End of the Innocence

by John Goode

  “Um, yeah, I guess,” I said, surprised he’d ask me.

  “Awesome, come by after lunch, and I’ll start training you.” He looked at Kyle and then back at me. “And you were right; this one is a keeper.” He headed out the door.

  Kyle jumped up. “Mr. Parker, wait!” He hurried over to him and asked him a question.

  I watched them talk for a second; out of nowhere I felt a pang of jealousy, even though I knew Mr. Parker would never hit on Kyle. Mr. Parker shook his head and then walked out. Kyle walked back to our table.

  “What was that?” I asked him, trying not to sound like a douchebag who gets mad when his boyfriend talks to another guy.

  He shook his head as he went back to his burger. “Asking him something, not important.”

  I felt like pushing it, but then I figured that was the wrong way to go.

  Gayle walked over to refill my Coke. “Oh, you’re already done?” she asked me, surprised. “You must have been real hungry.”

  I had been about to order more fries, but now I just felt I’d end up looking like a pig. Instead I smiled and nodded. “Yep, I’m a growing boy.” I sighed.

  When she walked away, Kyle slid his plate of fries over to me. “Here, growing boy.” He grinned. “I’ll share.”

  I ate a fry, and all was forgiven in my mind.

  KYLE

  BRAD dropped me off at work. I gave him a kiss and waved bye, smiling at his excitement. He hurried off to the sporting goods store to start his own workday.

  My thoughts, however, were a million miles away. Okay, not a million, just as far as Kelly’s house. I had tried texting him while Brad finished my fries, but I hadn’t received an answer, and that worried me. I had asked Mr. Parker if he had heard anything about Kelly; his answer would help me figure out how far the word had spread.

  If everything was still limited to Facebook posts and people online, then I felt I could still talk Kelly down off the mental ledge he was on.

  Luckily Tyler hadn’t heard a word. In fact, he wasn’t quite sure who Kelly was until I brought up he was a football player. “Oh yeah, the tall guy who used to follow Brad around?” I nodded. “Nope. Why? What happened that I should have heard about?”

  I shrugged and dropped the subject fast. The last thing I needed was to spread the news to more people.

  I stood in the parking lot and tried calling Kelly again, but it went straight to voice mail. “Fuck,” I said to myself, closing my phone.

  “How was lunch?”

  I spun around. Robbie lounged against the building, smoking in the shadows under the awning. “Jesus! Wear a bell!” I said, holding my chest.

  He stepped on the cigarette butt. “Not my fault you were in a Brad coma and didn’t notice me.”

  I could hear the fight just waiting on the edge of his voice. Robbie was using the same sarcastic baiting tone my mom used when she was pissed, but didn’t want to deal with the actual topic. “I’ll be in the back,” I said, walking in the shop, ignoring his attitude altogether.

  I began pulling clothes out of the next box, knowing our argument wasn’t over. Sure enough, about ten minutes later, he strolled in and leaned against the door frame. “So explain it to me.”

  I sighed and looked up. “Explain what exactly?”

  “Why you would care about some homophobic asshole who made your life hell!” he snapped, frustrated.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I asked him back.

  “You need a list?” he blurted out. “How about because he is a bully, a closet case, and if anyone deserves to deal with being outed against their will, it’s him.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said, keeping the emotion out of my voice. “You are completely wrong.”

  “Prove it,” he demanded.

  “No one deserves that. No one at all. And by saying a person deserves the way they are treated for one thing or another is how other people justify treating gay people the way they do. It’s okay if they get beat up because they are gay, and they deserve it. It’s okay if we say they are an abomination and going to hell because they are gay and deserve it.” My voice began to get louder as I lost control of my emotions. “No one deserves it, Robbie. No one! And the fact you think this guy, who is a human being just like the rest of us, deserves to go through what’s happening to him just shows what kind of person you are.”

  “And what kind of person is that?” he asked, his voice seething with fury.

  “You’re a bigot,” I said, standing up. “Acting the same way the people who hate us act doesn’t make you right. It makes you the same type of person.” I couldn’t take any more of this. “There is a human being out there who is being attacked. Just because he is straight or gay or whatever doesn’t make it right.” I rushed past him and headed toward the door. “I’m done for today.”

  “Don’t bother coming back!” he screamed after me.

  “Fine!” I yelled, looking back at him.

  “Fine!” he yelled back.

  I had no idea what to say after that, so I slammed the front door of the store shut and headed toward Kelly’s house.

  It was a pretty long walk, but I needed the time to calm down.

  I don’t understand why adults automatically assume because they’re old that they’re right. It was like at some point a person turns in his common sense and ability to reason and falls back on some version of “Because I said so.” Whatever you think is right is all that matters. It doesn’t matter if logic says you are wrong or that you’re contradicting yourself, if you read it in a book somewhere, then it has to be the only way it can be. There is just no room in their head for a new idea, no matter how much sense it makes.

  Robbie could sit there and lecture me on how we need to be a community and what affects one of us affects all of us, but in the same breath he could say that Kelly deserved what he got because Robbie didn’t like Kelly. How is what Robbie says and does any less bigoted than not letting people get married or serve in the military because they’re gay?

  The bigots yell at us, we yell back, and all that is left after everyone takes a breath is hate.

  And still no one does anything to make it better.

  An expensive-looking black whale of a town car was parked in Kelly’s driveway, but his truck was nowhere to be seen. I considered not knocking on the door, but I had come all this way. I was cold and worried about Kelly. I knocked.

  The door opened and a woman who looked like what I imagined one of the real housewives of New Jersey might look like as an extra on the Walking Dead stood there. Her dress would have been considered ugly in at least three different decades. Her face looked like she’d decided to store all her makeup in one place in case the house caught on fire and she had to evacuate. In her left hand, she clutched a tumbler of something dark brown with no ice, meaning she was drinking for real. And though Mrs. Aimes looked nothing like my mom, all I saw was what my mom would look like if she’d had money.

  “Yes?” she more slurred than asked.

  The smell of booze hit me like a wall of hot air. “Um, is Kelly here?” I asked, trying not to make a face.

  She seemed to ponder the name for a few seconds, as if she couldn’t remember who Kelly was, before it clicked. “Kelly! Door!” she bellowed before stumbling back into the house.

  I stood in the doorway, not sure if she’d meant I should come in.

  Looking far worse than he had a couple of days ago, Kelly thudded listlessly down the stairs in his socks. There were black circles under his eyes, and he looked like he hadn’t slept in forever. “Oh, hey,” he said waving me in. “I’m upstairs.” Every word he said and move he made were efforts. Slowly making his way back up the stairs, plodding along as if he was a condemned man walking to the electric chair, he led me to his room. His shoulders were slumped, and he stared intently at the floor. I followed him up without saying a word.

  When we got to his room, he fell face-first onto his bed, silent.

  I closed the door behind me and sa
t down at his desk. A quick glance at its littered surface told me a lot.

  His phone was dead. He obviously hadn’t charged it in a few days, which was a good thing in its own way. His computer was off, and his keyboard looked like it had been run over by a car, it was missing so many keys. “So, how are you doing?” I asked, turning back to Kelly, who hadn’t budged.

  He flopped over and stared at his ceiling.

  “My parents are freaking out. My dad is talking about moving, and my mom hasn’t stopped drinking since they got home.” He sounded like a victim of a natural disaster, voice a monotone, words sounding as if he had memorized them so he wouldn’t have to work at speaking. “They got home and asked what happened to my truck. I started explaining and my dad screamed ‘Why didn’t you hide it in the garage?’ I think he had it towed away. I haven’t gone downstairs in a while.” He looked over at me and attempted a facial expression. “How’s your day?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, not sure what else to do. “I’m sure they are just in shock. Give them some time.”

  He laughed bitterly and went back to staring at the ceiling. “Yeah, because not enough time is what was preventing them from being real parents my whole life.”

  I knew that feeling all too well.

  “I don’t think the word has spread around to the rest of town yet,” I said hopefully. “I asked Mr. Parker if he had heard anything, and he said no.”

  Kelly shot up like he had been tasered. He was off his bed in a flash, and grabbing my shirt with both hands before I registered the fact that he’d moved in the first place. “What did you tell him?” he roared.

  I wasn’t the least bit scared, which is weird, because I should have been. “Nothing, I didn’t tell him a thing, Kelly. I just asked he if had heard anything,” I said in a more reassuring tone. “I promised you I wouldn’t tell anyone, and I meant it.”

  He stood over me, his hands trembling as he was literally overcome with emotion.

  “I mean it, Kelly. I won’t tell a soul,” I repeated.

  He didn’t so much as let me go as he deflated back into himself, his hands dropping to his sides. “I know,” he mumbled. “I’m sorry….” His voice trailed off to nothing as he shambled back to his bed and sat down.

  “I’m going to help you,” I said, trying to impart some kind of positive feelings his way.

  He stared across at me, and the look of defeat on his face was just crushing. “Okay. Can you turn back time and unrecord that video? Can you make everyone who has seen it forget it? Can you convince my parents that I’m not some kind of deviant freak? Go ahead, Kyle, help me.”

  It reminded me way too much of my speech to Mr. Raymond when I came out.

  “Things will get better,” I tried to convince him. “It just looks bad now.”

  “It looks bad now because it is bad,” he replied frankly. “And it is going to be worse tomorrow and then worse the day after. It isn’t going to get any better, dude.”

  I had nothing to say in return. Thankfully, I didn’t have to conjure up something. The sound of footsteps crashing up the stairs was followed by someone crashing Kelly’s bedroom door open. An older and fatter version of Kelly stood there glaring. “Why is this door closed?” he had begun to ask before he even saw into the room. When he saw we were fully clothed and not on top of each other, his whole attitude changed. “Kelly, your friend should be going,” he said, not even looking at me.

  I stood up and held my hand out. “Hi. My name is Kyle Still—”

  He gave me a look that would have caused Medusa to wither. “I know who you are. It’s time you leave.”

  I lowered my hand. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Kelly,” I said, not breaking eye contact with his dad.

  “I don’t think Kelly is going to be up for company.” Mr. Aimes said it as a suggestion, but the expression on his face made it clear it was anything but.

  “And I think I will still be here tomorrow,” I “suggested” right back.

  Mr. Aimes looked like he was about to argue, but Kelly blurted out, “Jesus, Dad, it’s not like he gave me the gay or something. I’ll see you tomorrow, Kyle.”

  I looked back at him and nodded. “My phone will be on all night.” I glanced back at his dad. “Pleasure to meet you too,” I said and stalked out.

  It was going to be a long couple of weeks.

  BRAD

  THE next week blurred by.

  Between trying to figure out how to help Mr. Parker survive the Christmas rush at the store and trying to make time to see Kyle, I felt like each day was getting shorter and shorter. My days were spent helping people find something to buy for a Christmas present. My nights were spent with Kyle as he described Kelly’s descent into hell.

  Since he had quit working at the clothing store, he had thrown all his effort into turning Kelly’s mood around. From what he told me, it wasn’t an easy task. Kelly’s dad, even at his best, was a dick. I remembered the way he had tried to insinuate himself into any conversation he saw us having in a lame-ass effort to seem cool and hip. The old guy was tragic on an epic scale. Of course, since coming home and finding his only son a social outcast, he was nowhere near his best.

  Kyle was pretty sure the old man blamed him in some way for making his son gay. I had told him it sounded about right, since Mr. Aimes never thought he was to blame for anything. The only reason Kyle was even getting into the house at all was Kelly’s mom. She had taken to talking to Kyle at length about being gay and how horrible it must be for us. Kyle had tried to tell her it wasn’t, but she just talked over him, saying she could only imagine how terrible our lives must be since we came out.

  After the third day, Kyle just sat there and nodded.

  It had been a week since the weekend of The Party, and things were getting worse. The news was no longer confined to the people on Facebook. The video had over a hundred thousand hits on YouTube, and the comments were the worst things you could imagine. It was like people out there just waited for videos like this to crawl out from under their rocks to spout hatred. Kyle had even found it on Tumblr where the video was being passed around faster than he could follow.

  “It is like days away from being autotuned,” Kyle said, using my laptop. “And once that happens, it is going to go viral.”

  I shuddered at the thought of a video like that being passed around about me.

  “The Internet sucks, man,” was all I could add to the conversation.

  “Not everyone,” he said, showing me the comments of support for Kelly as well. They were few compared to the haters, but there were some. “It’s just easier to be a bastard when no one knows who you are.”

  “Tell me about it,” I agreed, remembering how vicious we could be when the person we were ridiculing wasn’t around. I’d seen this kind of thing before, but never on this scale. Someone had caught Billy Jackson making out with a girl who definitely wasn’t his girlfriend at an away game and had sent the clip to everyone in their phone. Of course, one of those people posted it on Facebook, where Billy’s girlfriend saw it. That got ugly, but it was nowhere near this.

  “It’s just this town,” Kyle said, closing the laptop in frustration. “It’s like the world starts and ends here, and there is no way to get Kelly to see past that.”

  “But it is the beginning and the end for some,” I tried to explain. “Some people have lived in Foster for generations; to them, this is the entire world. They are born here, go to school here, fall in love, and die here. Not everyone thinks it’s a bad place.”

  He just stared at me for a long time. “Is that how you feel?”

  All I saw was that stupid robot from Lost in Space throwing his arms up screaming, “Danger, Brad Greymark, danger!”

  “Well, no, I can’t wait to get out of here, but I understand their point of view,” I answered carefully.

  “Then explain them to me,” he stated plainly. I wasn’t sure if he was mad or not.

  I took a deep breath and plunged in. “To some peo
ple, the world changes too fast, Kyle. There is a black president and gay people getting married and people wearing dresses made out of meat, and those people don’t get it. Places like this are safe to them, and they like that. I’m not saying it’s all right, but I am saying they just aren’t ready for change. Here they can change more at their own speed.”

  He thought about it for a moment.

  “Tough,” was all he said in return. I laughed, but I got the impression he wasn’t making a joke. “I mean it. Life doesn’t wait until people catch up. What’s wrong is wrong, and if people can’t wrap their minds around it, then they can go to hell. We didn’t wait until everyone was ready to pass civil rights. We did it because the way human beings were being treated was wrong. And places like this, they aren’t safe, they’re ignorant. They are little hidey holes of bigots and hatred, and the people who hide here know they would be laughed right out of a real city.” His face grew redder as he went on. “I’m sick of it. I’m sick of these people acting like monsters and then having the audacity to call other people immoral.”

  This was pretty angry, even for Kyle. There was something else in play here. “What happened?” I asked, digging right under his tirade.

  He shook his head. “I’m just tired.”

  I moved closer to him. “Kyle, what happened?”

  “They want to send him away,” he finally admitted, breaking down.

  “Who?” I asked, worried.

  “They want to send Kelly away to some straight camp,” he said as he started to cry. “His parents want to send him to some brainwashing camp where they are going to try to pray the gay out of him.” He was shaking now. “He’ll die in there, Brad. He already hates himself enough. One of those places will just….”

  And that was all he was able to say for the rest of the night.

  I held him long after he had cried himself out and fallen into a fitful sleep. I stared up at my ceiling and began to think as he curled up next to me on my bed. I had hated myself too once I figured out I was gay, which was the main reason I tried so hard to hide it. It was only after seeing how fearless Kyle was about it that I found the strength to follow his lead. That day I kissed him in front of everyone wasn’t so much about defending him as it was about saving me from a life of self-loathing. I could see that same self-loathing in Mr. Parker when no one else was around. The way he talked about being single and lonely, even though he tried to laugh it off as a joke. There was a sadness in his eyes that made me so very glad I had escaped that fate.