The winds began to shift, bringing an ominous chill down from the North. Leaves crowning the majestic trees had started to lose their rich, green vibrancies as new colors erupted from the branches. Red, yellow, and orange drenched the tops in a spray, clearly warning of the impending season. The once warm Sadie would soon find itself wrapped in the swaddling blanket of cold. They were on the cusp of September, the beginning of a long journey into another hard winter.
Despite the gradual drop in temperature, the gossiping geese still managed to inhabit their regular corner. Huddled like members of a football team getting a new game plan. You could bet your left arm that their mouths were running at the speed of light, their lips flapping like a sheet in the wind, and their ears were perked like a fox, eagerly indulging in their daily sin. Audrey, Janice, Mary Cavanaugh, Lucille and Kay, were all decked out in their housewife garb. Audrey in her hair rollers and hot pink housecoat, Lucille in her brown slacks and silk green shirt, Janice in her normal state of fashion disaster, with a lacy, country-western blouse, an ankle length plaid hoop skirt, and a red ribbon in her thin, white hair. The younger of the five, Kay, was dressed in a one piece jumper, decorated with tiny teddy bears and balloons, something you would expect a five year old to wear to a party. Mary was the only one dressed half way sensibly, never one to be flashy, she wore a pair of dark blue slacks, and a short sleeved shirt, a great deal more reserved then those in her company.
Needless to say, they were all aware of each other’s lack of fashion taste, but none of them of their own. Securing her rollers, feeling to make sure none had loosened, Audrey took her famous stance. Her hands propped on her wide hips, one foot in front of the other, her face like she had just eaten a sour grape. She was watching a young man leaving Lola Collier’s house down the street. “Look at that,” she mumbled thoroughly insulted, “That is the third man to come and go today,” she observed. It was a credible observation, after all, she had been watching since seven that morning.
Janice twirled the tassels hanging from her lapel around her finger, “I’ll be darned. It’s a wonder she can still walk. What do you think all these young men see in her? Maybe it’s because she’s a redhead, you know what they say about redheads.”
“What do they say about redheads,” Lucille asked sternly, not that it was her intention to sound so. It was just her nature.
Janice gave her a queer look, thinking hard, “Well,” she started, “I don’t know. I just heard someone say that one time.”
Lucille stared at the mousy woman, “Janice, next time God is handin’ out brains please remember to get in line.”
“In one ear and out the other.“ Janice huffed quietly, gazing off.
Kay leaned inward, “I bet I know how she snags so many young ones,” she stated gravely. All eyes were on her.
“Why?” Mary asked.
“I think... she sells it,” Kay finished.
Silence.
Audrey grew a queer expression, “Sells what?” She snapped.
“Well,” Kay said, “I don’t mean Avon.”
Janice scratched her head; she looked like her brain hurt, “Mary Kay?”
“No, Janice! I mean she’s...” Kay struggled. She didn’t want to sound like she knew to much about the subject, “She’s loose.”
Gasping, their hands went over their mouths, “Oh dear Lord!” Audrey declared, “She’s a Prost-“ She couldn’t finish, it was too vulgar to imagine.
“A Protestant?” Janice asked, clearly lost.
“A Prostitute, Jan.” Kay nodded pleased, “Why do you think all the strangers come in and out of there. She’s putting out!”
Mary clenched her chest in distress, “Why would she have to do... that, if she killed her husband and got all of his money, I doubt she’s hurting much.”
Lucille sighed, analyzing the situation, “Maybe she’s one of those sex addicts. One of those broads who can’t get enough of it. What do they call them?”
“Kleptomaniac,” Mary announced contented.
They all nodded in agreement.
Audrey shook her head disparagingly, “I’ll tell you, when judgment day comes, that woman is going to have a lot of explaining to do. I was just listening to A.M. radio the other day, and this man said the end of the world is upon us. God has sent us a message and no one is listening. Why do you think all of this evil has worked it’s way into our lives? There’s tornadoes, volcanoes erupting, hurricanes coming left and right, cults of every kind, homosexuals, killers, prostitutes, global warming, the ice caps are melting, the sun is giving off solar flares that are affecting our environment, comets coming to close to Earth for comfort, earthquakes, mud slides, Aliens mutilating cattle, sex infested media, diseases our immune system can’t fight, scientists messing with genetic structures, computers leading our lives, false prophets, speakers of the devil, people committing crimes against humanity, and it’s not just the colored people anymore! There are too many false religions to count, like Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jews, Mormons, Baptists, that one church that Tom Cruise joined, Scientomogy. God is weeping for these people. He’s trying to tell them that Christianity is the way. I am just thankful that I’m a member of The Christian Fellowship, I’ve reserved my ticket to heaven,” she spewed aggressively, finally taking a breath.
Mary sneered at her. Audrey’s narrow minded views infuriated her. Just because Mary didn’t attend Audrey’s cherished Christian Fellowship Church, she refused to believe she was going to perish. They had this discussion many times, and Audrey was unrelenting. She believed everyone except herself, and those like her, were destined for hell. Mary could speak up, she could come up with some witty lash, but she refrained. It would do her no good to comment; Audrey would just feel threatened and begin ranting on again about her carved-in-stone beliefs. Bitch.
Lucille pursed her lips, “Good God, Audrey! I think you just broke a damn world record. I was waiting for your head to start spinnin’ around!”
Mary snickered, she knew she could rely on Lucille to say the things no one else had the guts too. Laughter echoed like a tune in her head, like a child teasing, Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha! Haaa!
Audrey crossed her arms across her sagging breasts, “I’m just saying,” she muttered.
Rachel and Carol walked down Main Street. It seemed as if their time together had become more substantial than it used to be. Their discussions more open and revealing as new trust had developed between them. Carol had gone through a major change, both internally, and externally. Rachel noticed that she held her head up when others passed. The strength she possessed had always been there, just hidden beneath layers of damaged spirit. She was more beautiful than she ever had been before. A woman of forty-five, appearing as bright and fresh as a newborn. Rachel was proud of her. She could now look at this strong woman, and say with pride, “That’s my Mom; I want to be like her someday.”
They came to a large glass door, clearly marked, “Timothy Evans, Attorney at Law,” without any hesitation, or a shimmer of doubt, Carol pushed her way inside, Rachel following close behind.
The office was not as drab as Carol expected. The walls were covered in a lovely country print wallpaper, deer leaping over fences. A ceiling fan spun in the center of the ceiling, supplying them with intervals of light breeze. On the walls hung large framed oil paintings of idyllic cabins nestled in far off places. She could see lighthouses, and docks leading out over the water. Radiant skies, like those after a summer thunderstorm. The paintings offered a very pleasant atmosphere, one she was immediately grateful here, under such unpleasant circumstances.
They took their seats along the wall and waited. “You all right?” Rachel asked softly. She knew this couldn’t be easy. Not after spending so many years with her Father. Rachel knew this was the one place Carol had never imagined herself. Despite all she had been through, she remained resilient.
Carol grabbed her daughter’s hand and squeezed it, smiling, “I’m fine. I just want to get this all ove
r with. What about you?”
“I’m okay. I know this is for the best,” she said. She did know. This was the first step toward a brand new life for her mother, who more than deserved it after waiting in the trenches for so long.
The door opposite them flew open. Mr. Evans peeked out and offered a polite grin. He recognized Rachel right away, “Rachel! Nice to see you again.”
Rachel and Carol stood as they all met halfway. “This is my Mother,” Rachel announced. Timothy took Carol’s hand into his own and gently shook it, “You and your daughter look so much alike, I could’ve easily guessed.” He directed them into his office, which was a great deal smaller than the lobby. It was clean, seemingly very organized.
Rachel and Carol took their seats, as Timothy moved onto the other side of his desk, putting on his wire frame glasses he glanced down at the file beneath him. “After I spoke with you on the telephone, I began typing up the papers. Now, the one thing that I have to ask is what are you stating as grounds for the divorce?”
Carol tensed in her chair, “I- I don’t quite understand the question.”
Timothy grinned, “It’s all very technical. For you to be granted a divorce, I have to put down the reason you’re filing. I know it’s very personal, but unfortunately, these things are never easy.”
Oh god! This was embarrassing. She had to tell this stranger about all she had known, and lived with for years. He would surely think her a fruit. “My husband had an affair,” she began, “Well, affairs,” she added, “It’s plural.” She watched as Timothy scribbled something down on the sheet of paper in front of him. Carol clutched her purse to her abdomen, “For about five years, he had many different affairs. He got one of the women pregnant,” she informed coyly, then continued, “He also neglected us... emotionally.”
“How did you come to find out about his indiscretions?” Timothy inquired.
Carol felt as if a bowling ball were in her stomach, her mouth was dry, like a desert, “I found out about the first one five years ago. I caught him with his secretary. He knew that I had found out, though, I never openly confronted him. It was then he started to separate himself from me. Then he was more visible with his women. One time he came home to grab some clothes; he had a lady waiting for him in the car out front of our house. I would find telephone numbers in his pants pockets. His shirts would often have lipstick marks in the collar. He didn’t care much that I knew... I guess it just didn’t matter to him.”
Timothy looked up over the frames of his glasses, “Is he aware that you’re filing for a divorce?”
“Oh yes. He knows. He knows,” Carol replied smiling. She wondered if the cleaners had yet scraped the charred remains of his belongings from the ceramic walls of her swimming pool.
“So you knew of his extramarital acts and tolerated the neglect, and you’re just now filing? Why didn’t you do this five years ago?” Timothy laughed, trying to comfort her by breaking the ice. He could tell she was a nervous, possibly even scared, by the rigid way she sat.
Carol didn’t answer right away, when she finally did, it was through a veil broken words, “I loved him.”
Timothy fell serious. He stared at the sad figure with a sympathetic expression, “I know you did.” He watched as Rachel reached into her Mother’s lap and grasped her hand. There was a long history here. One that had left two lives spiraling, but the power between this family, this Mother and child, this would heal all wounds. In time, they would stand again. Timothy knew all too well about loving someone and losing them, and with that, he felt he shared a common ground with Carol. They had a long path ahead of them, but they would successfully find home, with the light of their children, and their love to guide them.
Dottie Feldon staggered through the living room. She walked slowly, doing her very best to keep her balance. It didn’t help that, on her feet were a pair of black high heels three times to small. Her hefty ankles spilled out over the sides and a large bulge protruded from under the leather buckle. Her flesh was red and her veins visibly purple from the lack of circulation.
Dottie didn’t care; after all, she would only wear them for a moment or two. She couldn’t risk Angie catching her. If Angie found out that her Mother had been in her closet again, and was wearing her brand new high heels she would surely have a fit. Dottie wanted feel sexy. She thought the heels would give her legs a more succulent look. Make her five foot two, three hundred and forty pound frame seem more appealing.
With her face tense and red from agony, and her jaw working a huge piece of gum that she gnawed at aggressively, Dottie waddled over to the full length mirror that sat on the far wall. She had to stop several times, just to re-position her tormented feet, and then begin again.
She smiled to herself, “You are one hot Momma.”
She situated the gaping neckline of her size 2X floral print moo-moo and struck a seductive pose, one arm behind her head, pushing her lips outward into a pout as though she were a 1940’s pinup girl.
She finally made her way to the sofa opposite the mirror, leaning against the back of it and sighed heavily. She looked at her open pack of Marlboro’s on the coffee table and held out her arm toward them, not really trying to reach them, but somehow hoping that by some metaphysical act they would see her situation and just float over. Defeated, she flung herself backward with the sofa to cushion her fall. Now her cigarettes were within reach. She grabbed the pack off the table, pulled one out and lit it. She struggled for a long moment to sit back up and gain her bearings and eventually won.
The moment her feet touched the floor again she felt spikes of searing pain shoot upward, yet it didn’t stop her. She stood up, glanced at herself in the mirror, placed the cigarette so it hung loosely off her bottom lip and took a seductive stance, leaning back against the sofa, tossing back her bleached hair. She observed her reflection intensely, then reached down and hiked up the corner of her moo-moo revealing a great mass of her pincushion leg.
She spoke quietly as she took a heavy drag of her smoke. “My name is R-r-r-ramona, I’ll be your mistress tonight,” she breathed.
Just then, she heard a clatter at the top of the staircase and jolted hard. Standing up nervously, she immediately felt her left heel buckle beneath her and she nearly fell. Luckily, she caught herself on the sofa. She reached down, her expression one of panic, and pulled off the shoe. The heel was holding on by a single thread of rubber. Dottie’s face fell. She took the huge wad of gum from her mouth and began the repair.
Angie stepped slowly down the stairs. The billows of her Mother’s cigarette smoke floated through the narrow rays of sunlight that were peeking through the eaves in the blinds. She felt an inch tall. She stopped at the landing and straightened her twisted bra strap beneath the velvet material of her black dress. Had her face not been a direct admission of her discomfort, one would think her to be royalty. She had done her best, with her hair piled up in loose curls around a braided bun on top of her head, and her face a flawless display of beauty, she should have been proud.
Despite her visible efforts, she felt minuscule. She just KNEW people would laugh. She just KNEW she would end up being the punch-line to a bunch of chubby jokes. She could hear them all now, “Look at Angie! That dress must be spandex!” They could all go to hell. She didn’t care. She would just turn the other cheek and ignore them. She had become quite good at that. She had, after all, had years of experience. She could repeat that over and over in her head. “I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care.” In fact, she did. She hated herself for doing so, but it still got to her every time. Little did they know that she had already lost twenty pounds since the beginning of the summer, and that the dress she wore now, was one her evil bitch grandmother had sent her three summers ago. Back then Angie would have been lucky to fit a leg inside.
She straightened her diamond, heart-shaped necklace and laid it at the top of her cleavage. Thank God she only had to do this once. After the dance she would c
ome home and revert back to her comfort zone, with a blouse, slacks and no make-up. This make-up thing wasn’t all that bad she guessed. Perhaps she was over dramatizing a bit. After all, she kind of liked this transformation, though she would never admit it out loud. It made her wonder how she would look if she invested this much effort when she got her new body.
Just then, Dottie came whipping around the corner, she stopped for a fleeting second, took a stride backward, tossing her hand across her mouth, excitedly gasping then squealing beneath it. Then, she lowered her hands to her chest, admiring her beautiful child.
“Well blow me down with a chicken feather, Angie. You look like a million bucks!”
Angie didn’t smile, “You have to say that, you’re my Mom.”
“Oh stop being such a bitch!” Her mother smiled, running her fingers along Angie’s shoulder, feeling the soft material. “You cleaned up real nice. My God girl, whoever knew you could be so pretty. You should do this more often. Might catch yourself a man. Men like classy lookin’ girls.”
Angie rolled her eyes. This was her way of silently dismissing her Mother.
“Stand up straight and keep your shoulders back, otherwise your tits’ll sag. We don’t want any of’em boys thinking you need to push around a wheelbarrow everywhere you go now do we? Are you wearin’ a bra?”
“Of course I’m wearing a bra!” Angie moaned distressed.
Her Mother lunged at her, pulling down her neckline, peering inside, as if searching for treasure in Angie’s cleavage.
Angie jumped back, grasping her neck defensively. She stared at her Mom in disbelief.
Mother smiled innocently, “Oh come on Angie! You was naked as a jay bird the first time I saw ya. Ya ain’t got nothin’ I ain’t seen already. It’s a little late to be modest. I’m just sayin’ that your boobs look a little different... smaller maybe. Thought you went and got one of them there Miracle Bras. You know the ones that squish your tits up and in.”
Angie brushed a piece of lint from the velvet, “It’s not a special bra, Mother. It’s just one I picked up a few days ago. It’s a regular bra, okay?”
“My tit’s sag. See baby, back in my day we didn’t wear bras. Now that I think about it, I’m wishin’ I had worn one of them bras when I was your age. Maybe my boobs wouldn’t hang so low. It’s all about maintenance, if ya take care of yer shit while it’s still good, you’ll keep’em that way longer. By the time I was twenty I couldn’t even run anymore for fearin’ one of my knockers would fly up and hit me in the face. When they’re firm and perky, they’re cute, but when they get bigger than a basketball and weigh ya down, they’re scary. You don’t want boobs like me, baby, big ones intimidate guys... they think they’re dangerous, like they should have a suffocation hazard tattooed across’em.”
Angie walked into the living room, “Have you seen my new shoes?”
Dottie swallowed a gulp of air as she followed, “Can’t say that I have.”
Just then, Angie spotted the open toe of one of her heels sticking out from beneath the arm of the sofa. She hurried toward them exasperated. “Here they are! How did they get down here! Have you been wearing my things again?”
Dottie fanned herself distantly, “I don’t wear your things Angie, got my own things. Where you goin’ anyway?”
Angie perched herself on the arm and pulled out both shoes and began putting them on, “It’s the farewell dance at the high school. Gives everyone a chance to say their good-bye’s before we leave for college next week.”
Dottie eyed her daughter curiously, almost trying to decipher any sarcastic undertones in her voice, yet she detected none. “After all those kids have done to you, why would you even bother saying good-bye.”
Angie froze solid, as if a sudden cast of stone had molded itself over her flesh, encasing her inside. It would seem that, throughout the many years and uncountable events that Angie believed had gone unnoticed by her mother, they in fact hadn’t. The times she would run home from school in tears, trying to get as far away from any disparagement as she could. When she would lay in her room and struggle to muffle her cries, praying that somehow, someway, someday she would see the reason that God had put her here, made her this way, gave her this face, and those harrowing trials.
While in public with her Mother, when nameless faces and soulless eyes of her peers would snicker and try to diminish her without saying a word, Angie always hoped her mother wouldn’t see them, she was afraid that if her mother knew, she be embarrassed of her, just as bitch Grandma had been. She would think her a coward, or even worse, believe her to be deserving of the ridicule. Then again, she wanted her Mother to know, she needed consolation, she needed her mother’s arms around her, she needed to know that despite the way the world, or even Sadie, viewed her. This was not what she was.
All in all, as these thoughts rambled through Angie’s head, she realized that the child that cowered in the shadows and turned away when judgmental eyes found her, was gone forever. The battle was hers, and she had fought it alone, perhaps by choice, perhaps by circumstance.
What she didn’t know- All this time, Dottie knew. She remained silent for Angie’s benefit, never allowing herself to swoop in and rescue her like some Supermom. She supported Angie in everything she did, knowing that if Angie had something to say, if she needed to weep, Angie would come to her. The topic was never outwardly addressed, mostly because Angie never insinuated the need and Dottie was unsure of how to approach it without adding salt to Angie’s open wounds... embarrassing her, adding to her torment, taking away the one place where she could feel safe and shut out all of her troubles, the one place where nothing, no one could cause her to feel inferior. Though Dottie kept her concerns to herself, she secretly harbored an intense hatred for those kids, for this world, one she sent her daughter out into every day to suffer. Alongside the hate nested hope... Angie was strong. This would make her stronger, one day she would stand tall, suitors would fight for her hand, and she would openly speak with confidence and smile at those who looked upon her. Never did a doubt arise when Dottie wondered about Angie’s future, it was as if she knew that her child would rise above whatever obstacles that confronted her, and she would emerge triumphant.
Angie stood and took a slight step toward her Mom, a modest grin gracing her glowing face. As she looked into her Mother’s eyes, Angie noted an overwhelming sentiment, something unspoken, but very present. She wrapped her arm over Dottie’s shoulders and closed her eyes, relishing the feeling of contentedness.
She closed her eyes as she spoke softly into her Mother’s ear. “I’ve come so far... I’ll be okay... I’ll be okay.”
Dottie held back her emotion, fronting what was inadvertently visible, “I know. I always knew.” Angie kissed her lightly on the cheek, then withdrew. She moved past her and out of the living room toward the foyer, and as she stepped up onto the landing, she turned to her Mother once again, framed in the archway. Dottie stared at her with pride and reverence, and for the first time, Angie saw it, acknowledged it.
She watched as Angie turned away once again. It wasn’t but a moment or two before Angie would reach the door, and Dottie picked at her fake fingernail until she heard it close behind her. She sighed with relief, her shoulders falling, and then... a scream, a sudden clumsy thumping on the old wooden planks of the front porch... and finally, a THUD!
Thomas sat on the edge of his bed clenching the brochure in his hands tightly, his eyes fixated on the cover. The words leapt at him, golden letters emblazoned on a crimson background: THE SAN FRANCISCO ART INSTITUTE.
He was in deep thought, entranced by the possibilities. Suddenly, the phone bellowed beside him. Thomas jolted, immediately picking up the receiver before it could further disrupt the intense quiet. “Hello?” Thomas said, still half surprised.
On the other end spoke a soft voice, one so familiar. “Hi,” Corey said quietly.
Thomas could sense the smile on Corey’s face, tho
ugh he could not see him. He pictured him standing in his window, the breezes caressing his raven mane, the sun reflecting off of his puffy lips. One hand holding the telephone to his ear, the other draped across his chest, resting upon his arm... bathed in a soft white light, looking down at the landscape below... and that voice, so incredibly delicate. Thomas hesitated for a moment, caught up in the imagery. When he finally found his voice, he spoke, “Hey.”
“I’m beginning to think I’ve offended you. It’s been days and you haven’t even bothered to call or stop by. I’m sure you’re busy, but I just wanted to... I don’t know... guess I wanted to hear your voice.”
Thomas smiled modestly as if he weren’t alone in his room, like Corey may see him from where he stood, beaming. “Well, I’ve got a lot on my mind... you know how it goes. I kind of figured with this being your last week in Sadie you’d be spending time with what’s his name... Chris.” Corey was quiet for a second. He almost felt guilty for wanting to talk to Thomas, as if he should be devoting all his time to Chris... it sounded perfectly logical after all. Chris was supposed to be his boyfriend, but Corey didn’t have the appetite for his company. His appetite yearned for Thomas. It seemed wrong, but Corey was torn between his relationship with Chris and his unrelenting feelings for Thomas. Chris had called him every night, but to Corey, the anatomy of their relationship had changed, the curiosity was gone... and the burn from his antics had left a scar. It wasn’t like Corey to be so fickle, but he couldn’t deny the fact that his feelings for Thomas had far surpassed those he had for Chris, which even now, upon hearing Thomas’ voice, continued to dissipate, while those feelings for Thomas grew.
Corey took a shallow breath, “I have the whole rest of the week to spend with Chris,” Corey dismissed eagerly.
“Well, a week isn’t that long if you really think about it... time moves faster when we enjoy it... a week with someone you love can disappear in the blink of an eye,” Thomas said thoughtfully. He was being honest. He knew that if he had been in Chris’ position, he would be with Corey right now.
“So, do you want to hang up?” Corey asked meekly, “If you’re looking for a reason to hang up, if you don’t want to talk, just tell me.”
Thomas didn’t say anything. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to talk to Corey, he DID want to talk to him, and he had so many things running through his mind, things he needed to say, that had he actually began to reiterate them, he may never shut up. His purpose for the silence was not to diminish Corey, but to somehow say “The things I have to say I know you do not want to hear, and should I say them, they would be for my own benefit, my own selfishness, for I know you love another and could never love me, But I love you,” without saying a word. Recollections of his interlude with Gabe, and the blunt reality he so viciously pointed out overwhelmed his desire to admit the truth. Corey would laugh.
The silence lingered. Corey’s expression fell, “Are you angry with me?”
Thomas searched for validation. A convincing way to explain his distance without seeming weak and vulnerable, both of which he was. “No. I’m just tired. I have important things in my life that need addressing and I should be being productive with my time instead of... you know, dwelling on one thing. They say if you aren’t happy with the current equation, the you have to take yourself out of the element, especially when you’re defeating yourself by wishful thinking.” “I don’t understand. What aren’t you happy with?” Corey inquired curiously.
“It’s not for you to understand, Corey. It’s my problem.”
“Well tell me, I’m your friend, that’s what I’m here for!” Corey shot back without thinking. Instantly Thomas reacted, like a trigger had been pulled and the result was explosive. Thomas stood up fast, “I don’t want you to be my friend! Okay, I don’t need you to be my friend! So just stop!” He scorned.
Corey stood shocked; he waited for Thomas to continue.
Thomas pressed his fingers to his forehead and closed his eyes tightly. He sighed, “I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry. I just can’t talk right now, Corey. I have to go.” And with that, Thomas hung up.
Corey listened to the dead air, hoping that Thomas would pick the phone up once again. He did not. He held the telephone to his ear until a recording, mechanical and unaware, decided to inform him that his call had been disconnected. He placed the receiver upon the cradle and sank into a chair, attempting to decipher the cause of Thomas’ anger. Even still, his words stung.
Thomas’ heart pounded against the wall of his chest. He was regretting his attack. He had sworn long ago that he wouldn’t let his emotions get the best of him. Corey probably though he was a schizophrenic, or just insane altogether. How could he be so childish? He had encountered larger issues than this and he managed to face each one head on without fear. When it came to Corey, He was a virtual melting pot of emotions, happy to hear him, anxious to be close to him, censoring his thoughts so that when the transition was made from his mind to his tongue, he didn’t sound like a lovelorn idiot. He was afraid of losing Corey, and if he ever gained the courage to tell him how he felt, he knew he would. Yet, keeping all of it inside seemed to inflame his soul. It ate at him, provoked him to say and do things he wouldn’t normally. He was angry for letting this happen, for being a coward, and for falling victim to the thing called love.
“THOMAS!” His Father screamed from downstairs.
Thomas didn’t even wince. He sighed and stirred from the bed. He walked out of his room into the hallway and stopped at the top of the stairwell.
“Yeah?” Thomas replied.
“Come here!”
Thomas scrambled down the steps. He didn’t want to deal with his father right now. It was undoubtedly about a glass he hadn’t washed after using, or the light bulb in the den he had forgotten to change. Stupid stuff. Thomas walked into the living room where Mr. Bradford sat grinning on the couch, a sly, almost maniacal grin. Thomas couldn’t help but smile upon the sight of him; A smug, imbecilic creature.
“What?” Thomas asked amused.
Mr. Bradford stared at him, “Who was on the phone?”
“Just one of my friends,” Thomas answered.
“You don’t have any friends.”
Thomas didn’t even bother to answer.
From under his leg, Mr. Bradford pulled up a telephone receiver and held it up; he began speaking in a falsetto voice, “Tell me all your problems, Tommy, that’s what I’m here for. I’m your friend. I’ll understand.”
The amusement in Thomas’ face immediately vanished. His eyes grew and his breathing became labored, “You were listening?” Mr. Bradford nodded.
“Corey’s that kid down the street, right?” He took a gulp of his Vodka, chugging the entire glass, then reaching for the accessible bottle nestled at his side to refill. “Is he the one you say cares about you?”
Thomas stood firm, “He’s a good person. He’s nice to me.”
Mr. Bradford laughed robustly while Thomas pierced him with his eyes. There had been moments when he loved his father; there were more moments when he hated him. This was one of the latter. The way he sat there, a typical alcoholic, his dress shirt hanging stained half out of his waistband. His tie loose around his neck, his eyes bloodshot, and the stench of his preferred beverage oozing from every pore of his yellow flesh.
Mr. Bradford calmed slowly, his laughter becoming a squeaking, drawn out breath. He leaned back against the cushion of the sofa and glanced up at his stone faced son, “You know he’s a queer, don’t you? You’d have to be blind as a bat not to see it. That’s one thing about you Tom, anybody shows you the least bit of attention and you stick to them like a God damned suction cup on a windshield. Ya see, boy... you just don’t have the eyes for it. I can tell one when I see’em. They walk a certain way, fags...” He tilted his neck from side to side as though it ached, “And that one, well… they don’t come any more limp-wristed than that.”
Thomas felt spears
of electricity travel up his spine and crawl over his skin. His eyes were still fixed intensely on the man before him, “You can tell?” He asked in a low, gravelly voice, one that radiated from his lips with perfect intent, unfaltering.
“Yep.”
Thomas’ stomach tightened, his fists were bound, “Look at me.”
Mr. Bradford offered a slight glance, then turned back away, still grinning, but for no reason, just to exalt himself, “Just flip on the T.V., You can spot a-“
Thomas interrupted in a demanding manner, not raising his voice, but repeating again, “Look at me.”
Mr. Bradford paused and glanced up at him surprised, a half- cocked smirk plastered across his face, “What?” He asked rather innocently.
“Can you tell with me? Do I look gay to you?” Thomas asked bluntly. He didn’t even flinch, he appeared steady and serious.
Mr. Bradford looked at him, then stood up, “Of course not, why would you ask such a stupid-“
“WRONG!” Thomas howled, closing his eyes, drawing it out as if triumphant. He felt a release like the bars to his prison had been lifted and he was finally free. He could breathe, and upon that release, as soon as it manifested before him, he smiled.
Mr. Bradford pushed his lips out crossly, almost appearing stumped. Clearly he wasn’t expecting such a reaction. His eyebrows curled and scratched the inside of his ear, trying to gain back his frame of mind, which like a speeding locomotive had been thrown completely off track leaving him sidelined for a few minutes. To Thomas, this was priceless. After using his pointer finger to dig at his ear, Mr. Bradford pointed at him, “You shut up! You are not!” He scolded, like he was telling Thomas he could not go outside and play, and in return, Thomas would stick out his bottom lip, cross his arms and stomp upstairs to pout.
Thomas’ smile grew wider, “Yeah! Yes I am.”
“No you are not!”
“Oh yes, yes I am,” Thomas announced joyously, nodding his head.
“I said hell no!” His father yelled in protest.
“I said YES! HELL YES!”
His Father marched up to him fast and stood in Thomas’ face, his nostrils flaring, “You are not gay! You just think you are because-“
Thomas stopped him by stepping into him, something he had never done prior to this instance. He was meeting his Father on equal ground, not cowering- “Because why? Because I don’t have a mother, because my life has always been so fucked up that I had to teach myself how to be normal, or because I grew up being your punching bag! Is that why I’m gay? You’re wrong, Dad, you’re so fucking wrong. If who I am today had anything to do with you, I’d be the straightest guy on Earth, I’d either hate or be afraid of every guy out there because you’ve pushed that into my brain since I was a kid. I’m going to be proud of who I am and what I do from now on. For too many years I thought I was a mistake, I thought everything about me was a mistake and I thought my whole life would be me waiting to die. That’s why I did the things I did, that’s why I didn’t care, because you never showed me any different. So, don’t you dare try to take credit for this or tell me any different because the one thing I have control over is my mind, and as of this moment, I take it back. If you want to hit me, go ahead, beat me until I bleed, but know this, Dad... I have already won.”
Mr. Bradford remained perfectly still, both held firm in the other’s eye line, he raised his hand and instinctively Thomas pushed it away and retreated back a step. Mr. Bradford paused, the wrinkles on his leathery face becoming more evident than usual. Somehow he appeared suddenly sober. “I’m not going hit you,” He said quietly, shame present in his rattled voice. He took a step toward Thomas, filling the security gap that separated them, he took Thomas’ shoulder, staring deep into his son’s face, and then, much to Thomas’ surprise, the man hugged him.
It was not a rough, vacant embrace as those in the past, but a real one. With his Father’s arms wrapped around his shoulders Thomas could feel his chest quiver as his Father cried on him. Slowly, Thomas lifted his hands and returned the embrace.
There they stood, without speaking a word. It was odd to feel the hand that once inflicted pain now comforting him. This was a strange place and this man, his father, was a stranger. This was to be the moment in which the bonds that had worn so thin would strengthen, and those hands that held Thomas so close, he would never have to fear again. As Mr. Bradford held his son for the first time in years, realizations overwhelmed him. He never thought that Thomas could ever act independently of himself; he was just this little boy who seemed far too inquisitive for his age, always asking questions. This little boy that had once seemed so innocent, so sensitive to the cold world around him had metamorphosed and Mr. Bradford had been too angry to see the process. Angry at the world; Angry at his life. Because of this, he looked over what was right before his eyes all along. He never imagined the day would arrive when Thomas, that same little boy, would have the ability to come to him and force him to see the man he had become.
The sun began to set over the west horizon. Petals from the Magnolia trees had begun to fall. It appeared it was raining soft violet flowers all across the Porter front lawn. Rachel stepped off the porch, leaned for a moment to straighten her panty hose, then stood erect, conscious enough to notice the otherworldly effect.
With silken, dark curls spiraling over her shoulders, and her face a gentle pale like the softest ivory, she appeared heavenly. The diminishing sun, with its menagerie of deep orange color and newly formed shadows, offered her the remains of its light. She stood in white on this evening, in a dress hemmed just above her knee. Black, iridescent netting cascaded down her arms, gleaming with hundreds of intricately placed silver beads. After securing the backing of her tiny hoop earring, she placed her small purse over her shoulder and started off down the walkway. Upon turning the corner, she saw Corey approaching from down the sidewalk. She admired his attire for a moment, the fitted black blazer with a sharp white collar, his black slacks making it seem as if his legs were longer than they actually were, and his auburn hair falling gracefully over his back, except for the few shorter layers that framed his face. Her first impression was that he could have walked right out of a 1940’s film, more like Veronica Lake or Joan Crawford instead of Clark Gable or Humphrey Bogart. Corey was the picture of sophistication and elegance, beautiful not handsome. “To pretty,” she thought for a moment, “A boy to pretty.”
Rachel smiled and he waved as they grew closer. Corey spread out his arms and spun as the colored petals swirled around him. “Can you believe this? It’s like a wonderland!” He sang as he continued toward her.
“If I miss anything, it will be Sadie in the fall!” Rachel yelled in response. They had still not reached each other.
“You look great,” Corey called.
Rachel tossed back her freshly cut locks and offered a dramatic smile, batting her eyelashes, “It’s the new me!” She informed, making light of the visible difference in her appearance. Her hair had been cut from its normal length to just below her shoulders, and was highlighted in places. It made her look older, not so girlish. In fact, the girl was gone. She held out her hand toward Corey.
As he met her, he took it and she spun around, allowing him to assess the change. “Wow, look at you, the caterpillar has finally become the butterfly,” Corey said as she stopped, still smiling proudly.
“My wings aren’t so bad after all, huh?” She asked playfully.
Corey tilted his head pleased, “They are the most beautiful I have ever seen.” Simultaneously, they wound their arms, locking them at the elbow, and began down the street. Rachel took a breath of the fresh air and looked up at the clear sky through the canopy above. Soon the stars would shine. She felt thankful, almost gifted to be able to see the sights that befell her eyes. There’s always something beyond what we see, beyond the breaking leaves of the canopy, beyond the stars. No matter how far you go, there’s always something else wait
ing for you. This was true. Her life before last summer had been lived beneath a cardboard box, dark, stale, and monotonous. Months ago, she never dreamed that this was who she would become, that this transformation was possible. She thanked Corey for that. He had shown her the true vastness of possibility. To look beyond what we see with our eyes and move past it with the anticipation of knowing that what lays there, in places beyond our sight, will change us forever.
She glanced at Corey, he had no idea of what he done, and she loved that about him. She placed her head on his shoulder. “I missed you,” She said quietly, just above a whisper.
“I missed you too,” Corey replied.
“I feel like I’ve been on a roller coaster the past few weeks. My Dad didn’t contest the divorce. My mom gets everything. The house, the car, everything she deserves,” Rachel informed happily.
Corey watched their feet walk in rhythm, “Good. Good.” He answered, half hypnotized by their collective footwork.
“What are you thinking about?” Rachel asked curiously.
“God.”
She looked at him surprised. “God?”
He sighed heavily, “God, life... fate.”
“Tell me.”
Corey watched the shadows from the branches above dance far out into the street, “I once heard someone say that life is just a series of events and emotions, we are simply reactive machines designed to accommodate those situations and adapt. I think an atheist said it. You know, one of those people who don’t believe in anything, not God, not souls, or purpose. They sort of drift through life without any real reason. That would be so sad... frightening. I don’t know if the circumstances in life are predestined or just chance, but I think it’s what we do with those instances. It’s what we walk away with, what we learn that makes us who we are. I believe in Jesus... Actually, I don’t know if I believe in Jesus. I don’t know if he was ever a man who walked the Earth, I wasn’t there to witness the miracles the bible talks about, but I believe in something. I have faith that there is a higher plain of existence. I believe in a divine creator, I just don’t know who he is. There are people who believe in God, some believe in Buddha, some worship the Earth and pray to several different deities. I respect all religions, I don’t try to debunk them, but I wonder if, just maybe, the one thing we all worship isn’t one in the same. When push comes to shove, we all want to be happy; we all want to live with the feeling of some purpose.”
Rachel remained against him, listening carefully to his words, “I don’t know much about religion. I consider myself a Christian but I don’t get to deep into it. There’s so much information and so many conflicts I tend to believe that there’s a sort of bliss in ignorance. One group believes one thing, another group believes something else. What am I supposed to do with all that information? I find it defeating to try and sift through all the trivialities, like my friend, she’s not allowed to wear dresses, or even be alone with a man. I think she’s an independent Baptist or something, but it sounds silly. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in God, but I kind of edit what seems outdated and live my life according to the times. I think I’m a good person. I care about people. It makes me feel good to do something for someone else. I don’t steal, or murder. I consider myself a moral human being and I think that’s what God wants me to be. If I were to put myself up on some soap box and start damning others for not living my lifestyle, it would be completely hypocritical. It’s funny because I remember being younger and I went to church with Gabe. His Dad was preaching, and he was saying how God never makes mistakes, how he created each and every one of us to be individuals. That way we can learn from each other. Every face is a new story, and we learn something new from each one. Then I hear these other preachers saying that certain other religions are hell bound because they’re false, or that gay people are bad and God hates them. Well, if God never makes mistakes, none of these things would exist. You would not be here, so therefore, who’s right? You pretty much have to form a personal relationship with God and discern what’s right and wrong according to you. When it comes right down to it, the Bible is just a running commentary, translated over and over a hundred times, with a little added here, someone’s personal belief no doubt. A little taken away there. It’s a collection of different views from different people under the guise of God’s name. Today it’s up to us to weed the truth from the imposed demand. Besides, what’s the sudden interest in religion anyway? You feeling guilty for something?”
“No,” Corey stated quietly, “I’ve already been through the stage where I beat myself up with the bible. I’m beyond that now. I talked to Thomas earlier.”
Rachel perked up, grinning, her voice raising a pitch, almost accusingly, “Really? I always knew there was something there. And you said you didn’t have anything to be guilty for. I could always tell you liked him, Corey. No matter how hard you try to conceal your emotions, every time Thomas comes up, you end up glowing like the Statue of Liberty’s torch. Even when you and Chris started going out, I could still tell that there was just something about Thomas that captivated you. Did you have an affair?”
Corey drew back and gave her a sarcastic glare, “That’s ridiculous, Rachel. How can I have an affair? It’s not like I’m married to Chris. Thomas and I are just... I don’t know what we are anymore. Come to think of it, I don’t know what me and Chris are either. We’ve sort of drifted.”
Rachel watched his expression intensely, staring so hard that it almost made Corey uncomfortable. She took a deep breath and exhaled, “Me and Gabe have gone separate directions. I’m in no way as enamored as I used to be. He’s been coming around a lot more, but it’s come to the point now where I simply don’t care if he comes around or not.” She shrugged, then her face fell apologetically, “Gosh, that sounds awful! But it’s true. I’m to preoccupied with my own life to worry about him like I used to. I’ve found that other things are just more important. I love him, don’t misunderstand, I am just coming into my own and that requires all of my attention. I think at one time I loved him too much. Too much for my own good.”
“Well, I care about Chris. But I care about Thomas. Chris came around at a time when I really needed him, and I’m grateful. Thomas just sort of floated into my life, and I have feelings for him, I won’t lie, but the way he reacts to my efforts and some of the things he says just throws me completely off. I am so confused. Confusion has been such a big part of my life, confusion about relationships, about religion and God. In the scheme of things, one thing always conflicts another. After I spoke with Thomas I began thinking about the communication system. How we can all speak the same language, saying virtually the same thing, but in different words. How fear can make us discredit all possibilities. Fear of misinterpretation, fear of truth. We don’t even entertain the notion, not because we don’t believe, but because we’re afraid of what lies there, of what we’ll find if we step out on that limb and leap with blind faith. Will we fall flat on our face, as I have done may times, literally? Or, will some divine hand hold us up, allowing us to fly? It relates to so many things. My relationship with God, and with Thomas.”
The analogy rang true. A universal thought. Rachel smiled at him, “Love can hold you up. That’s what makes you fly. God is love, love is God. If you love and trust God, trust that he loves you; he will not let you fall. As far as Thomas goes, do you think he’ll let you fall?”
They came to a slow stop, turning to each other. Corey stared, almost helplessly into her sparkling eyes, “I don’t know,” he admitted in a gentle, broken voice.”
Rachel crossed her arms and thought for a moment, pondering his previous words. “What was it you said a few seconds ago? ‘Fear makes us discredit all possibilities. We don’t even entertain the notion because we’re afraid of what lies there, afraid of the truth.’ You’re afraid of falling Corey, but if you don’t ever jump, you’ll never know if you can fly.”
It created a ripple in his level of consciousness. The fog seemed
to lift from his mind. She was right. He wanted Thomas to hold him up. He wanted to fly.
Corey smiled modestly, “Thank you,” he whispered.
She held his arm tighter as they began to walk again, “And if you fall, I’ll be there to catch you.” She promised, her voice offering the reverence she felt. To the naked eye, the way they appeared, both delicate, yet amazingly strong, anyone could see how well they complimented one another. They could have easily been born from the same womb. Two pieces of a puzzle blended seamlessly. They loved each other. Friends in a world where friends, real friends, were to far and few. They didn’t need to say anything more. They knew how lucky they were. They knew that what they possessed in each other was precious and never would they take it for granted. The impending separation was on both of their minds, but they took solace in knowing that nothing, not distance or time would take this away. It was an entity all its own. To say so would simply be reiterating what the other already knew. It was psychic, blessed.
Night had descended on the sleepy village of Sadie. As usual, all was quiet, though if one stood out on their front porch, one could hear the muffled thumping of the music that seemed to radiate through the air. No one would complain though, everyone knew that this was the last gathering of the Lincoln High School Seniors. It was an annual event, one expected and tolerated by even the most prudish citizens. From Cherry Street, a few blocks away from the school, the bright glow of the towering floodlights on the football field could be seen just below the tree line. It was a familiar sight, most generally on the Friday nights when there was a game. The crowds cheering in the stands, the echoing voice of the announcer, the whistles, it was all part of the life of Sadie. The chaos had never bothered anyone, most likely because all of the residents of the surrounding neighborhoods were the ones at the games screaming like mad. The sport was a fixture of the town, one regarded as something nearly sacred, but on this particular evening, though the field was alive with light, no crowds could be heard cheering.
It was nearly nine o’clock, and the dance was just beginning. It was the one event at the stadium where everyone wasn’t welcome. Someone jokingly said the adult citizens harbored slight animosity. It was outrageous. To think that grown adults would want to infiltrate a High School dance to paint their body’s school colors and scream like savages. Nevertheless, they never tried to crash the party. The stage had been constructed of thin scaffold. Two huge speakers sat stacked high on each side, framing the disc jockey that stood hidden behind a sound board. Round tables draped with gold clothes were adorned with vases of purple Irises, and a large space had been left open before the stage for those who chose to dance. Colored filters covering strobe lights on the top of the stage threw distinct flashes of red, blue and green across the field. Students dressed in their formal wear crowded the area. The buffet table on the sideline stretched all the way to the fifty yard line.
Gabe stood against the cement wall guarding the bleachers carefully surveying each face. He didn’t want to be here, but he knew he would be missed. He was expected to be here. For him, it was like wandering around on the front line of a war zone. Rachel and Corey’s eyes were the bullets, and they would most likely be seeking him out. Gabe knew they would be together. For a fast second, he almost laughed. His girlfriend and his boyfriend... together. It was like the plot of some over-dramatized daytime soap opera. Whoever said truth was stranger than fiction had absolutely no idea. He felt it odd that, with his nerves on edge, he noticed every little detail. Tina Metzger wore a pin on her left lapel that looked like a shrunken head. Vincent Carroll had gotten his head shaved, apparently because he had joined the Military- something most of the underprivileged kids did when they couldn’t afford college. Sandra Hakes had accidentally left the right sleeve of her dress unbuttoned. Small things magnified a thousand times. He wondered if he could hear even the most hushed conversations if it weren’t for the loud music. What would he learn about them? What were their secrets? Surely they all had something to hide. Maybe that bulge in Tiffany Reichert’s tummy wasn’t simply evidence of too much summer celebrating. How many people had to hide like Gabe was? He could be out there on the floor socializing like everyone else. It wasn’t as if he would have a hard time finding someone to talk to him. He chose this position. Tucked away out of arms length, an expression clearly stating that he was unapproachable. Vacant eyes showing no interest in any moot conversation one might propose. This was his stand, and no one compromised his boundaries. He had to know where everyone was, and who they were with. Every time a new face appeared underneath the rose covered arch entering the field, he met them with a cold glance, then turned away. Why was he doing this to himself? He didn’t want to be this way. This was his last time upon this field. This was his field. Gabe owned this field. It was here that he threw his first touchdown. It was here that thousands of people from near and far cheered him on. This was the place where his future began, the first points were scored, the first record was broken. This was Gabe’s turf. If he belonged anywhere, he belonged here. So, why should he let Rachel and Corey make him hide away like an escaped convict... again, he rested on the realization that he had put himself here. A choice. Not one consciously made, but a circumstantial life position. If he truly didn’t want to run the substantial risk of being caught, he would’ve stayed home. If Corey and Rachel really were the living end, he wouldn’t be here. Maybe that was it. Maybe he wanted to be exposed, maybe he wanted the truth to come out, and maybe he wanted it to be all over with. After all, he seemed to be losing both of them anyway. Procrastination. All procrastination.
Suddenly Gabe felt a jolt on his right shoulder. Startled, he quickly turned and met the redheaded reporter face on. Demon woman.
“Hi Gabe!” Sophie bounced as she stood, leaning down over the cement wall from the bleachers above. With her trusty clip board and that wicked smile on her face.
“H-H-Hi,” Gabe stammered, beside himself with nervousness. A fake smile grew across his face.
Sophie laid her clipboard on the wall, “I’ve been looking all over for you. Figured I’d have a better view of the crowd if I stood up in the bleachers, but I got up here and now I can’t find my way back down. I get turned all around. Terrible with directions. I was never good with geography. Couldn’t tell you North from South. Never could remember which direction the sun sets in. My mom used to tell me to use the sun so I knew the direction I was headed. She used a poem, ‘Bringing the morning’s feast, the sun rises in the East, leaving the evening to rest, it sets in the West.’ That’s probably not right. Who knows?”
Gabe didn’t reply, he just stared at her in a confused state. He had no idea where the sun set. He bit his lip lightly, his head repeating his one recurrent thought. PLEASE GO AWAY.
Sophie noticed his awkward reservation. She filled her cheeks with air and then quickly released it. “I thought that I might get one last interview considering you’ll be gone soon. I figure it’d be a privilege to say I was the last reporter to interview Gabe Cavanaugh before he was GABE CAVANAUGH! I mean, given the fact that in no time you’ll only be talking to the likes of Larry King, or even Barbara Walters!” Sophie sighed audibly, her head sinking into her shoulders, “I love Barbara Walters. She’s my idol. From the time I was a little girl I knew I wanted to be just like her. You know, she started out as a simple journalist too! I carry a picture of her in my wallet for inspiration. She motivates me. Sometimes, when I’m interviewing someone, I pretend to be Barbara. I sit with my legs crossed and my hands folded in my lap just like her. I tilt my head when I’m talking about something meaningful, talk in a soft voice like I care so much about what they’re saying. I’ve written her letters and even sent her my picture, but she hasn’t gotten back to me yet. I told her that I thought we was kindred spirits. One time, when I was twelve, on Halloween I went as Barbara. Had the little curly brown wig and everything, cause at that time she had brown hair, you see. Now it’s getting a little grey. Can you help
me down?”
With that, Sophie hopped up onto the edge of the wall and swung her legs over the side, making sure to keep her legs pressed firmly together as not to let her short skirt offer the crowd a free show. “I just know if I try to find my way out of here I’ll end up searching for an hour. Best if I just take the quick way down.” She planted her navy blue high heel firmly on Gabe’s left shoulder.
Obviously he was not prepared as he nearly buckled under the weight. He reached up and took her leg as she positioned her other foot on his right shoulder. He staggered sideways as she came down, sitting on his head, then easing back while little squeaks escaped her mouth. She reached back and grabbed her clipboard from the wall, and nearly fell. She barely caught her balance, jerking forward, slamming the board into Gabe’s head.
“Ouch!” He said as he attempted to maintain his composure with the woman perched on him like a bird on a wire.
“Sorry!” She apologized.
“Ow-Ow, let go of my hair!” Gabe demanded as Sophie clung to him like a leech, looking down at the ground below her, desperately afraid of falling.
“My skirt is riding up!” She yelped as she tightened her thighs around his neck. Her bright pink underwear peeked out from the back as her skirt slowly curled upward. She reached around Gabe, grabbing his face in a claw-like grip and turned in distress as she tried to pull it down with her free hand.
They spun in circles, looking as if they were on the losing end of a chicken fight. Gabe tilted back and forth as he tried to see through her fingers.
“Get off!” he begged, his arms wrapped around her flailing legs.
“Move your hand!” Just then, with a loud bellow, Sophie tipped backward, hanging upside down against his legs. “OH NO! Don’t let go! Hold on! I’ll fall on my head!” She pushed her blouse down so it wouldn’t flip over her face. Her hair drug the ground. “Have ya got me?”
Gabe blew a few stray strands of his hair out of his eyes, “Put your arms on the ground and flip off backwards,” he suggested impatiently.
“I have to hold down my shirt! I’m a Christian woman!” She barked back.
“I’m letting go!” Gabe warned.
“No! This is a new outfit! If it gets a stain I can’t return it!”
“Why not?” He asked.
“It was a blue light special!” She snapped.
Gabe pushed his eyes up into his head in disbelief, “I’m letting go!”
“Wait! Just wait a second. I realize this is an awkward position, okay. But if I put my hands on the ground, people will see my breasts and not many people have seen my breasts. I am a respectable journalist, damn it! I don’t want to be on T.V. ten years from now and have a bunch of people staring at me, a bunch of people who have seen my boobs. I have to protect my future,” She negotiated. “Put yourself in my position!”
“People are staring. I’m letting you go!” Gabe replied through his clenched teeth as he smiled at a young couple who walked by him. Just then, somewhere in the crowd, a voice found its way to his ears. A word, barely above the sound level of the rest of the crowd, but it was a familiar word. A name. Rachel.
Instinctively his eyes began the search, through closely huddled faces nestled into their cliques, over shoulders, above heads. Then he saw her. Suddenly overwhelmed, like he was in the middle of a two way street and there were speeding cars coming from both directions, he panicked. Nowhere to run. He dropped the reporter woman. “Ahhhh!” THUMP was all he heard from behind him.
He didn’t turn to check her; he had already forgotten she was there. He watched Rachel laughing, the way she seemed brighter than any light the stage had to offer. She was her own stage. So dazzling was she that he could not blink, he could not feel himself breathe. No sound that found him was acknowledged, nor was any other face. It was her. A her like never before. The way the crowd appeared to separate just so he could see her there, standing. It was like he was seeing her for the very first time and falling in love all over again. Passing images collected from some unknown time surfaced in his memory. That feeling. A feeling only portrayed in some Hollywood movie. The first time Romeo sees Juliet. The first kiss. All played out on a grand scale. He had kissed Rachel before, held her close, even made love to her, but he could not fathom that this creature was the same Rachel. His Rachel. Had she always been this beautiful? Suddenly Sophie popped up behind him, brushing herself off, reassuring him even though he did not care, “I’m okay! I’m okay! No harm done,” She squawked.
He turned to her fast, “We can’t talk here!” He informed bluntly.
Sophie slung him a dismissive wave of her hand, “Oh, don’t worry. Things like this happen all the time to me. I’m not embarrassed. Nothing showed that shouldn’t have. Momma can still be proud of me,” she joked.
Gabe grabbed her arms and began pulling her toward the closest exit. Sophie followed clumsily behind, trying to keep up, “Okay! If you want, but I better stay close to the entrance. I already can’t remember where I parked my car, but If I get to far away I won’t even get back to the parking lot on my own. I don’t want to have to call the police again. I’m sure they have better things to do than help me find my car. That’s happened to me before. I go to some big shopping mall where the rows have numbers. One time I had to wait for everyone else to leave before I could find my car. That was really embarrassing,” She rambled as he continued dragging her away.
Then, all of a sudden, as if the winds of death befell him, he halted in his tracks. Corey was walking right toward him. Had he seen him? “What are we stopping for, gotta cramp?”
Gabe turned to her, scanned his surroundings with great precision, and then pulled Sophie to the ground, “Come on. Hurry!” He commanded as he lifted up the tablecloth of the buffet table and crawled underneath, forcing Sophie under.
Beneath the table, Sophie studied Gabe’s paranoid face. “Was this what you had in mind?” She asked seriously.
Gabe looked at her shocked, “I bet Barbara Walters has never given an interview from underneath a buffet table.”
Sophie’s eyeballs ventured to the corner of her eyes, her lips pursed, “No, I bet not either. You mind if I be frank?” She asked curiously.
Gabe watched the dress shoes of all those who passed, “I don’t care.”
Sophie situated her knees beneath her, “What are you running from?”
Gabe shot her a threatened stare.
“I mean, honestly this what not what I expected when I came here tonight. You should be out there with everyone else soaking up all the attention. You’re a star around here. This is your last dance in Sadie. You of all people shouldn’t have any reasons to hide,” She noted in a sincere tone of voice, one that almost convinced him she cared. She was a lot like Barbara.
“I’m not hiding,” Gabe defended.
“Right. Please Gabe, I might be a little confused sometimes, but I am not dumb. I know what’s going on here,” Sophie admitted slyly.
Gabe forced a gulp of air into his stomach and eyed her. Oh my God. She couldn’t know! Yes she could. She was an evil witch woman with freakish supernatural powers and a big mouth. He could deny it! He would.
The corners of Sophie’s mouth turned upward, “You want me, don’t you.”
“Huh?” Gabe responded, as if all of his brain cells had fallen numb.
Sophie batted her mascara soaked eyelashes and held her hand to her chest, taking the small button of her blouse between her fingertips, undoing it, “I knew it. I just knew it. No man can withstand the power of my womanhood. I’ve had many men try to be intimate with me, but I was always waiting for the right one. From the very first moment I saw you, I knew it was you. I am uncharted territory Gabe, and I’m about to let you go where no man has gone before.” She leaned forward, her lips quivering in an utterly comical manner... “Touch me in my secret places.” “Huh?”
Unexpectedly, Sophie threw herself on top of him, “Take me Gabe! Conquer me!
”
Corey moved toward his table where Angie waited. He sat down a meager plate of vegetables in front of him and plopped down. He stared at them with apparent disinterest. He wasn’t hungry, the trip to the buffet table was just something to do so he wouldn’t sit there like a bump on a log, stationary. While Rachel was up socializing with all those she had known since kindergarten, Angie and Corey remained on the outside of the crowd. It was where they preferred to be.
“You bored?” Angie asked in a voice, alluding to the fact that she was too.
“Yeah,” Corey replied.
“You know, I did a little bit of digging a few days ago. You know that movie you obsess about?”
“I do not obsess.”
Angie leaned in, “I can’t remember the-”
“Meet Me In St. Louis.”
“Right,” she conceded with a grin. “I went to the music store and found the CD on the rack. Out of curiosity I bought it.” She conveniently left out the fact that she bought it for the song he sang to her that one evening, just so she would never forget that moment, that kiss.
“Really?” Corey replied.
“I took it home and listened to it from beginning to end. I asked around and a lot of the people remember the numbers. Isn’t that ironic?” Angie said, clearly leading up to something.
Corey popped a piece of cauliflower into his mouth, “Yeah, that’s strange. I guess the youth of Sadie have their redeeming qualities after all.”
Angie leaned back again, glancing up at the disc jockey on the stage, “Abbey Grazer played the Judy Garland role. Unfortunately she got some weird disease and now she has to use this funky little mechanical contraption just to speak.”
Corey raised his eyebrows and stopped chewing, “That’s awful.”
“Tragedy,” Angie added, “Now there’s no Judy. She was the only one who knew the words. No more Judy.”
Corey wiped his fingers on a napkin excitedly, “I’m Judy! There’s only one Judy after the original! One! That would be me. It may sound far to gay, but it’s true. I know all the words, all the dialogue, her life in that movie parallels my life in the real world except I’m not a female in the early 1900’s and there have been very few happy endings,” he expressed passionately.
Angie nodded modestly in agreement, “You know all the words to the Trolley Song?” She queried. “That’s my favorite.”
Corey nearly leapt from his seat, “THAT’S MINE TOO! I love that song. Clang, Clang, Clang went the trolley. Ding, Ding, Ding, went the bell. I know it be heart.”
“Good,” Angie chirped smiling, “Look what I brought.”
She reached into her wallet sized purse and pulled out the CD. “It’ll be fun to have one last great performance.”
She stood up and began walking away.
Corey immediately followed. “Angie, what are you doing? Where are you going?” He pressed nervously.
Angie kept walking toward the stage, “I’m going to the have the disc jockey play the song. I told everyone we might do it, they all want to participate. It’ll be nostalgic.”
Corey scrambled for words, “Participate in what. What am I missing?”
They reached the stairs leading up to the stage. Angie turned to him, “Most remember the routine, and they just need a Judy.”
“NO! No! Angie, don’t. Please. I can’t do that. I’ll die of embarrassment. Do you want me to die?” Corey pleaded.
Angie spun, continuing up the steps, speaking over her shoulder, “Put on those ruby slippers, Judy, the party’s about to begin.”
Corey stood numb. He quickly rushed through the crowd back toward the table. He couldn’t do something like that in front of all these people. Only Drag Queens did public performances. He was anything but a drag queen. He found himself walking faster than he realized as he moved toward the table.
And then, all the spotlights found him. Instantaneously he stopped, turning toward the blinding lights coming from all directions. This had to be some evil practical joke. He was certain of it. He squinted as he watched Angie step up to the microphone on the stage.
“Okay people!” Angie announced, her voice echoing through the field like the voice of God, “A lot of you already know the plan. For those of you who don’t, we’re doing the The Trolley Song from the play ‘Meet Me In Saint Louis.’ Corey Evans will be our Judy. It’s a slightly different take but who cares, it’s the millennium! Let’s go out with a bang!”
The crowd hollered and cheered. Corey looked around at the countless faces staring at him, expecting him to do something, say something, say anything, yet he didn’t. Then, the music began. The students around him gathered in rows like country line dancers hurrying to their places as if this had been intricately rehearsed. Corey spun his hands together nervously. He would positively make a jackass out of himself. He always did. He felt a hand on his back and turned to see Rachel smiling at him. She gave him a thumbs-up.
The students sang the introduction in a collective voice, a bell ringing in the background from somewhere he couldn’t see. They paraded around him, creating a great circle. Corey couldn’t help but smile. It was like something out of one of his fantasies. They all looked like jackasses too, so what did he care if he did. With their right arms stretched toward him, Corey began.
-“With my high starched collar and my high top shoes, and my hair piled high up on my head. I went to lose a jolly hour on the trolley and lost my heart instead!”
With wide eyes and even wider smiled, they all bounced to the infectious beat. He looked into their faces as he let the moment overcome him. He was Judy.
The students moved around him closely, all holding their directed poses as Corey fell into the crowd dramatically and they caught him, pushing him back to his feet. When the chorus once again arrived, they marched around him, making him the centerpiece of their production. Each face was a show all its own. Wherever he walked, the spotlight followed. The students locked arms and stepped in unison, simulating a moving train.
They reiterated the lyrics in a collaboration of altos and sopranos. The girls sang their parts together and then the boys sang theirs. Corey howled at the top of his lungs, and the finish was nothing less than award worthy. It was more than just a routine, but an explosion of fanatical energy. Corey laughed to himself as the applause around him grew louder. It was electric. Thousands of purple and gold helium filled balloons drifted out from under the stage and lifted high into the air. It was philosophic act. One balloon for every student, being set free. All was silent suddenly as every eye turned toward the sky.
Rachel and Angie appeared at his side. It was real now. Like the balloons disappearing one by one, so would they. Pushing higher and higher, all knowing that this was the direction they were headed from the beginning, but where would the winds take them? One thing was certain; they all knew that after Sadie, none of them would ever be the same. The world was a big place, with more possibilities than anyone could comprehend. A new life awaited them, way up there, somewhere in the darkness. A life they could not see until they got there. Each day a new direction, each moment a result of the last. Emancipation. Good things would happen. Bad things too. They would laugh with new friends, accept new challenges, and somehow manage to fill the voids left by the others. It would seem that each of them, as they stood now, holding hands, smiling, watching the last balloon vanish amidst the stars, this would soon be a memory, and like all the memories one created while on the journey of life, it fades. It may never disappear, but with the nagging of time and the inevitable collection of new memories, it would eventually fade into the backdrop of their minds, joining the endless tapestry known only as the past.
Sophie sobbed quietly. Her mascara had smudged across the side of her face. Her smeared lipstick gave her chin a chapped appearance, “I’m such an idiot. How could I be so stupid? I should’ve known, I just should’ve known.”
Gabe offered her a sympathetic glare from the opposi
te end of the long table of which they sat under, “I’m sorry. I guess I just didn’t make myself clear.”
“It’s not you who should be sorry. I should be sorry. I just couldn’t get the hint. I mean, the smart girl would have stopped right after you said ‘Get off me you psycho bitch,’ but I just thought you were into that, you know?” She wept again, “You’re the son of a preacher man! You’re supposed to be sexually perverted because of your repressed upbringing.”
Gabe snickered, “Says who?” He asked.
Sophie sniffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve, “Cosmopolitan Magazine...” She giggled as she said it, realizing how silly it sounded. “Guess I better switch to Reader’s Digest, huh?”
Gabe laughed.
“When I said that many men have tried to, you know, be with me in that way... I was lying. I’m almost Twenty-eight years old and I’ve never been hit on by a man. Isn’t that sad? When I was a younger, I was horribly ugly. An ogre.”
Gabe shook his head, “I don’t believe that.”
Sophie nodded, “It’s true. I didn’t have any friends at all. Not one. The boys in school used to beat me up. They would hit me and push me around, call me names. In seventh grade my Mother pulled me out of school and taught me at home. I graduated early from some mail order school out of Illinois. After that, I was afraid to go out into the world. I was afraid everyone wanted to hurt me. I shut myself in my room for three years... I never even left my house. Doctors called it chronic agoraphobia. I put blankets up over my windows to block out the sunlight, and the walls of that room became my home. I started writing all these stories about all the famous people I wanted to meet. I would sit at my mirror and give fake interviews, asking the questions out loud, pretending they were answering me in my head. I knew I wanted to be something,” She sighed quietly, her shoulders lifting, then falling, “Anyway... you don’t want to hear about my boring life, I shouldn’t do this.”
Gabe leaned forward, “No, please... go ahead,” he urged her onward as he rested his elbows on his knees, sitting Indian style.
Sophie cleared her throat and ran her tongue along the inside of her cheek, “Well, the psychiatrists put me on all these antidepressants and expected my life to just get better. It was a matter of living half of my life feeling like everyone hated me, and I grew to hate myself. I thought it was right. It had been instilled in my brain. I was ugly, stupid, and a waste of time. To love myself would have just been a simple courtesy with no meaning. Like how when someone gets a really bad haircut and you tell them it looks great anyway. When your life is in pieces, you kind of split yourself into two different people. One of them is actually who you are, and the other is someone on the outside looking in, someone witnessing the pain, but not suffering from it. A normal person. The normal person hated me for suffering. She hated me for becoming what I had become. It’s pretty bad when your own alter ego thinks you’re pathetic. Then one day, I woke up. I pulled myself out of bed, and I suddenly knew that if I remained this way, I would die and never have anything to show for my life. The only thing standing in my way was myself. I had no one to blame for my sadness anymore. I couldn’t point fingers. So, I picked up the telephone, called every newspaper in Connecticut and asked if they could use a freelance journalist. Somebody said yes. That gave me a reason to let the sunlight in again... And here I am.” With her hands in her lap, she picked at a dangling press-on nail.
Gabe surveyed her, the way the cloth draping from each side of the table filtered the light, casting a hundred tiny dots onto her glistening face.
Sophie looked up, as if noticing the same glow, “Who I am, and who I want to be are two different things, but I’ve already come a long way by not being who I was. I still have a lot to learn, and I know now that a supermarket rag is not the place to get a social education.” She noted in jest of herself, lowering her voice mockingly. Then, once again, after a moment of silence, her voice returned to its normal state, “One thing I have learned though, If we’re not truly happy with ourselves, or the place we’re at, we’re the only ones who have the power to make the change. If we keep praying that someone else will come along and do it for us, we’re relying on false hope, and in the long run, that can be our greatest enemy. Hope lies in the knowing of our own capabilities, in our own power and will. That’s what gives us hope in the first place. It’s just matter of finding it.”
Gabe pulled his knees up to his chest, “This is not who I want to be,” he admitted. Despite all attempts to censor himself, he felt that whatever he said would be taken, and respected by this woman. She didn’t know him well, but to an extent, he found comfort in that. There was no way she could judge him. “I’m supposed to go off an be this big football hero to. It began as an extracurricular activity and it grew into an expectation. It’s not fun when you start to feel like you’re letting people down if you miss a pass, or fumble the ball. My life has become everyone else’s extracurricular activity. I just want to be free. I want to do what I want and not what I’m told. But, after all this time, I don’t know what else I can do. Maybe I can’t do anything else. My life has taken all these twists and turns and I’m trying to hold on to what I’ve always known to be true, all the people that I love, and people just keep changing... I feel like everyone is moving on but me.” He paused for a second, adjusting his class ring so that his Garnet birth stone faced outwards, “I’m not who you think I am. I’m not who anyone thinks I am anymore. I have this girl that I’ve grown up with. She’s everything a guy could want. She’s smart and pretty, sensitive and funny. She’s the girl that everyone thought I would marry. I thought so too. I love her so much that to try and explain it would be diminishing the beauty of it. I wouldn’t have been saying this six months ago because up until recently I have just started realizing who she really is. I know that she cares about me, but for the longest time it seemed she was a fixture in the life I was supposed to lead... an answer to a question I hadn’t asked yet and I think I resented her for that. Then one day I was sitting in my room, cursing the monotony of it all, and I looked out my window and it was all dark... except there was this one light on from the house across the street. I looked inside and what I saw...” He felt his emotions rising into his eyes and tried to squelch them, “I saw this boy. This beautiful boy... crying. I watched him for a while and I kept wondering, ‘Why is he so sad?’ I found out who he was and, I don’t know what made me do it, curiosity, sympathy, whatever, but I called him. I didn’t tell him my real name, but as we talked, as I listened to that voice, I fell in love with him. He is so unlike anyone I’ve ever met before and I found myself wanting... no, not wanting, but needing him in my life. Needing to hear that voice, needing to have him close to me. He gives me something that no one else can, he gives me unconditional love... that’s something I’ve always heard of, always wanted, but never had. He never expected anything from me, he just wanted me for who I was, and now, even tonight, the guy he thinks I am, I’m not... I never even told him my real name. My life over the past few months has been a series of lies and close calls. He and my girlfriend are best friends, so if I ever let them see me while they were together I would lose them both and end up with nothing. It makes me sound bad, sometimes I even hate myself for lying to them, but I keep telling myself that it’s for my own good, for their own good. If I told either one of them, it would hurt them and I never wanted to do that. That’s why I’m hiding. They’re both here tonight, together. I’m here because I’m expected to be. I’m the high school role model, the guy all mothers want their daughters to marry and all fathers want their sons to be like. The preacher’s son.” Gabe rolled his eyes, annoyed by the thought.
Sophie didn’t run screaming and laughing as Gabe had expected. She remained still and focused. She pushed up her glasses that slid down the bridge of her nose, “It would be unfair of me to offer advice since I’m not very experienced in the love department. I used to have this joke that went ‘If love is a department store, then I work
in lay-away.’ But, all joking aside, I can see why you love them, and I can even see why they love you. My mantra is this saying I read all the time, not in a magazine, but in a book. ‘If you love yourself, you’ve already won the fight, but if you’re fighting for others to love you, then you’ve lost the war.’ Being proud of who you are is more important than having someone else be proud of you, whether it for be your decisions or your lifestyle or your career. Life is a method; the only thing you can do to get through is to just breathe. It’s not about who you love, but how you love them. We all love in different ways. We love our family, we love our friends, we love our pets we love our lover. The best thing about loving someone is loving them in a way like you love no other- loving them in a way like they’ll never be loved by anyone else. If you truly love both of those people, then keep loving them, but don’t make them a victim of it, because what we inflict on one today lingers far into the future. In effect, when someone is betrayed by another, violated by another, it stays with them, they remember, and it’s not so easy to trust again. Don’t make someone you love want to shut out the sunlight like I did. The darkness doesn’t have much to offer.” Their eyes held each other with such deep appreciation that the words spoken would remain imprinted indelibly on their souls. A silent thank you. Sophie picked up the clipboard at her side and started to crawl out from under the table.
Gabe reached for her, taking her arm, pulling her back, “What about the interview?” He asked.
Sophie smiled, “I’ve intruded on your life enough over the past five years. If you decide to be a big football star, just promise that you’ll think of me before Barbara.”
Gabe wrapped his fingers around her hand; she returned the grasp a bit more firmly. The sentiment lasted several seconds, then she was gone, and his first realization was that he may never see her again. A friend even so. No matter if their paths never crossed, he would always think of her as friend.
Corey gave Rachel a brief hug, “I’m gonna get going,” he explained briefly as he pecked her on the cheek. She could smell the slight lingering of his fragrance, maybe it was his shampoo. The humid air laid on them like a wet blanket. Corey’s hair was thicker than usual, the natural waves had kinked into loose spiral curls.
Rachel held onto his hand defiantly, “You can’t go already! It’s still early,” she argued, looking genuinely disappointed.
Corey shifted his weight from one foot to the other, “I have work to do! I’m putting together a new book and I’ve been slacking off all summer. I want to get it finished before I leave for San Francisco on Thursday. I’ll call you tomorrow.”
Just then, Angie came up behind Rachel, grabbing her shoulders playfully. Rachel spun, then immediately turned back to Corey, “You better not forget to call me, Corey!” She warned, as if there would be some hellish price to pay.
Angie stepped from behind Rachel to her side giving Corey a grave look, “You aren’t leaving, are you?”
Corey stepped forward and embraced her, “Thanks for the dance. I’ll never forget it. You made my night,” he said thankfully.
Angie stepped out of his arms smiling, “We all have to get together before we leave, the three of us.”
“We will,” Corey assured as he walked backwards, “Come over if you have time,” he said to them just before turning and being eclipsed by the crowd.
Rachel stood on her tiptoes to see if she could still see him. Though she could not, she found a need to say something, just in case their plans didn’t manifest. “I love you, Corey!” There was no reply. Even if there was, she wouldn’t have heard it above the chaos.
As Corey walked off the off the field he could feel the wet grass slip and squeak beneath the soles of his dress shoes. Dew had begun to set. As he hit the parking lot, he saw the pavement looked moist. The air was cooling considerably and thick clouds of steam billowed eerily off the cement reaching upward toward the lamp lights above. He figured that by morning a solid fog would have rolled in, maybe it would rain. It smelled like rain. The oncoming weather always offered a warning, the old familiar smell that Corey had grown so accustomed to.
Preoccupied with his own thoughts, Corey hadn’t really noticed the emptiness of the parking lot. No people. He walked along the wall of the school, past the dumpster on the far side of the lot. A stiff cold breeze blew against him and he wrapped his arms around his narrow frame to shelter himself it, but it had already died.
KLANG! A noise clattered in the darkness behind him in the shadows at the side of the school. He turned fast, his heart skipping a beat. He surveyed the blackness before him. He stood completely still, “Hello?” He called cautiously. He pushed his thick hair back from his face and glanced around all directions. Was there someone else around? No. Not a soul.
Unsettled, he took a step backward, then turned again, moving ahead. A tuned jumbled through his mind, one he couldn’t remember all the words to, or even remember hearing before, but the melody stuck with him. It repeated over and over, the same verse, most likely because he didn’t know the rest. Just then, he heard a shuffle behind him. As he prepared to turn, he was stopped mid-spin, a hand thrown violently over his mouth.
He was being dragged into the darkness. He grabbed at the fingers, but the grip was powerful, much more so than he. It had to be a joke. Someone thought this was funny. But it hurt. It hurt badly, short nails digging into the flesh of his cheek.
Finally, he was released and pushed forcefully against the wall of the high school. He saw he was behind the garbage bin, hidden from plain view. Three figures loomed around him, their faces drawn and pale. He didn’t recognize any of them. They were ominous forms, not precise in detail, which made each one of them more frightening. His attacker stood in front of him as the other two hovered behind, like vultures waiting for their leader to make a kill so they could feast. “Must be my lucky day... just who I was waiting for.” His attacker said, his voice was thick, and smelled of fresh cigarette smoke.
Corey, doing his very best to remain calm, measured his breathing so his fear would not be sensed. “What do you want?” He forced. Immediately after he realized what a stupid question it was. He knew what they wanted. He could tell they had a vicious intention, and he was determined to get out of this.
“I just wanted to have a word with you. The local faggot... seems you got to everyone. Everyone just loves you, faggot. They all smile when you walk by... they don’t know.... they just don’t know.” The boy seemed to be spouting gibberish, and Corey suspected that he was drunk or high on his poison of choice. However, the word stung. Such an ugly word. Faggot. He knew he had to remove himself from this element, for it was explosive. “I don’t even know you.”
“I know you,” the vulture retorted immediately, leaning forward, coming within an inch of his face, invading him. “I see you flaunting yourself all around this town like you don’t have any mother fucking shame.”
Corey pressed his back against the wall until he could feel the waves of coolness from the brick move through his shirt against his skin. “Oh God,” he thought to himself, “This isn’t happening.” His eyes darted around, looking into the faces of the other two succumb by the shadows around them. He was looking for a passer-by, perhaps someone going to their car. Anyone. He felt himself begin to tremble, and when he spoke his voice cracked, as if he were going to cry.
“Please just leave me alone.”
“Why?”
“I- I didn’t do anything to you. Just let me go home.”
“First you’ve got to pay the fine. You broke the law.” The kid said in a morbidly playful tone, as he lit another cigarette. “We don’t like your kind here... you don’t belong here. No Niggers and especially, no ass fucking faggots. Right guys?” He called over his shoulder to his friends, who responded only with quiet laughter.
There was only one word that flooded Corey’s immediate thoughts. Why? Why?
Suddenly, his attacker whipped up his hand and
took Corey’s throat into a suffocating grip, slamming his head against the brick. He blew a mouthful of smoke into his face. “You like it when I touch you?” The kid asked, his voice slithering from his lips like a serpent, foul and evil. Again, he came close to Corey’s face with his own, and saw the tear the rolled off his eyelash. “I know you like it.” He whispered, “You are one sick Son of a Bitch, you know that, faggot? I bet you wanna touch me. You want to feel my dick, don’t you? Maybe you even want me to fuck you right here. You want me to rape you like a little fucking girl.”
Corey struggled for breath, but his grip was like a vice, ever tightening. He could barely hear his word for the pounding of his own heart. “S-Stop” He struggled as he wept, but only a strangled noise escaped.
“I’m sending you where you belong, Corey. Straight to hell.” With that, he sent a massive blow to the side of Corey’s face, one with such power that it sent him crashing to the ground.
The pain was searing and moved from his face through his head. He could think of nothing at all for a moment, and lost the presence of mind enough to move, until the kicking began, and then it was too late. It was somewhere between random screams and laughter that each crippling blast was delivered, first to his back, then as he writhed around in a vein attempt to escape their beating, his stomach. Soon he lost the ability to move, and all he could do was lay there, praying with every power her had that each impact would be the last. And he cried quietly, mostly inside as the energy to weep had been taken from him. Now it was mostly instinct.
Then, he felt an immense weight upon his chest as his attacker sat upon him, taking his face into his hand, forcing his eyes to meet him. “Look at me you fucking freak! LOOK AT ME!” He screamed in an almost primal manner, which came from nowhere human, simply pure hate, where he didn’t care who heard. “Tell me you’re a faggot. I want to hear you say it.” The boy demanded, his breathing labored, his voice strained and violently trepid. He spit upon him. “DO IT FAGGOT!”
Corey wept below him, not so much from the merciless pain, but the question that had gone unanswered. Why? He could not focus, nor completely comprehend what this villain was asking, and that frightened him even more because he had lost control. The boy screamed again! “TELL ME!” He screamed as he took Corey’s hair into his fists and began beating his head against the pavement, “SAY IT! SAY IT! SAY IT!” Out of breathe, exhausted, the boy stopped, he saw blood spilling out across the pavement from Corey’s head. Yet Corey was still awake, pinned down by his weight. Their eyes met for a simple moment, and in that, Corey mustered what little strength he had and said one word.
“Why?”
And it was then the final impact was delivered as one of the other thugs kicked him across the face, just as the other stood off of him. The most intense pain shot through his temple and for a moment he thought his eyes would explode. He felt darkness growing in around him as he tried so very desperately to stay conscious. He couldn’t let go, and yet the urge to sleep, to die even, was overpowering him. The only sense he had left was that of the sound around him- Their voices, now contemplating setting him on fire and watching him burn, then footsteps, and then the oddest exchange.
“What the Fuck…” He heard his attacker scream, as if taken by sudden shock. This was followed by a series of screams and an obvious scuffle. Something was happening. Though the severity of his agony was excruciating, Corey knew this was his last chance to get away. He had not the power to stand because his legs had gone numb. He managed to get to his hands and knees, and began to crawl toward what light he could see through his distorted vision. He had to make it into the light. “God, please don’t let me die. Please don’t take me away from my father,” he though, and the words echoed like a skipping record through his mind as the sounds behind him quieted. “They’re coming.” He instantly thought... “Keep going. Just go.” He pressed himself on, suffering with each movement his knees and arms made as he pulled himself into the light, “Please let it be over. Please let it be over.” And then he collapsed, his arms gave way beneath him and he hit the pavement. “Dad.... help me. Somebody please God... somebody.” And then blood filled his eyes, turning what little his sight beheld, dark red.
Now he was completely still, and with his breath he spoke... “Somebody.”
Then, he felt a hand on his shoulder, and hurriedly, as if driven, he turned, and began to flail his arms around in hopes of keeping his attacker at bay, “NO.” he cried. “No, No, NO!” and then upon blinking, his vision cleared for a moment, and he saw.... Thomas- standing above him, in a white tuxedo.
“It’s me Corey. I’ve got you.” Instantly a soothing calm befell the battered and bloodied Corey, as Thomas lifted him into his arms and began to carry him toward the road. Thomas knew the wounds were bad, and he could see Corey fighting to stay conscious, he spoke to him, anxiously, demandingly, “You stay with me Corey. Don’t go to sleep, you have to stay with me. You’re going to be okay. I’m here with you. Don’t go away from me.” Thomas pleaded, as he stared downward into Corey’s swollen and bruised face.
For a split second, Corey opened his eyes and looked up at Thomas, and even found the ability to smile... He swallowed hard as he met Thomas eyes with his own, “You came...” he whispered. And before Thomas could reply, Corey fell unconscious, and his limbs, once around Thomas’ neck, now fell limp. He was gone.
“SOMEBODY HELP US!” Thomas screamed with all his might, from a desperate place deep inside where all is at stake. Cars sped past, never bothering to even glance his way. “PLEASE! STOP!” He hollered at each one as it flew by. Finally he walked into the middle of the road, and stared at the approaching car, daring it, willing it to stop... and it did.
Lola Collier opened her car door and stepped out. “Dear God…” She said to Thomas, who was now crying, both from anger, and helplessness.
He kept his eyes fixed on Corey’s face as he trembled. He spoke quietly to the old woman, “You have to help us,” was all he said.
Lola pulled out her cellular phone and dialed 911. She gave them her location, the grabbed a blanket from her backseat and spread it across the ground where Thomas laid Corey upon it.
He lay beside him. “Don’t leave me....” He spoke through jagged breaths. Corey was unresponsive.
Angie stood at the buffet table picking at some of the vegetables that remained on the silver platter. She turned to the dance floor and gazed at Rachel who had become the belle of the ball. The boys nearly fought to dance with her. She seemed more radiant than ever before, and completely unaware of the enchanting beauty that left everyone else spellbound. Perhaps it was happiness. She seemed so free, so liberated. A quality that Angie had noticed growing in her since her Mother had filed for divorce... since her distance from Gabe. She seemed to be evolving.
She grabbed another piece of Celery. Damn diet. The cheesecake looked so good. She was just a bit more than stunned to see Gabe come from beneath the tablecloth and stand firmly at her side.
Her shoulders fell and she smacked her tongue against the room of her mouth in disgust. “You have got to be kidding,” she seethed as her lips tensed and her eyes became slits. The Death Stare.
But it quickly changed; he looked as though he had been crying, so it made it a little more difficult to be scathing.
There was an unsteadiness to him, one she noted immediately.
“You’re hiding... You don’t have to hide anymore. Corey already left.”
At first he said nothing, and his expression did not change as she expected it to. There was no relief there.
His eyes were fixed to the floor as he watched the reflecting lights dance upon it.
She turned toward him fully, unconsciously tilting her head as she studied him; His cheeks were flushed, his breathing shallow.
“I can’t do this... anymore.” He said weakly.
Angie stared at him and took a slow, impulsive step toward him. She knew this had been destroying h
im inside. She knew he had brought it all on himself, and the price he was paying was a heavy one.
Gabe’s eyes lifted and found Rachel who, encompassed in the lights from above, engulfed by the crowd, was blissfully unaware of the happenings that would certainly affected her.
Angie followed his gaze and then looked back to Gabe, “Now’s not the time. Just wait,” She advised quietly, her demeanor in direct conflict with that which she so eagerly proposed before.
“How did I get here.” His quiet voice shook. “I don’t hurt people....”
Angie felt her last bit of animosity squander, “I know. I know.”
Gabe took a slow step sideways. He hovered for a moment. He felt an overwhelming need to turn to Angie, to thank her for being the one thing left in his life that had been willing to remain. Would she care? No... Probably not. Then, with his hands tucked against his chest, he walked toward the exit and as he moved he didn’t see anyone or anything. The sights that graced his vision were fleeting, irrelevant images that quickly passed by. He felt the drafts of bodies in motion as they swooped past him but never saw their faces. Occasionally he smelled a distant perfume but didn’t bother to see the skin it moistened. Voices spoke as he passed. “Hey, Gabe! Don’t forget me when you’re famous!” Someone called. He didn’t stop to see who.
“Good luck at School Gabe!”
“Congratulations, Gabe!”
“We love you! Gabe!”
The faceless comments overlapped in his ears, melding into some audible anomaly that he didn’t care to decipher.
As new students came in and left randomly, the opening door invited a gentle breeze that almost dried his stinging eyes. It crossed his mind for a moment that if he just kept walking, he would never have to stop. One he was on the other side of that door, he did not ever have to turn back. A fantasy at best.
As he reached the doors he lifted his arm to brace himself against them and his attention was drawn upward. Red and blue lights scattered and merged like a kaleidoscope across the grass. Kids stood in small circles gawking at the show in the street. “An ambulance?” He wondered. Just then, a kid whose name he could not recall ran past him, waving his hands in the air.
Gabe turned and watched him draw the attention from the party. The music screeched to a halt. He was winded as he spoke, “You’ve gotta come and see this! Corey Evens is dead!” He ran back through the doors, pushing past Gabe as others anxiously followed.
Gabe couldn’t think. No. It was impossible. Gasps rippled through the crowd filing past him like herds of wild beasts toward water during a dry season. Gabe held his breath, his muscles tightened. His heart began to race…
And he began to run. No matter how fast he ran it wasn’t fast enough. He thrust people out of his way as his feet pounded against the wet grass. “No. No.! Please no!” He silently pleaded.
He reached the dense crowd that had flooded the street side. He shouldered his way through, desperate to see. Finally he reached the curbside. There were three paramedics surrounding someone lying on a blanket in the street. Gabe couldn’t tell, he couldn’t see his face. Pure fear made him weep; he struggled to keep from shaking. Finally, one of the paramedics knelt to the victim’s side, still shielding him from view.
It was then, beyond the bustling paramedics, that Gabe saw Thomas standing stone faced as they worked below him. Thomas could see his face now. It was Corey. A spasm knotted in his stomach. He burst onto the street yelling, “Corey? Corey! Is he dead?”
A female Police Officer materialized out of nowhere. She held his arms, “Sir! Sir! Calm down. You’ll have to move back!” She demanded aggressively.
Gabe persisted, “He’s with me, I know him!” He fought to free himself from her restraining hands. He hollered toward the men working around Corey, “Is he dead?”
The officer attempted to pull him aside toward her patrol car. “They’re going to help him. You have to stay back.”
“I need to be with him. He wants me with him!” He bellowed. Gabe stared in horror as they transferred Corey’s body to a padded stretcher. His tiny arm fell limp over the side, an intravenous needle shoved into his narrow vein.
Thomas stepped up beside him as they raised the stretcher into the air. He took Corey’s hand and said something that Gabe could not hear. Infuriated, Gabe felt an explosion of power. He broke away from the officer and ran to Corey’s side, pushing Thomas back from him, moving into his place. “I need to go with him. I need to be here. He can’t go alone!” Gabe explained as he took Corey’s hand, the hand that Thomas held.
Thomas stood back and watched. He couldn’t fight to be by Corey’s side. It would be wrong to fight with Gabe over who went with him. Why did Gabe care anyway? Thomas stood consumed by the millions of emotions that ravaged him. A certain rage swelled deep within. He wanted to scream. He tightened his fists as if he would. Then he turned from the scene and he ran away.
Rachel and Angie rushed out onto the street. Their faces were pale and drawn with smoldering intensity. The paramedics were lifting someone they couldn’t see into the back of the ambulance. A CB radio rattled in the background. Then, Rachel saw Gabe emerge from the back and pull the doors closed, shutting himself inside.
Rachel hurried to the door, grabbing the handle, trying to pull it open. It was locked. She thrust her body against it. “Gabe? Open the door! Wait for me! Please!” She begged.
Gabe caught a glimpse of her through the tinted glass. His eyes penetrated hers. “What are you doing? Is it him? Is it Corey? Gabe? What’s happening?” She wailed in utter despair, her words unsteady, her hands against the cold aluminum of the ambulance body.
Gabe turned away from her. The siren started and the ambulance began moving.
She followed helplessly. “Gabe! Wait! Stop! Gabe!” Before she knew it, she was running, trying to keep up with the speeding vehicle. The wind lashed her tear ridden face. Her feet against the street sent shockwaves through her entire body, knocking each breath outward in sharp increments. The deafening sound of the siren rose above her. She moved as fast as she could, but the ambulance only grew farther away, like a rising tide kept pulling her back, preventing her from reaching shore. Still, she pressed on, sobbing heavily, drowning in the darkness she had been left to suffer in. “GABE!” She called, knowing he could not hear her. Her legs hurt as she pushed herself forward, determined to somehow reach him. She stumbled forward, her ankle twisting under her. She fell hard to the ground, the callous pavement slid against her, tearing at her dress and the side of her face. Her arms cushioned her head as it bounced off her sleeve. She lay completely still for a moment, absorbing the sudden impact. She looked up as the lights disappeared over the distant hill. Her chin quivered, her eyes burned. She tried to catch her breath but failed. At the first opportunity, once able to draw enough oxygen, enough strength, she screamed one last time, “GABE!” Her voice shattered the night as it trailed through the neighborhood, the echo of her plea scattering in every direction until it faded.
PART TWO
thirteen
Everything After
Sadie Stories Page 11