into his hair and gripping his head. “I didn’t mean that.”
“You don’t have to check in with me, Adam. You can do any fucking thing you want.”
He looked directly at the webcam. “Why are you acting like this?”
“Are you sleeping with him?”
“I can’t believe you asked that! No, I’m not sleeping with him.”
“Have you kissed him?”
He scrubbed his face.
“Simple question, Adam. Has any part of your lips touched any part of his?”
“He kissed me. Okay? Is that what you want to hear? He. Kissed. Me. I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t want it. It was nothing.”
“How many times?”
“Don’t do this, Nate.”
“How. Many. Times?”
“A couple, I don’t know.”
I scoffed. Unbelievable. Un-fucking-believable. “So why did you tell me? If it was nothing, why didn’t you just lie to me about it? Why not just leave it unsaid? I never would have known.”
“I’ve never lied to
you, and I’m not going to start now.”
“You want to know what I think? I think you wanted me to know.”
Now he scoffed. “You always want to believe the worst of me, Nate. Why is that? I’m tired of defending myself to you. And I’m just tired.” He scrubbed his face again while I sat mute, silenced by the resentment in his voice. “I can’t talk to you right now,” he said after a moment. “I’m gonna hang up before one of us says something we’re going to regret.”
Too late for that, I thought.
Chapter 30
I read somewhere that people are mirrors, and that we only really know ourselves when we see ourselves in someone else’s eyes. What did we know now? Adam hadn’t called back. Not Sunday night. Not Monday. Not Tuesday. No text. No voice mail. No apology. Nothing. I hadn’t called either. It wasn’t the first time we’d gone days without communicating. It wasn’t the first time we’d argued. But I sensed a shift in our relationship this time that hadn’t been there before. I didn’t even know who to blame.
Wednesday morning seven protestors lined up across the street from the school, each with their variations on the God Hates Fags signs we were growing accustomed to, along with a few new ones: We pay your salaries. Keep our schools pure. And Keep homosexuality out of our schools. To me, the new signs were even more insidious; it’s one thing to have a bunch of crazies protesting outside the school, and quite another to have parents gnashing their teeth about the moral safety of their children.
Until this week, they’d stuck to Tuesday protests. Their presence today could mean only one thing. So it was no big surprise when the office request came second period.
I held back outside Mr. Thornton’s office. I’d been here before. Last December. The week Adam and I went public. But I’d been doing a duet then. It was the first time I’d seen Adam lose his cool. Amidst threats that, according to Thornton, had been “flooding” into his office, we were being told to “take it down a peg.” Incredible. Cargill and his goons bully a kid almost to death, but we hold hands and suddenly civilization as we know it is in peril. I’d seen fire in Adam’s eyes that day.
“Keep your relationship to yourselves,” Thornton had said. “There’s no place for that in school anyway.”
That lit Adam’s fuse. “Last time I checked, holding hands was not against school rules,” he’d said with a sarcasm I’d never heard from him.
“No, it’s not.”
“Then why are we being singled out? I have as much right to hold Nate’s hand as any other kid in this school. And I intend to exercise that right.”
“Look,” Thornton had said, puffing out his chest in a me-administrator, you-student way that pissed us both off, “we can’t keep you safe if you’re going to flaunt this in everybody’s face.”
His concern for our well-being had been touching.
I was so looking forward to another round of his nurturing advice. But I was doing it solo this time. I drew in a deep breath and entered the administrators’ area.
“Sit down, Mr. Schaper,” he said as I stepped into his office. I took one of the two chairs facing his desk, the same one I’d sat in last spring. My butt had scarcely gotten acquainted with the upholstery when he got right to the point. “I hear you’ve been writing a blog.”
I settled into my seat and met his eyes. “You heard right.”
“Do you mind telling me what you’ve been writing about?”
“It sounds to me like you already know.”
“What I know,” he said, easing back into his chair, “is that you’re stirring up some pretty serious opposition to your lifestyle, and it’s starting to affect this school.”
“Living like a bum on the beach is a lifestyle, Mr. Thornton. Green is a lifestyle. Gay is just what I am. It’s my sexual orientation, and I can no more change that than I can change—”
“The color of your eyes. Yeah, I’ve heard it all before.” The contempt is his voice was so thick I could have wrapped it around his neck and strangled him with it. “However—” He folded his arms across his chest and pushed against the back of his chair. It groaned in protest. And then he laughed. And it wasn’t with humor. “There are plenty of folks out there, and many right here in this school, who do not believe that.”
Mr. Wolf walked in and quietly pulled the other chair off to the side and sat down. I was so angry I barely registered his presence.
“There are people who don’t believe the Holocaust ever happened either,” I said, “but that doesn’t change the facts.”
He sprang forward and pointed a finger at me. “Young man, I’ve been very patient with you in light of what happened last school year, but—”
“Yeah. About that. You knew Andrew Cargill was a loaded gun. You knew long before he bullied Jake Winfield into—”
“Andrew never told Jake to hang himself.”
The willful ignorance of his statement was like pouring gasoline on an already smoldering fire. I sprang up and knock his finger out of my face before I even knew I was going to do it. “You knew Andrew had it in for me long before he kicked in my skull and—” I couldn’t finish. I was starting to sweat. Mr. Wolf leaned forward, his elbows on his knees and his chin planted on his clasped fists. But he didn’t intervene.
Thornton settled back in his chair. “I had no idea—”
“You knew. But you did nothing. You don’t scare me. I have rights, and I intend to exercise them. I don’t need your approval or anyone else’s.”
“We are not having a gay homecoming dance.”
“Maybe not. But if you’re having a dance, I’ll be there, and I’ll dance with whomever I damn well please.”
“I’ll cancel the dance.”
“No, you won’t. Because if you try, I’ll have the ACLU and the media all over you so fast you’ll wish you’d stayed a lousy junior high social studies teacher.”
Thornton’s face reddened. “If you insist on pushing people like this, I can’t guarantee someone won’t get hurt.”
The statement was so absurd I laughed.
“Why are you doing this?” he said. “I assume you’re still seeing Mr. Jefferies? He’s not even a student at this school anymore. Why don’t you just cool it with the gay until you graduate? Then you can do whatever you want.”
“Cool it with the gay?” I laughed. “I spent two and half years at this school scared to death that someone would find out about me, terrified what that would mean. Do you have any idea how that feels? Do you? But I’m not that same kid anymore. And it doesn’t surprise me one bit that you’re not willing to stand up to the bigots and the other small minds in this community. You never have. But I will. There are other kids like me out there. And until they feel safe being who they are, then I’ll gladly take one for the team, flaunt it as you so eloquently put it last year.”
“The protestors aren’t going away.”
I hoped not. They were the best advertisement for gay rights I’d seen. And they worked cheap.
Mr. Wolf caught me in the hallway before I could get back to class.
“You might want to cool it a bit, Nate,” he said, stopping me with a hand on my arm.
I shrugged off his hand. “Fuck you.”
“Whoa.” He held up his hands. “I didn’t mean it that way. You know me better than that.”
“You didn’t say anything in there.”
“It didn’t look to me like you needed any help.”
I stuffed my hands deep in my pockets, reminding myself that he was one of the good guys. At the end of the hall, two girls came out of the bathroom laughing and talking loudly. When they saw Mr. Wolf, they lowered their voices and skittered off around the corner.
Mr. Wolf studied me for a moment, then he laughed and shook his head. “Whomever?”
“What?” I said, confused.
“You said you’d dance with whomever you pleased. You’ve been paying attention in English class.”
“You want to talk to me about my grammar? Unbelievable.”
“Well, it is good, but no. Look, things are changing around here, even if Mr. Thornton doesn’t want to admit it. The tide of sentiment toward our LGBT students is turning, and for the better. There are still a number of people who don’t like it. And they’re going to fight you. But their numbers are manageable. I just wanted you to know that.”
I walked away thinking how badly I wished Adam had been here to hear that.
Chapter 31
I’m Queer. Get Over It.
Friends with benefits
By Nate Schaper on Oct. 8.
(Not what you think. Get your minds out of the gutter. LOL.) Gays at the homecoming dance? OMG! Bar the door.
Ha-ha. That’s right. Woodland Park High School is going progressive—perhaps not willingly, but that’s beside the point. Yes, it’s true. Danial and I are dancing together at the homecoming dance. Yes, yes, I know. Danial is straight, and yes, I may be the only actual gay there, but the point is two guys will be dancing together, and that hasn’t happened in the history of this school. And that’s progress.
Comments:
HappyBoy
Oct. 8, at 4:00 P.M.
You’re so lucky to have Danial.
GodChild223
Oct. 8, at 4:06 P.M.
Stop trying to queer our schools. We don’t need you and your kind corrupting our kids. If I find out where you live, I’m going to take you down. [DELETE]
Xyz123
Oct. 8, at 6:32 P.M.
My dad hates that I play clarinet. He thinks I’m a pussy because I like to blow on a long wooden stick. LOL. How dumb is that?
PakistaniPal
Oct. 8, at 6:45 P.M.
Ahem.
Brett2010
Oct. 8, at 7:01 P.M.
A lot of my friends think that gay guys want to jump every other guy they see. Dumb. Thanks for proving that a gay and straight guy can be friends.
Despite my melancholy, I couldn’t help laughing at Danial’s comment when I approved it.
It was almost seven thirty now. I’d put off calling Adam as long as I could stand it. I’d tried to imagine all the possible ways the phone call could go. Sexy? Not likely. Not today. It was much more likely to fall on the other end of the spectrum where most of our calls seemed to fall lately—angry, hurt. Where it actually fell was somewhere in the dead middle, the place of no passion. The worst place of all.
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