“Not going to happen,” she said very matter-of-factly.
“Yes, it will.” He sat up and started to pull the tape off the IV on his left arm. They’d had to cut his tux shirt off him earlier, which he just noticed. “Oh, crap! The shirt was rented.”
The nurse yelled at Bill to not touch the tape. Hearing the commotion, a doctor stepped back into the exam room. “What’s wrong in here?” she asked.
“He wants to go home and is about to try to pull out his own IVs,” the nurse explained.
“How are you feeling?” she asked Bill.
“Tired. Like I’ve run a race. I want to go home and sleep in my own bed. And don’t worry—I’ve got great people who will be with me every minute.”
“Your blood work is back, and I’m feeling more comfortable with the results now. As long as you have someone who can stay with you tonight and watch you through the night, and as long as you’re willing to sign a release form, I’m willing to let you go home. How does that sound?”
“Deal. Get these out. I want to go home.”
The nurse removed one IV, bandaged the spot, and then repeated the move on the other arm. The instant she was finished he hopped down off the exam table. I could tell he wasn’t fully back to normal. To me he looked a little woozy. I asked him to lean on me, and, surprisingly, he took me up on the offer.
We were just about to depart when someone told us there was some paperwork that we needed to finish first. Bill noticeably stiffened, and the scowl on his face intensified.
My dad saw the same thing. “You boys go on outside. We’ll finish this up and be right out.”
“Thanks,” Bill said gratefully.
When we stepped out of the building, I realized that I had absolutely no clue what time of day it was. Both Carl and Jeremy were still with us, and, much to my surprise, so was our limo driver. I was stunned that the man was still there, patiently waiting for us. When he saw us approach, the man got a huge smile on his face and said, “It’s so much better to see you upright, Mr. Bill!”
He held the door open for us, and I got Bill inside. I had Carl and Jeremy stay with him for a minute while I dashed back inside to tell my parents that the limo driver was going to take us home. I ran back out to the car, got in, the driver closed the door, and then we were moving, reversing our earlier course, first taking Carl to his dormitory.
After Carl and Jeremy said their farewells, we drove Jeremy home. Between Carl’s drop-off and Jeremy’s drop-off, Bill fell asleep leaned up against me. His head rested on my shoulder. He didn’t stir when Jeremy got out of the car. I quietly wished him a good night and thanked him for his help throughout the evening. The man had surprisingly turned out to be a decent human being and a good friend.
As we drove away from his house, I really wished that we had had a few more minutes to talk, to prepare him for some of the crap he was likely to get on Monday morning when we returned to school. Showing up at your senior prom with a male date wasn’t something most jocks did, and it was certainly something that would generate a certain amount of fallout on Monday morning. Thinking about it for a moment, though, I decided that Jeremy was probably better able to handle stupid crap from his “friends” than most others. He could, after all, kick their butts with no difficulty.
Finally the limo pulled into our driveway. I gently woke Bill. “What?” he asked in a very groggy voice.
“We’re home. We need to get out and go inside.”
Getting him out of the car was a surprisingly difficult thing to do, all things considered, but with the driver’s assistance I managed to get him out. He was half-asleep on my arm. But his sleepiness was offset by his chill. His shirt had been cut off at the hospital, so he was standing there in just a thin strap undershirt. The night had been clear, but it was spring and we were in upstate New York, so it was rather cool. Warm nights didn’t hit this part of the world until mid-July.
I thanked the driver profusely for his care of us that evening. Bill was together enough to reach into his wallet and retrieve a fifty-dollar bill that he had tucked away earlier for tipping the driver. He shook the guy’s hand and passed the tip to him, adding his thanks to my own.
We waved good-bye and made our way inside. My parents, surprisingly, were not home yet. I had thought, given our two stops on our way here, that they would be here already. I could only assume that they would be along soon.
Inside the house finally, Bill was thirsty, so I got him seated at the counter in the kitchen and got him a bottle of cold water. I didn’t stop to think how that must have seemed to him, since that was how he’d been drugged in the first place, but if he minded he didn’t seem to show it. He drank slowly from the bottle and then set it down.
“I want to go take a shower,” he said as he stood from his stool. I walked behind him as he made his way into the bathroom, shedding his clothes once inside. While he showered, I picked up his clothes, folded them as neatly as I could, and went to retrieve a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt for him to put on. I could still hear the shower running, so I took a moment to get out of my tux as well, hanging it up to keep it neat. Dressed in my own sweats and T-shirt, I returned to the bathroom just as Bill was turning off the water. I handed him his towel, and he quietly dried himself. When he was ready, I exchanged the towel for the clothes.
We returned to the living room, where Bill flopped down on the sofa, clearly exhausted. It only took him about a minute sitting there to decide that this wasn’t going to work. “I’ve got to get to bed,” he said, standing. “I’m gonna fall asleep here if I don’t.” I accompanied him to the bedroom and got him into bed, kissing him and telling him that I loved him. He was asleep almost as soon as his head hit the pillow.
While Bill slept, I thought. Sadly, he had been the victim of another assault. This assault came in a different fashion, but it was an assault nonetheless. When I heard my parents come home, I slipped quietly out of bed and went out to see them for a minute. They told me that they were later getting home than we were because they had been talking with the cops about pressing charges against all five of the conspirators. Both my mom and my dad were apparently somewhat vigorous in their request for the harshest possible punishment. They were tired, I was tired, so we all called it a day and went to bed. What a day it had been.
Chapter 3
Graduation
WHEN we got back to school on Monday morning, I made sure that word of the assault on Bill spread as fast as the student gossip mill could carry the message. Jeremy did his part with his network as well, so that by lunchtime everyone had heard. When Bill and I sat down together to eat lunch, we noticed that lots of people were looking surreptitiously at us. Whenever we’d look back at them, they would, of course, quickly look away and pretend that they were talking with someone and weren’t paying any attention to us. Bill found the whole thing annoying. I told him to try to ignore it. I tried to keep him distracted with talk about his morning and mine, asking in detail about who he had seen and talked with, as well as how he thought his afternoon would play out.
At one point while I was talking, Bill suddenly interrupted me and said, “Everybody knows.”
I hesitated for a moment, but then said, “Yes. Everyone knows.”
He sat quietly for a moment before nodding and saying, “Good.” And we went on about our day. Nothing bad happened that day, to me, to him, to Jeremy, or to anyone else. And that pattern held through the final three weeks of school leading up to our graduation.
Final exams were the usual pain in the ass to prepare for and then take, but we got through them, and suddenly classes were finished. In just a few days we were going to be closing the door on this chapter of our lives forever. And good, bad, or indifferent, these people and our experiences with them were important to how we had developed into the people we had become, and how we would continue to develop as we moved the rest of the way into adulthood and the world.
Bill was a bit bummed that several of his friends had planned graduation
parties but had not invited him. Still, there were several others who did invite him to their parties. The night of graduation and the day after were going to be busy for us if we actually went to all of the parties we had been invited to attend. Well, that Bill had been invited to. He told me that where he went, I went as well—we were a couple, and the days of hiding that fact from the world were finished. So we were going to have a busy couple of days.
But first, before we could go to the parties, we had to get through the big event itself—graduation. Graduation was scheduled for seven o’clock on Friday evening in mid-June. The morning before, all of the graduates were required to attend a ceremony rehearsal. Since the weather forecast was for good weather, the ceremony was planned for outside at the local county fairgrounds, where there was plenty of seating for all the guests. When weather required the ceremony to be held indoors at the school, everyone was limited to only three people that they could have in attendance—there just wasn’t room enough to handle more than that. But this year the weather was cooperating, and it looked like there would be no issue with the outdoor ceremony.
And so at 10:00 a.m. on Thursday, Bill and I drove to the county fairgrounds and gathered with all of our classmates. We received instructions for about a half an hour before we all moved off the stage to practice the procession. The only real problem with holding graduation at the county fairgrounds was that the graduates had to process over the dirt racetrack that ran between the stage and the grandstand. It became quickly apparent to all of us that our shoes were going to suffer. We hadn’t had rain in a couple of weeks so the dirt on the racetrack was very dry and very powdery. As we walked, not only did we have to contend with the dust that we stirred up, but also the dust stirred up by the people who marched immediately in front of us.
I thought Bill was going to throw a fit when he found out that we couldn’t walk side by side like he wanted. The principal informed us that we all marched in alphabetical order, which was the order in which we would be seated and the order in which the diplomas would be presented. It was also the order in which the programs had been printed, so it was clear to me that Bill was fighting a losing battle. It must have been to him as well, because he immediately backed off the issue.
Since his last name came alphabetically before mine, he was lined up for our two-by-two march closer to the front than I was. My last name came right in the middle of the alphabet and appeared to be the most popular letter for last names to begin with, so our grouping was rather large. Eventually, everyone was put into their assigned spot, the processional music was started, and we practiced marching along the racetrack and up the steps to the stage. We all seemed to have a tendency to march too fast, since we kept getting instructions to slow it down.
We had the most difficulty figuring out seating once we got onto the stage. I never would have predicted that this would be a problem. The staff and teachers quickly got this straightened out, and we got the last of the people into their seats.
“Okay. Let’s do it again.”
Grumbling, we all exited our seats, got back down onto the dirt, lined up in our designated order, and did the whole thing again. We apparently were still moving too quickly, because we kept hearing, “Slow down! You’re not in a race. You might be on a racetrack, but this is not a race.”
Two hours after we had started, we were released. Everyone was given their caps and gowns, which fortunately we had not had to wear earlier since it was a warm day. We took them home, tried them on, and posed for pictures in the backyard. We even got my mom to take a bunch of pictures of the two of us standing side by side in our caps and gowns. We knew we’d do it all over again tomorrow night when we actually had our diplomas in hand, but still, digital photography freed us from having to worry about how many pictures we took.
One of the parties to which we were invited the next day was actually scheduled for the afternoon before graduation. We thought that was a bit odd until we got there and found that the party was more of a proper high tea event than a high school graduation party. We found everyone dressed up, classical music playing, bunches and bunches of small round tables with white tablecloths, and waiters moving around, passing out tiny sandwiches and cups of tea.
We were seated at a table with two people Bill knew. Even though I had nothing in common with the two friends of Bill’s from his track team days, we were all quietly amused by the party, since it was not remotely like what any of us had expected. When you think of a graduation party you think of music, a keg of beer, a cake, fun, laughing—you know, party sounds. But here everything was extremely proper and precise. It wouldn’t have surprised me if the waiters had measured exactly where to put the little plates and carefully folded napkins.
We were nibbling on our sandwiches and drinking our tea when an older woman interrupted us. “Excuse me, gentlemen. I hope everything is to your liking this afternoon.” We could see that she had one of our fellow students in tow. We all looked at the girl, who simply rolled her eyes and looked unhappy.
Ever the diplomat, Bill spoke for all of us. “Yes, ma’am. A perfectly lovely party. May I ask you what tea you’re serving this afternoon? I love the flavor.”
The woman beamed at him. “You, young man, have a very discerning palate. I only serve English Breakfast Tea at tea parties.” She smiled and then said, “I must be off to greet other guests. Please enjoy, and thank you for coming.”
As they walked away we could hear the woman asking her granddaughter, “He seems like a nice fellow. Why didn’t you date him?”
“He’s gay, grandma.”
“Well, that’s a good reason. He’ll be quite a catch for some lucky man, then.”
Bill and the rest of us were trying very hard to contain our laughing. We absolutely did not want to burst into laughter and disrupt the party.
When everyone had it under control, I couldn’t resist. I looked at Bill and mimicked the earlier line. “You, young man, have a very discerning palate.”
“Why, thank you, kind sir,” he responded.
“You’re both a couple of fruits,” one of the jocks joked, not intending it to be malicious in any way.
“Well, duh,” Bill said. “I thought that was clear by now.”
“Crystal, my good man,” one of them said. We had a quiet moment between finishing our sandwiches and tea and being able to get the hell out of there. Unexpectedly, one of the two guys sitting with us brought up the prom.
“Bill, I just want to say that I think what Sue and the guys did to you at the prom was awful. I didn’t know anything about it. If I had I would have done something to stop them. They had no right. And I’m sorry you had to go through that.”
The other guy was quieter than the first. He simply pointed at his friend and said, “What he said.”
“Thanks, guys,” Bill said. “That really means a lot to me. I’ve been really bummed out by the whole thing and have been waiting to get the hell out of this town and to slam the door shut on this part of my life forever. So, thanks, that really does mean a lot to me to know that I still have some friends around here.”
“Totally.”
I thought for a moment that I was about to be witness to the much hinted-at but never saw jock bonding behavior, but at the last minute they all pulled themselves back from the brink of sharing an emotion.
We had to hit the road to get to the fairgrounds and get capped and gowned for the dusty procession, as did many of the others in attendance. Even though I knew the answer, I used my cell phone to call my dad to see if they would be leaving soon. As I had anticipated, they had left and arrived already. They were seated in the front row of the grandstand. Actually, Mom was seated and was holding a seat for Dad. He was down on the racetrack behind a stanchion the school had erected, setting up a tripod and getting his video camera set up to record our procession. I didn’t know how much of the event he was prepared to record, but should he want to record all of it, he had a prime location to do so. I grudgingly had
to admit that there were occasionally times when arriving early at an event had some benefits.
People were arriving in droves by that point, both participants and observers. While the grandstand had no problem holding all of the people, it was looking more crowded now. We milled around for a while, since the school administrators seemed to subscribe to my mother’s school of thought that you get somewhere early. They had all of us assembled, capped, gowned, and ready to roll—or march—well ahead of the first step being taken.
Finally, finally, finally, it was time. I gave Bill a quick hug and then went to my place in the lineup. The music started, and my heart rate increased with excitement. This was the big event. This was what I had worked toward for years and years. This was the end of one part of my life and the beginning of the next part of my life. I knew that there were not all that many such moments, and each one should be savored as fully as possible. I was pleased. I was excited. I was proud.
When it came our time to march, I and the person beside me started to move. Several administrators along the way kept telling us, “slow down,” so we tried. When we reached the stage, we found our seats and waited until everyone was on stage so that we could all sit down together as one.
The ceremony was long. I had never really stopped to think about how long such an event would take. I suppose I had been to these things before, but for some reason I’d just never paid much attention in terms of how long they took.
First there were awards and scholarship presentations. None of us knew ahead of time who was slated to receive what recognitions. They ran through several small (i.e., fifty to one hundred dollar cash prizes) and a couple of $500 awards. For the most part they all went to deserving people, people who had earned the recognition and could use the money.
The master of ceremonies announced that the next award would be to recognize the achievements of a student in the field of leadership, and go to someone who had clearly been one to teach, to lead, in both good times and bad, and someone who had the potential to further develop his or her leadership skills. The award was for $2,000. And he announced Bill’s name as the recipient.
Go West Young Man Page 5