Pride Must Be a Place

by Kevin Craig

  Each of the two men now have one of them in wrestling-like holds. The one guy is holding Will back, struggling to keep him off Alex. The other guy is dragging Alex away. He brings him to the grass on the boulevard between the sidewalk and the road and lies him down. Alex is out cold.

  I sort of come to, out of my frozen state.

  “Alex,” I say. I move towards him and fall to my knees. “Alex, are you okay?”

  “Just give him some space,” the guy says. “Get back. Give him air.”

  The guy starts gently patting Alex’s cheek to bring him to, but nothing’s happening.

  “I called 911,” a woman says as she kneels in beside me. “They’re on their way. Is he your friend?”

  “Yes. His name is Alex.”

  “I hope he’s dead,” Will yells. The second guy who came over is still restraining him. They’re sitting in the grass now, a few feet away. Will is still trying to flail and swing, but the guy is pretty huge. I don’t think Will’s getting away any time soon.

  “Will, shut up,” Jordan says. I look over at Jordan and he looks pale and sick and in a state of panic. “Stop talking.”

  When I turn back to Will, he’s still struggling but losing steam. I go to tell Jordan to calm him down, or something, but Jordan has vanished.

  Hank sits down beside me and he looks even worse than Jordan. I don’t see Simon anywhere. I turn back to Alex. The guy who pulled him out of the fight is still talking to him, still trying to make him come to. And he’s solidly between Alex and me.

  I hear the sirens long before I see the vehicles. An ambulance pulls right up over the curb and onto the boulevard behind us. The passenger door opens and someone jumps out, opens another door, grabs a big bag and then runs over to Alex.

  “I’ll take it from here, thanks,” the paramedic says. He hovers over Alex as his rescuer jumps up and steps away. I stand up and move back a few feet, taking Hank with me.

  Just as the police car pulls to a stop in front of us, I look over in time to see Alex raise his head slightly. The paramedic tells him not to move and his head goes back down, but at least he’s come to…at least he’s alive.

  One of the cops goes directly to where Will is being restrained. He raises his voice and Will immediately melts into a more subdued state. I shake my head as I watch the cop stand him up. Will makes a move in Alex’s direction, and the cop swings him around and puts him into handcuffs.

  It’s all so surreal. It wasn’t supposed to go this badly. Jesus, Alex. I hope it was worth it.

  As I’m thinking this, I don’t even realize that the other cop has come over to us and is talking to Hank. And me, he’s talking to me too. I can’t focus. Where’s Simon? As I look around for him, I wonder if he took off just like Jordan must have done. I wouldn’t blame him.

  “I’m going to need to take down your names and other information,” the second cop says to us. He’s holding a little notebook, not unlike the ones Alex had picked up for us at Dollar Dollar Discount for our club naming contest. How I wish we were back there right now. “And your statements. I’m going to have to ask both of you to come down to the station with me. Do you have cell phones? You’re going to have to let your parents know where you are.”

  Like hell I am.

  “I want to go with Alex,” I say, filled with defiance that I’m not sure I’m really feeling. “Are they going to take him to the hospital?”

  “I’m not sure, son,” the cop says, “But we’ll leave that to the paramedics. Like I said, you’re coming with me. Both of you.”

  Both of us? He’s forgotten someone. No, strike that. He’s forgetting two someones. Jordan and Simon. I look around in desperation. Now there’s a crowd forming. Traffic is a mess and a second police car is parked behind the first. I don’t know how I keep missing things.

  As I scan the crowd, I finally set eyes on Simon. He’s walking back up the sidewalk towards us. Where the hell did he go?

  At least he’s coming back.

  The cop is still talking, but I walk away and move toward Simon. As I get closer, I notice that he’s out of breath.

  “Sorry,” Simon says. He’s gasping for air like he just ran track. “That Jordan guy made a run for it. I tried to catch him, but he got away.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “Don’t worry about it. The cop told me we have to go to the police station with him.”

  “How’s Alex?” he says as we make our way back.

  “I don’t know.”

  “There you are,” the cop says to me. “I thought I’d have to—”

  “No, no,” I interrupt. “I’m here. Simon was with us too, though. He’ll give a statement as well.”

  “Sorry, sir,” Simon says. He points to Will and continues, “That guy’s friend was here too. Jordan somebody. But he ran when he heard the sirens. I tried to bring him back, but he was too fast.”

  “Good to know,” he says. “We’ll look into that. Let’s go to the car, boys. They’ll take your friend in the other cruiser.”

  “Friend?” I ask.

  “Will,” Hank says. As he says it, I see Will being led to the second police car. His hands are behind his back in handcuffs. I watch as the cop puts a hand on his head and guides him into the backseat.

  Speechless. I can’t believe it’s gone this far. Alex is on a stretcher now, being rolled to the ambulance, Will’s sitting in the back of a police cruiser. I keep thinking this is all on Alex. But if Will wasn’t such a bigot, none of it would have happened in the first place.

  “Let’s go, guys,” the cop says to us. “You three friends? Can I put you all in the backseat together without anything else happening?”

  “Yep,” I say. He walks us to the car and we pile in. How did this go from me and Simon trying on clothes to me, Simon and Hank sitting in the back of a police cruiser together?

  CHAPTER 25

  “How long is this gonna take?” Hank says. He’s fidgeting like a maniac. He can’t sit still for a minute. We’ve only been here for about twenty minutes, but thanks to Hank they’ve been the longest twenty minutes of my life. “Can’t we just leave if they take too long? Do we really need to stay?”

  “Stop jiggling your leg, Hank,” I say. “You’re shaking the whole bench. I swear, you’re driving me crazy.”

  “I don’t like sitting still, Ezra,” he says. “It’s not my fault. I just can’t do this.”

  “Here,” Simon says. “Take my phone. I don’t know why you don’t have yours with you in the first place.”

  Hank smiles and takes it. “Thanks, man,” he says.

  “No texts, no internet, no snooping through pics, no data suckage. Just play a game, or something. Can you do that? I’m kinda saving your life, here. Ezra’s about to lose it on your ass.”

  Simon smiles as he says this, so Hank kind of laughs. But then he looks at me and realizes Simon might be telling the truth. “Um, thanks, Simon,” Hank says.

  “Don’t mention it,” Simon says. “Stop bouncing around on this bench, though, or I won’t be able to help you when Dr. Bruce Banner here starts to turn green.”

  “What?” Hank says. “Never mind.”

  Hank turns his attention to Simon’s phone screen and starts playing a game. I mouth ‘thank you’ to Simon.

  “No problem, cutie,” he sort of whispers back to me. “Hey, why is Hank sitting between us?”

  I get up and push Hank over to the end of the bench. Now that his attention is on the game he’s playing, he hardly notices the shift. I sit down beside Simon and say, “There. Better?”

  “Much.”

  “Where the hell is my son?” The voice fills the entire room and I stop myself short of jumping. When I look to the door to see who just walked into a police station shouting, I’m surprised to see the man from Alex’s infamous driver’s license pic. Mr. Severe. Will’s dad.

  Who does that?

  He doesn’t stop there, though. Mr. Severe marches up to the main desk and starts shouting at the o
fficer there.

  “You have two minutes to tell me why you’re holding my son. My lawyer has been called. You better let me see him. Now.”

  “Sir, if you will just—”

  “I won’t just anything. Bring me to my son right now.”

  Mr. Severe looks like Will. Or, I guess Will looks like Mr. Severe. But Mr. Severe is a bigger, angrier version. I keep my eye on him because I’m pretty positive he’s about to take the officer and snap him in half over his knee. He’s huge. And angry.

  “You!” I hear from the other end of the corridor. As I turn in that direction, I see Will running full out towards me. No, scratch that. Towards his father.

  I look at Simon to make sure he’s seeing this. His face tells me he’s caught all of it so far. Simon reaches over me and taps Hank on the shoulder. He looks up from the phone screen and quickly forgets that it’s in his hand.

  It’s all happening in slow motion. We watch Will breeze by our bench and I wonder why he was able to get away from wherever it was he had come from. Shouldn’t he be handcuffed to a chair or something? Or in an interrogation room with a dozen cops looking at him through the one-way glass?

  “Will,” Mr. Severe says. “Thank God. Are you okay? Did they do anything to—”

  “I hate you,” Will says as he approaches his father and starts to put on the brakes. “I hate you. You bastard. Stay away from me.”

  Suddenly there are three cops hovering around them.

  “Will?” Mr. Severe says. He’s totally oblivious. His life is about to change forever and he has no idea whatsoever. Poor, disgusting, cradle-robbing deviant bastard. “What’s wrong?”

  Will’s in his dad’s face now, looking pretty much like he did before he went schizo on Alex.

  “You talk non-stop about how disgusting fags are, and you’re fucking gay.”

  Silence. Anyone who wasn’t already completely focused on the Will and Will show has just tuned in.

  “You’re a fag,” Will says.

  Mr. Severe hauls off and slaps Will across the face, harder than someone has ever slapped anyone else across the face in the history of face-slapping. It actually throws Will off balance. “You do not talk to me that way, William Severe.”

  “Okay, I think that’s about enough,” an officer says as he moves forward and steps between the two of them. “I think we need to calm down a bit.”

  “I hate you,” Will says. He brings his hand up to his cheek and before it covers it, I can see the angry red mark left by the slap.

  An officer moves to put his hand on Will’s shoulder, but Will shrugs him off. He walks halfway back to where he came from, and meets the officer he had been with before his father came in.

  “Am I free to go?” Will says. “Are we done here?”

  “Um, yes, actually. Once we sit down with your father for a moment. We should be good to go in a few minutes.”

  “That’s not happening,” Will says. Mr. Severe walks past us, gives us a dirty look. By the time he reaches his son, Will’s walking away, going back to the room he was in before all hell broke loose.

  “Will, I don’t know what’s going on. I’m sorry, but I have no idea what—”

  “Stop your bullshit, dad. You know you’re gay. I know. It’s over.”

  His dad’s previous cockiness is all but gone now. He looks like he might throw up.

  “How about I help you out, Dad. Does the name Alex ring a bell? Alex Mills? Because he goes to my school. He goes to my school, Dad. How could you even—”

  “Son, I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Mr. Severe says.

  That’s when I remember. The name comes to me like a neon sign across my mind. Sidney. Alex had used a fake name that day.

  “Sidney,” I say out loud. But they’re down the hall. I don’t think they heard me. “Sidney,” I say, louder this time.

  I get up from the bench and start to walk toward them, but Simon hauls me back. “Don’t get involved, dude. Now’s not the time.”

  “Will,” I call out. He swivels in my direction. I’ve never seen anyone look so lost and confused in my life.

  “Stay out of it, Ezra,” Will says.

  “No, Will. The name. Alex was Sidney that day. On Rub, he goes by Sidney.”

  “What? What are you even talking about? What do you—”

  “Oh my god,” Mr. Severe says. “Sidney.” His face crumples and he hangs his head. Finally, he realizes there’s no turning back from this thing. It’s exploding in his face and there’s no way out.

  Will sees the reaction the new name has on his father and sort of loses it again. “It’s true, then. It’s true, isn’t it?”

  “Will,” Mr. Severe says. “I’m sorry.”

  Silence. But anyone with eyes can see that this is the kind of silence that won’t last. It’s the calm before the storm. And it’s a big storm. Will is on the absolute brink.

  “Hey,” the cop says to Will. “How about you come with me, son. Come on.” He tries to put his arm around Will but Will shirks him off. “Come on, son. It’s best if we just take this into a private room or something. Come.”

  I don’t think Will’s there anymore. His brain has overheated and what’s left behind is some kind of furious monster intent on killing his father.

  “I hate you,” Will says to his father as he begins to rush him. “Don’t you ever speak to me again. Don’t you ever speak to my mother again.”

  Before it escalates further, however, the officer kind of forces him through the closest door and the two of them disappear.

  The station remains quiet for a moment. Nobody moves. Mr. Severe just stands there, utterly destroyed. He drops his head even further and covers his eyes with his hands and just stands there, no doubt willing himself to disappear.

  Slowly, people begin to move and the station crawls back to life. All of it except for Mr. Severe. He continues to stand, glued to his spot.

  Even from our bench halfway down the hall I can see it happen. Mr. Severe’s sides start to hitch. He’s crying, but he doesn’t want anyone to know. But I can see his sides. That hitching motion is unmistakable. He’s struggling to take in air as he cries.

  I turn away and look down at the floor. I can’t look at him anymore.

  Eventually, I see his feet as he slowly makes his way past us. I look up and watch his back as he continues the long walk to the door, opens it and leaves.

  Holy shit.

  CHAPTER 26

  I don’t know if I should feel like a bad friend or someone who’s finally coming to his senses. I called Alex right away once I found out he was treated at the hospital and released. I did. Really. And I even called and texted him a few times after that.

  I brought his homework to him two days later when he asked me to. I cringed when I looked at the puckered mess that used to be his face. I cringed, but what I wanted to do was scream. It’s bad. He needed stitches in two places, just under his lip and below his right eye close to his cheek.

  His face looks like it was split open. It’s looking much like a jack-o’-lantern looks the morning after Halloween. You know what I mean, when you’re walking to school and you see them all over the road smashed to pieces.

  So, yeah. I visited him. But we hardly said two words to each other. It was totally strained. For me, anyway. He might have been jacked up on pain meds. He probably didn’t even realize I had nothing to say to him.

  But, yeah, I’m feeling a bit like a bad friend. No clue what to do, really. I’ve been talking to Nettie about things. She’s usually the voice of reason out of the din of confusion, but she’s not really helping me on this one. I think she feels a bit like the competition. She doesn’t want to trash talk Alex with me, in case I change my mind and turn on her. But I’d never turn on Nettie. Nobody will ever take her place in the best friend slot. She’s got that for life.

  I’m spread out across my bed staring at the ceiling with my oversized headphones on. One guess what I’m listening to. Yep… Rise Up.
I wish I could hear Alex’s vinyl version, but that would involve actually being in the same room with Alex. It’s blaring in my ears, blocking out the rest of the world. I wish life was as easy as this song. It would be an amazing world if it was.

  The truth is, I think I might be done with Alex. There. I said it. It doesn’t matter how I slice it, what he did was despicable and disgusting. Sure, Mr. Severe is a pig. The worst kind, if you ask me. Obviously he’s been hiding behind his façade of being a homophobic bigot all his life. He even dragged his son into it. He’s the absolute worst kind of homosexual there is, the kind who hates themselves and takes it out on others. He made his own son a homophobe.

  So maybe Mr. Severe deserved to have his life turned upside down. Maybe he deserved to be destroyed. But I feel so bad for Will. I mean, I thought I felt bad for him when Alex merely had this hanging over his head and he was threatening to use it. Now? I can hardly breathe sometimes when I recall the way Will freaked out on his dad. The way he lost himself forever.

  Nobody deserves what Will Severe is going through. Nobody.

  We could have reasoned with him. We could have just let the club work to change everyone’s attitude. I’m sure Will would have fallen into line once he realized we’re all the same. But now? Now he’s gonna hate us forever. And now he counts his father among us. His father who trained him to hate us.

  The whole thing is just too much to take in.

  And I hold Alex Mills completely one hundred percent responsible.

  Even Simon is trying to tell me to cut Alex some slack, and I know Simon loathes him. He said as much that night, after we gave our statements and he walked me home. He was so furious with Alex, had he been in front of us he would have finished him off. But now he’s backpedaling and saying I shouldn’t dump my friend when he needs me most.

  But I don’t know if Alex ever needs anyone. Alex is always about Alex.

  You know when you don’t have many friends and there’s this one guy you have this absolutely huge thing in common with so you kind of get lumped together and you bond over that one thing even though maybe you’re not really compatible in all the other aspects of your life? Well, for me, that’s Alex.