by T L Barrett
“Uh, well, I’ve lost my virginity, but I didn’t think that would be all over school…” Barry said.
“Oh, wow, no, I mean congratulations. I really support the fact that you’ve gotten all comfortable with yourself. I mean, it’s not really for me, but I’ve decided I don’t really hold anything against anyone who makes that decision,” Patty babbled.
“I thought, you and Karl, I mean last year…I assumed…” Barry said. He felt very uncomfortable. Patty’s late night revelries with an upperclassman pounded against their adjoining wall for many weeks the year before. Barry also knew, however, that Patty came from a large and rather conservative Catholic family, so he didn’t want to actually pull out the drunken slut card on Patty, if his old friend needed to convince herself that the repetitive screaming sex hadn’t happened. He supposed there was the distant possibility that Patty had blacked out those months.
“Uh, Barry, I’m a girl. Karl was a man, well, more like a boy…no, that sounds perverted. I guess, he was a man-boy, but, in any case, it’s different,” Patty said. Barry squinted.
“I don’t understand. What are you talking about?”
“About you deciding to come flying out of the closet. About how you are gay, and whatever. Is that the term you people like to use for yourselves?”
“What? I’m not gay! Who told you I was gay?” Barry said.
“Oh, you’re not, thank God!” Patty gave him a hug. “Are you sure?”
“Damn it! Yes, I’m sure! Who told you that I was gay?”
“Some girl, in the cafeteria. She said that you were totally gay. She said she saw you making out with some Mexican behind the theater last week.”
On Thursday, things began to become clear.
Barry stood at his mailbox in the student center and tried to go over the last place he had seen his mail key. Someone came up, and cleared their throat, so Barry moved to the side. A young man put his key into the mailbox beside his and started pulling out loads of mail and mail-order catalogs. He turned his head and thanked Barry, giving him a winsome smile. Barry’s eyes focused on the young man and had the distinct feeling like he was looking in a mirror. The young man had brown wavy hair styled very similar to Barry. He had an intelligent and modestly handsome face. He was the same height; he even wore the same plaid shirt over a pocket T-shirt. For a moment, Barry was sure the other young man had noticed the similarity. They stared at each other for a long moment.
A young Hispanic man came up and slid his arms around the other man’s shoulders.
“Boo! Gotcha, beautiful!” the Hispanic man said and slid a tongue into the other man’s ear.
“God, Pablo, you know I hate that!” the other man said and slapped at Pablo’s chest.
“Oh, don’t be mad at me, Kitten,” Pablo cooed and the ‘kitten’ promptly smiled and gave Pablo a very intimate hug. Pablo looked over Kitten’s shoulder and gave Barry a scathing look.
“What are you looking at? Go find your own boyfriend.” Pablo said.
“Now, don’t be rude, Pablo. There’s something about him. Do I know you? You look familiar.” Kitten asked.
“No, I get that a lot,” Barry said and left the student center.
That night, in his friend Greg’s dorm room, a motley passel of artistic types passed joints and a bottle of whisky. Barry was mildly surprised that Tony had come.
After a couple of rounds of both, Tony laughed out loud, and grabbed Barry by the shoulder.
“Dude, this is actually fun! I was totally scared to come, but I’m glad you invited me,” Tony said in a voice that was too loud for the little room. Everyone turned their gaze on the young Italian man.
“Uh, Tony, why would you be scared to come to a party?” Barry asked.
“Well, you know, you being gay and all. I thought this was going to be a total gay orgy or something,” Tony said. Greg spit out his whisky in a stream of hilarity.
Barry’s brow crossed together. “It’s not funny. Who told you I was gay?” Tony looked sheepish, his eyes flicked to each of the other people in the room.
“Well, it was that chick that’s always hanging out in the drama suites, what’s her name? Erika.” Barry’s mouth set. It was the girl from Dramaturgy. That little bitch got him confused with Kitten and spread the news all over school.
“No, dude,” Greg said. “It’s like totally funny! Tony, that’s your name, right? Tony, here, thought this was going to be a gay orgy. He totally came! That’s awesome.” The entire group broke into an uproarious braying of laughter, except Tony. Tony wished he hadn’t opened his big mouth, or come to this party, or not taken his step-dad’s offer to pay for trade school.
On Friday, Barry looked up Erika’s dorm room number and paid her a visit.
On the third round of knocking Erika cracked open her door and peered out. She held a bathrobe tight over her chest and her hair was festooned with little sausage curlers.
“Oh, it’s you. What do you want? I’m kind of busy right now.”
“Well, I kind of wanted to talk to you.”
“Why would you want to talk to me?” she asked with what he supposed was flippant witticism.
“Well,” Barry began, a group of people trying to smuggle a case of beer walked by, so Barry raised his voice. “You’ve been telling everybody in campus that I’m gay.”
“Yeah, so, you are.”
“No, you see, there has been some kind of mix-up. You think I’m somebody else.”
“I don’t think so. You are in dramaturgy class with me.”
“Yeah, I know. You’ve got me confused with someone else. Someone else who is gay, see?”
“Who is gay, then? What’s his name?”
“Well, I don’t know. His boyfriend calls him Kitten.”
“Okay, whatever, anyway, if that’s all, I really am quite busy, okay?” Erika spoke with loud annunciation the way people do with the senile or the insane. She started to shut the door. Barry stuck his hand in the way. That hurt, like a bitch.
“Look, I’m sorry, but, you shouldn’t stick your hand in doors when people are shutting them. It’s rude!”
“Look, you. Just stop telling everyone that I’m gay. I’m not! I’m straight! I’m totally straight. I have had sex with a woman.”
“Really? You just don’t give off that vibe to me, though.”
“Well, I am. So, I’d really appreciate it if you would stop telling people that I am. It is making my life very difficult,” Barry said.
“Fine. Is that it? Can I shut my door now?”
“Well, yeah, I just really think that next time—” The door slammed shut on Barry’s face. Barry sighed. He had done what he could.
He didn’t find out until the next evening that it had been too little, too late.
On Saturday morning he finally managed to get a hold of the sorority girl from the weekend before. He realized that she had probably avoided him, but he didn’t want to give up on the one chance that the one girl who had proof of his heterosexuality might want to have sex with him again. The girl said she was going to go a party with some friends at ATO, and that if he wanted to meet her there, they could spend the rest of the night together.
“That sounded like a plan,” Barry said.
“How does breakfast sound?” The girl added.
“Beautiful, just like you,” Barry said, and winced. The girl giggled. Barry giggled back and promised to meet her at the designated time, and at the designated fraternity house.
Barry was a very happy straight man.
The evening arrived. Barry left play practice, took a shower, pulled on a Mexican sweater and sauntered happily across campus to ATO. The fraternity house throbbed with music and a line of would-be-partiers spilled out the front walk and down the sidewalk. Barry had only been to a few parties at these places. Barry and his friends referred them derisively as ‘meat markets’. He noticed the big hockey players manning the gates and sizing up the girls as they tried to giggle and bat their eyes enough to gain entrance to
the bear soaked basement.
“Hey, I’m just here to meet a friend, so I’m just going to pop in…” Barry said as he moved past the frat boys. One of them reached up and grabbed Barry’s wrist in a vice-like grip.
“Hold on! You aren’t stepping one foot in our house,” the frat boy declared.
“Okay,” Barry said and tugged to get his arm free. “That’s cool. I’m supposed to meet someone here, so I’d just pop in for a minute to tell her I’m here, and…”
“No, it isn’t cool,” the other Neanderthal said, stepping very close to Barry. “We don’t want your kind around here.”
“Excuse me?” Barry asked. “I don’t understand. What do you mean ‘kind’? Vermonter, person wearing Chuckie’s? What? I really don’t know what you mean, kind.”
“We got a little smart mouth, here,” the testosterone-ridden freak muttered. “I think you better just walk away, little man.”
“Actually, I’m not that little. I’m six feet tall.”
“You look little to me,” the first frat boy said and stood. He stood roughly at 6’, 4”.
“Look, let’s start over, I think there’s been a big misunderstanding here. So, if someone could just go get my friend, I think you’d see—” Barry said.
“The only misunderstanding here, is yours, you queer! Clean out your ears, we don’t want your kind.”
“What’s the problem, boys?” a giant asked as he came into view. He wore a bear hat and looked like he could put down a keg or two in one sitting.
“This pillow-biter here is trespassing, Donnie.”
“Is that right?” Donnie asked. He pushed the very air in front of him forward as he moved. Barry stumbled back. “You don’t want any trouble do you?” Donnie cracked his knuckles.
Suddenly, Barry was surrounded by five frat boys.
“Look, there’s been a big misunderstanding here. I don’t think we need to be uncivil.”
“We’re going to curb stomp you, and break every bone in your faggoty little body, if you don’t beat it, right now,” one of them muttered.
“For the record, I haven’t done anything wrong to any of you.”
“You are refusing to leave a place you aren’t wanted,” one of them growled.
“Keep talking, faggot, I dare you.” Donnie chuckled.
Barry looked past the wall of angry young men to the line of would-be-partiers. They looked on with idle curiosity. Wherever Barry looked, they would avert their eyes and look away.
Behind the fear and the frustration, a great sadness sank deep into Barry’s heart.
“Fine, I’ll go, but, this is a big mistake,” Barry said and he moved to go. For a moment, the frat boys, too apparently excited about the prospect of beating Barry within an inch of his life, didn’t move to let him go. Finally, reluctantly, they did. Barry felt like he was living someone else’s life as he walked away from the jeering fraternity brothers. He got under the second street lamp before the frat boys started throwing little rocks at him. They hit him on the back, the neck and the back of his head. Barry forced himself not to run.
* * * *
“Barry, where are you going?” Damien called. “You can’t just walk back to school. It has to be eleven miles. We’re in the middle of nowhere.” In his mind, still walking away from the fraternity brothers, Barry didn’t answer.
Just then, a truck came driving up the road and changed Barry’s life forever.
Barry looked up to see a young couple inside of the pickup, their faces painted with worry. The man pulled the truck up to them and leaned out the window.
“Hey, have you seen a little boy, eight years old?” the man asked. The wife, a pretty, but somewhat horse-faced woman with a bug shield leaned forward. Her eyes glistened, mascara smeared across her cheeks.
“No, we haven’t,” Barry said around his hand. He pulled his hand away and grimaced, trying to stretch his face against the swelling that he felt around his left eye.
“Oh, Ronnie, I told you!” the woman bawled.
“Look, fellows, my little boy ran off into those woods,” Ronnie said and pointed. Barry and Damien followed the finger to the shadowy forest to their right.
The harried woman got out of the truck and was around the front in a flash.
“Could you help us, please? Help us find our little boy!” pleaded the woman. She took hold of the front of Barry’s shirt. Her panted breath was meaty and overpowering.
“Uh, yeah. Sure, sure. We’ll help you find your boy,” Barry said. The woman yanked Barry forward into her considerable bosom, and squeezed him tight. She put her face into the nape of Barry’s neck.
“Do you want us to drive into town and call the police?” Damien asked.
“No!” Ronnie said and leapt out of the truck. We’ve already done that. Our son is fast, you know, real fast. We need to find him before he gets too far.”
“Oh, you smell so good!” the woman whispered into Barry’s ear.
“So, what do you want us to do?” Damien asked.
Barry felt the woman’s tongue slide over the crest of his jaw.
“We need to go up the road a ways and check if he has made it to the brook. If you could go into the woods here and look for him…Heather!” Ronnie said and dragged her off of Barry. Heather whimpered and rubbed her bug shield on Ronnie’s shoulder.
“Sure, we’ll go,” Damien said. “What’s your son’s name?”
“Hezekiah Francis Punt,” Donnie said. Heather gave Barry a look of longing while she rubbed the side of her head against her husband.
“Don’t worry, ma’am. I’m sure we’ll find Hez…your boy,” Damian said.
“Thank you, boys,” Donnie said. He put his big hand on the nape of Heather’s neck and gave her a shove toward the truck.
“Get in the truck, bitch,” Donnie ordered.
“Yes, honey,” Heather said and scurried to the passenger side. They drove away at great speed.
“‘Get in the truck, bitch’?” Barry asked.
“Don’t get all snobby, Barry,” Damien said. “I took a sociology course with Doctor Stone last semester. It is part of their regional culture and dialect, probably. You have to learn how to respect diversity.”
“Dude, that woman licked the side of my face!” Barry said.
“She did not! God, I didn’t think I hit you that hard. Did you hit your head on the car?”
“Yes, actually, I think I did, but she also licked the side of my face, I’m telling you,” Barry insisted.
“Get a grip, Barry. I know, you’re not gay. We have to go help save this kid,” Damien said.
“Something about this doesn’t feel right,” Barry said.
“Jesus, you are a complete douche, aren’t you? The woman was hysterical. Her kid is lost in the woods. There could be wolves in there, for God’s sake!” Damien said.
Just then a high howl rose up from the woods that they faced.
“I—I…didn’t think there would actually be wolves,” Damien stammered. Barry pushed past him and entered the wood.
“You coming or not?” Barry said. He looked back. Damien’s face showed pale with fear.
“Who’s the douche, now?” Barry asked. Damien frowned, fixed his hair and followed Barry into the wooded semi-darkness.
* * * *
“Hezekiah!” Barry screamed.
“Hezekiah Francis Punt!” Damien echoed. The silence of the woods answered them.
“With a name like that, I’d have run away, too,” Barry remarked.
The two young men wound their way through the thick undergrowth for a good ten minutes. Already they were scratched, sore, and ready to give up all hope.
Ahead, in a thick growth of vines and bush, something stirred.
“Hold me!” Damien yelped and smashed himself against Barry.
“Get off me!” Barry grunted and shoved Damien away. Damien yelped again and pin-wheeled his arms as he stumbled against a broken branch.
At that moment, the bus
hes stirred again. Barry turned his gaze to see a child lift his head from the bushes. Barry saw two things that put him off. The child’s face seemed incredibly dirty, almost too dirty, as if the dirt took a third dimension over the kid’s face. The dirty child was also naked. The kid turned and dashed off.
“The kid!” Barry panted. “Hey!”
“Oh, Jesus!” Damien yelled. He got up and turned, looking down in horror at the branch that was sticking out of the right side of his chest.
“Oh, Jesus, I’m a dead man! I’m a fuckin’ dead man,” Damien yelled.
Barry took a few steps toward where the naked child disappeared. He turned and saw where Damien stood looking down in shock at the knobby branch. Damien’s face drained of color. Barry watched as the poet’s eyes rolled up into his head. Damien took a half step backward and then toppled.
Barry ran over.
“You’ve done it know, boy. You’ve killed him,” a voice, which sounded a lot like his father mixed with Waylon Jennings said in his head. “You might not be a gay now, but you’ll learn to be in the long years ahead of you in prison.”
“Oh, God. Please don’t be dead,” Barry whispered. He bent down and flapped his hands over Damien. With shaking hands he fumbled for a pulse in Damien’s throat. He thought, maybe he detected something, but all he could feel was his own heartbeat hammering away in his own throat.
“Oh, jeez,” Barry moaned as he saw the blood leaking from around the stick where it had pierced Damien’s chest.
What to do? He remembered from watching lots of old westerns with his dad that you had to break the tail off of an arrow and shove the rest of the arrow through the wound. He grabbed the end of the stick.
“Ahhh!” Damien screamed jumping to life. It startled Barry, so that he jumped back with the stick still in his hand. Damien screamed again. Barry fell back on his rump and looked at the gory end of the stick. He tossed it to the side and got up.
“Stay the fuck away from me,” Damien yelled.
“Okay, okay,” Barry said and held his hands out in front of himself.
“Oh, shit,” Damien moaned and put his hand near the wound. His hand came away with blood. “Oh shit, you left some of the stick in me, I can feel it!”