By The Way
Chapter 14
Onward and upward!
* * * * *
* * * *
That summer flew by. I had taken a job at a bank in their lockbox
department. For those unfamiliar with this department it
basically works like this. You write a check to Texaco or Sears
or Georgia Pacific or Southern Bell. The bill is actually sent to
the bank where the company has its accounts, so the p.o. box is
actually in the bank building itself, not at Texaco or Sears or
whatever. The reason for this is to cut down the time that the
payment is flailing around in the mail, so people who live in and
around Atlanta will have their accounts credited quicker than if they
had to send the bill all the way to Alaska.
There are basically two processes in the lockbox department. The
first is where the bill is physically opened and the remittance
removed. Some companies require that you keep the envelope.
Some require that the remittance be stapled in an exact location to the
envelope. Some companies want the amount of the payment circled
if it matches the amount of the check. Big deal, say
you. How hard is it to open a bunch of envelopes. Well
considering that we had mail opening machines which oftentimes didn't
open all of your mail, it could be a pain in the ass. By the end
of the shift you might process hundreds, sometimes nearly a thousand or
more, bills. Big deal, right? Try having two dozen
different accounts, each of which likes their mail handled in their own
particular way. Luckily the mail was pre-sorted so all you have
to do is find the accounts on your list and get going. Now let's
talk about paper mites. They look like little white pieces of
dust, very innocuous things, the fuckers. But they itch like a
bastard by the end of the day. Once my group was done with our
process, the checks went to a computer room where a dozen or so people
actually keyed them into the computer to be credited to the various
accounts.
My shift was on Saturday mornings from 7:00 to 4:00 and then Sunday
morning from 7:00 to 3:00. The pay was good; over six dollars an
hour at a time when minimum wage was just over three dollars. One
of the bennies was that if you worked there full time then the bank
would contribute to your tuition at Georgia State University on a
graduated basis. If you earned A's in class they'd pay 90%, B's
paid 80% and C's paid 70%. I was only a part-timer so I didn't
qualify. I absolutely hated getting up at 5:00 in the morning and
catching MARTA down to the city. There were basically three
sections of processors with four people in each section. I sat
near a woman named Gwen who was the funniest person I'd ever met.
She cussed like a sailor and had some really wild stories from when she
was in college. There was another woman named Hilda who had a
really dry sense of humor and was also great to work with. Every
morning between 8:00 and 9:00 we'd all take a break and head over to
the Hilton for breakfast. We'd go down to the employee cafeteria
and the food was awesome and cheap. I remember that there was
this really hot bell hop named Billy. Billy was from New York or
New Jersey, which you could tell from his accent. He had short,
wavy, brown hair and was just sexy as hell. He must've been in
his late twenties because he had this really mature look about himself,
physically. Shit, I lusted after him. From afar.
Menus look good but there's only one entree' for me, and we all know
who he is.
Boring you? Sorry. My life can't be full of excitement.
The thing that really sucked was that all of my friends would naturally
party on Friday and Saturday nights, and I had to leave early because I
had to get up so friggin' early in the morning. Glen and Philip
both started working at one of the theaters on the strip. Scott
had been working at another theater since our junior year; then he took
a job at Stone Mountain Park as one of the money counters. They
had a friend who'd graduated the year before us named Blake. The
more I was around them the more I was around Blake as well. I
don't really remember where Matt worked. Odd. We
all went out pretty regularly on the weekends and sometimes Alan would
come along. He worked at yet another movie theater on the
strip. Needless to say I saw a lot of free movies at that time.
As the summer wore on I really started dreading my job at the
bank. It made sense to keep working there but I really hated
getting up in the mornings that fuckin' early. If I haven't
mentioned this before, I hate mornings. I'm more comfortable at
midnight than 7:00 a.m. But I was earning money fast which is
what I needed since I had to pay for my own college come fall.
The months slipped by and before I knew it registration for fall
classes was around the corner. Charles was headed off to
Tech. That really sucked becuase he and I had talked about being
roommates. I'd talked to Scott Dell a few times that summer but
he was busy doing real grown-up work. At least I considered
working with his uncle as "grown-up" work. By the end of the
summer I'd lost touch with him. It was a shame and I had enjoyed
hanging out with him and Alan. Unfortunately it would be years
before I'd run into him again. And boy, was I ever in for a
surprise when that happened!
When I was a senior I'd gone ahead and taken college Algebra and
Trig. I'm glad that I'd had that foresight because
I was able to take one fewer class in the fall and concentrate on
PolySci, Literature and still take some other bullshit core
class. Glen and
Philip were enrolled at Georgia State, Scott (jazz band) was off at
UGA. Because I'd had an opening in my core classes from
taking the maths earlier, I went
ahead and signed up for some silly computer class, which should have
been taken in my second year. It was
required but I say the class was silly because it wasn't much different
than
the computer class I had taken back in high school. The only
difference was that this went over Lotus 1,2,3. Stand back!
The computer class was a Tuesday/Thursday class. The others were
Monday/Wednesday/Friday. Tuesday comes around and you'll never
guess who winds up in my class. Never in a million fucking years.
Don Keller.
You've got to be fuckin' kidding me, you're thinking. I couldn't
believe how crazy things turned out. I mean, I hadn't
spoken to the guy, basically since Christmas the year before. And
now here he was in my computer class - another computer class. This
was a total random
display of freakiness as far as I was concerned, because for all I knew
he was still up in North Carolina playing shortstop for whatever farm
team was up there. When he walked into the room I laughed and
shook my head. No fucking way was this happening. The irony
of him showing up in another computer class. This time, however,
it couldn't have been engineered. When he
heard my laugh he turned and looked towards me, then came over and sat
down, slapping me on the knee.
"How's it goin' Lyons?" He asked it like he'd just been cleaning
his oven, not like he hadn't seen nor called me in months.
I snorted. "What the fuck are you doin' here?"
"Long story. But I'm back home."
"I guess so." If he thought he could pick up where he left off
the night I gave him his back massage he was on black tar heroin.
Either that or crystal meth. I've never been one to drop friends
like they were paper weights, but I'd had a year to heal from that and
my head was in a much better place.
"So how ya doin'?"
I looked at him. "I'm not as nice as I used to be." Don
just laughed at that and I rolled my eyes, shook my head slightly and
looked away.
I won't deny that part of me enjoyed being in the class with him
again. Hell from a purely sexual perspective he was still hotter
than hell, and plus he'd beefed up a bit while he was off at school,
and we all know that a fantastic bod never really annoyed me. Now
he was
trying to sport a mustache.
"Dude," I asked, "who killed the mouse on your lip?"
"Fuck you," he laughed. I just looked at him. He really did
expect to just slip back into this old shoe. Dickwad.
Later that day when I talked to Alan on the phone he sat silently for a
minute
after I told him who was in my class. I could hear the wheels
turning but I knew everything would be alright. He affirmed
exactly that thought but was more concerned about me and my feelings
than
about me and my loins. I was fine. Don was out of my
system. I could still be around him and as it was I didn't have
much of a choice. I couldn't exactly drop the class or sit
somewhere else in the room because then I'd look like a total
shit-ass. I mean hey, he may have not turned out to be the
greatest friend but he wasn't evil. I did, however, decide to
confront him on one thing but it would have to wait until
Thursday. I could have called him on the phone but I really
wanted to see his face when I talked to him.
Thursday after class he and I were walking to our cars so I flat out
asked him if he'd ever said anything to Alan's brother about him
thinking that I was gay. Gee, ya think I took him by surprise
with that one? He threw his books into the back seat and stood
there looking really uncomfortable for a minute.
"It's okay if you did. I guess you've got pretty good gaydar,
pal."
Okay, that shook him
up. "Paul, what's the problem? Come on man, I was just
talkin' shit." He tried recovering with a dimpled smile.
"You're fuckin' kidding
me." I tried to keep quiet as I could because other students were
walking to their cars. "One minute you're my friend, 'oh Paulie,'
" I mocked " 'will you rub my back?' Next thing I know you're
blabbin' to people that you think I'm gay. What pissed me off is
that I didn't think that's how friends treated each other. I
dunno, maybe I'm dumb, but I take that sort of thing personally."
I was standing my ground pretty well with him and he still looked
uncomfortable. Confronting people in this manner wasn't normal
for me but this was going okay and I hitched up my drawers even
more. "For the record, Don,
I am. Maybe you're
smarter than you act sometimes and you were able to figure that
out. If you did, then you had me figured long before that
night, and the massage didn't seem to bother you." Okay, maybe I
was still a little hurt and
pissed.
He sat there with his jaw open. I think that he was surprised for
two reasons; one, I had blitzed him there in the parking lot and two,
because I'd admitted to him that I was gay. "No...I didn't know."
"Bullshit. Either way, thanks for talkin' about me like I was a
bastard at a family reunion." I turned to walk off, then spun
around. "I was always
there for you. And I never asked you for anything.
Not anything more than your
friendship." At this point one or two people looked our way but
kept walking on by. I guess I was getting louder.
Huh. "For a while I didn't understand what happened to you when
you went to school, but
I'll tell you what. After a while I didn't care." That seemed to have an
effect on him. I could see his eyebrows drop down over his eyes a
bit. I stepped a bit more into his space. "There wasn't a
fuckin' thing I wouldn't'a done for you. Not a God damned
thing. You ask for me to put my hands on you and then run to your
friend, tellin' him
'hey, I'll bet Lyons is gay'. I'll bet you never mentioned asking
me to rub your back, you jerk. That woulda made you look gay, and we can't have that now can
we."
"Paul, you wanna calm down-"
"Fuck no I don't wanna calm
down! I got a lot to be angry about! You see, Don, I'm the
kind of guy who fights for his friendships and for what he believes
in. I thought you did too. Looks like I was the stupid one
to depend on your friendship, asshole. Apparently you're the kind
of guy who....shit, I dunno what. I'm so pissed....." And
at that point I really
didn't know what else to say. I wanted to beat his ass for how
he'd hurt me but that wasn't an option. I wasn't an ass-beating
kind of guy. I wanted to kick him in the balls.
"Can't talk, can ya," he grinned.
"Fuck you."
He shook his head. "You're definitely
not the same guy I remembered."
"I told you I'm not as nice as I used to be."
"So what's with all the fuckin' drama?"
I took a deep breath. "You...hurt me."
"I'm sorry!"
Oh hell, maybe I'd gone over the line a bit, gotten too dramatic.
But I held my finger
up to his face. "Don't do it again."
"I'm...sorry, Paul," he repeated.
I put my hand down and turned to walk off.
"I gotta admit, Lyons, ya got balls."
"You'll never see 'em," I spat over my shoulder.
"Don't want to."
I held up my bird finger as I walked away and said, "Fuck off." I
heard him chuckle and I smiled to myself. Whew! That felt
good.
* * * *
When I told Alan how I'd cussed Don out in the parking lot he laughed
his ass off. I really don't think that he was worried about my
feelings towards Don. With the exception of being attracted to
him there were no other feelings. Wait, I should revise that
statement. Like boys who grow up and fight one minute before
rolling around with laughter the next, I was pretty much the grown up
version of that mentality. I'd gotten what I'd needed to off of
my chest and therefore had no problem being friends or hanging out with
him again. I knew that the feelings of being "in love" with Don
were somewhere out on a baseball field in North Carolina. He took
them with him when he left. I mean "left" both figuretively and
literally. Being the swell guy that I was (excuse me, am) I knew
that if I'd blown off my steam that I'd feel just fine about him.
Luckily, the pussification of men in America hadn't so infected me that
I couldn't shrug off a stupid and immature action on his part and
we could remain friends.
It didn't take a whole lot of convincing on my part with Alan. He
wasn't upset that I had no problem remaining friends with Don. I
guess he hadn't become pussified either. By "pussified" I mean
this: you ever notice when girls argue it's never forgotten? Boys
can clobber each other one day and they're best friends the next.
Go figure. I'd love one woman out there tell me that I'm wrong in
my thinking. Guys in general don't hold grudges. But a lot
of men in general have just become.....what....so friggin'
whimpy. Maybe that'll start an interesting thread. Anyway,
like I said, Alan was cool with me not hating Don.
Alan's bod was starting to look even cooler, too. The football
team had started training a month before school began and he was
beefing up even more. Hubba hubba! A gay guy (or at least a
guy who really liked looking
at other guys) had to have come up with the football pants. Where
the hell Alan put his package when he was in his uniform is beyond
me. The guy was definately a show'er and must've worn a really
tight jock or whatever. He was working out more and I think that
my protein shakes were helping him a little bit, too. His arms
and his chest were beginning to thicken a little bit, unlike some of
the 'roids who'd inflated like Spongebob Squarepants. I was
always
tempted to hang out at the practices after school had started but I
thought it would look a little funny. I always went to the games,
though. Nothing too odd there.
For a week or so after I'd blasted Don in the parking lot we didn't
chit chat a whole lot during class. It didn't take long before he
and I had an easy banter going on back and forth. For some reason
he seemed even more at ease around me than before. I'm not saying
that since he found out I was gay that my chances to play his
toodle-loop had just gone up, in his eyes. I think that in
general we'd both matured a bit from high school. I know he
missed playing baseball and wasn't exactly thrilled to not be on the
farm team in the upcoming Spring again. Still, he wouldn't tell
me exactly what had happened; why he was going to a community college
instead of the other college. If it were a thing about grades I
think that he would've said something to me. Whatever. If
he wanted to tell me, he would. I know that baseball was his life
and he was dying for his chance at the majors. It would've been
his dream to play for the Braves but that seemed like an impossibility
at this point.
That year, just before Christmas, the movie "Nuts" with Barbra
Streisand and Richard Dreyfuss was released. I thought it was a
fantastic movie and as the story ended it seemed to trigger something
in me. I was cynical before but seeing the topic of sexual abuse
portrayed in the movie made me more so. I ended up seeing it
a couple of more times with other friends. Each time I did, I
started to get really angry about what had happened to me as a
kid. There were certain lines in it that left my heart
cold: When asked why she had an abortion Streisand's character
Claudia responds that she doesn't believe in childhood.
Throughout the movie everyone insisted that they knew what was best for
her, and if she didn't agree with their thinking then she was
"nuts." Seeing that movie, I experienced a dichotomy of feeling
both released from my past and somehow trapped by it. Perhaps
because it showed how a kid who just wants to be loved gets their life
ripped apart because of someone else's deviancy. It stirred up
feelings in me that I'd suppressed for years. Great. Who
needs that shit.
A few weeks before Christmas, Matt went into the Navy. If you'll
remember, Matt was the guy who'd loaned me his coat the night of the
pageant. The group of us took him out for dinner and bought him a
really nice watch. Later that night after we dropped him off at
home we snuck back and rolled his house. They had about eight
large maple trees in their front yard and it looked like a Currier and
Ives print with all of the toilet paper fluttering in the breeze.
When we were done we stood at the street near our cars and hollered out
the "Anchors Aweigh" song.
Christmas had come and gone and up until then
I had spent a lot of time
with Philip. Too much time, I think. Part of my problem
with him is that I was starting to want to be around him a lot, almost
as much as Alan. Now there's
a conflict I never saw coming. I'd call him a lot or just stop by
his house to hang out. Right after Christmas I kept getting this
really weird vibe from him and whenever I asked what was wrong he'd
just say that there was nothing. Finally in January I called him
and said basically 'dude, what's up, we need to talk,' so he stopped by
my house on his way to the theater. Incidentally my job at the
bank had become so friggin monotonous and the trips down to Atlanta
were driving me crazy, so I asked if Philip would talk to his boss and
see if there were any openings at the theater. He seemed really
uncomfortable, still I didn't know why.
When he came over my house for out little 'come to Jesus,' I told him
that I'd always be his friend whatever his problem was. If there
was something wrong with me or how I'd acted then I wanted to
know. That was when he informed me that I 'bugged' him. His
words. How fuckin' weird was that! Not exactly what I was
expecting to hear. He went on to say that he'd gotten sick of my
phone calls and my stopping by his house uninvited. Shit!
Okay. He apologized and said that it wasn't anything he could
help, but that was how he felt. Period. After we were done
talking I knew our friendship, however short, was over for good.
No it didn't make sense one iota but what was I going to do.
Ironically I ended up getting the job at the theater, so now I'd have
to work with him. Can you say, odd?
To say the least things were tense working at the same theater as
Philip. But Glen was there too and he was such an easy guy to get
along with that his personality helped balance things out a little
bit. In general I had a total blast working at the theater.
You might remember back when I was a junior in high school I sat next
to a guy named George Heaney in Spanish class. Turns out he also
worked at the theater. All the people there were close enough to
my age that hanging out with everyone felt natural. Sometimes
we'd head over to Chili's or to Applebees after work and grab a bite to
eat before heading to someone's house for a party. Nothing big,
just hanging out. At that time all of the movies on Memorial
Drive had been bought by one company, so technically Alan and I had the
same employer, we were just in different places. After a while I
started learning how to run the projectors. This was cool because
it meant that when everyone else was shlepping around helping customers
at the concession stand I could stay upstairs for a good part of that
time threading and starting the projectors.
One cool thing that we always did was have preview parties.
Movies are delivered in canisters that hold three to four reels
each. You have to build the movie on one of the movie platters on
Thursday evening. By 'building' I mean you have to set your
leader tape, then splice on any previews or promotional advertising,
then the movie itself. Because one film comes to the theater
broken down into six to eight individual reels they also need to be
spliced together; the "foot" of the first reel spliced to the "head" of
the next, and so on. Because humans are involved there's the risk
of an incorrect splice and what happens is the movie goes "out of
frame". This is where you see a person's foot at the top of the
screen and their torso on the bottom. We always had to preview
movies to make sure that they were spliced together correctly, but the
only time to do this was after all of the movies had ended for the
evening. If the movie was a good one then we'd usually wait until
around 11:00 so people from all of the theaters could come down.
Of course we had popcorn, but people would bring Krispy Kreme, Krystal
burgers, whatever. Alcohol. You name it.
I started working at the
theater the weekend that "Good Morning
Vietnam" opened. This was about the same time that I noticed a
swelling in my neck. At first I just thought that it was from
having a cold, but then once the cold was gone the swelling never
abated. I saw it there every day when I shaved but didn't really
think
anything of it. During the second week of January I woke up one
morning with what felt like extremely bad stomach cramps. I had
no
appetite and even missed one day of school. This was abnormal for
me.
I was a social butterfly and had people to see. The next day the
cramping was gone and I just chalked it up to really bad indigestion.
In February I had the stomach cramping again. It was about as
painful as the first time and I stayed home again from school for the
day. I had a doctor's visit in March to show her my neck.
She said that if the lump either moved, grew, became enflamed, etc.
that I should let her know and we'd take action. After that I had
another stomach cramp attack. This time I was at Alan's house
spending the night. It was during the week but we were both off
because of Spring break. The pain was so intense and I'd noticed
that the evening before my stomach would cramp up I'd feel a dull
aching in the center of my back. A few people said that this was
the signs of an ulcer. Whatever. I woke up that morning
doubled over and it felt like someone had stabbed me with a hot poker
(and I don't mean Alan's). I tried drinking water but threw it up
almost immediately. I had trouble walking and Alan helped me out
to his car, then took me to the hospital.
My parents met us there and as I lay on a gurney in the emergency room
hallway I was completely delirious. I had pulled my knees up to
my chest and was continually shifting around on the bed. Total
agony wracked my body and it seemed eons before someone hooked me up to
an i.v. and started hydrating me and giving me pain meds. I was
in the hospital for a couple of days and nobody could explain the
cramping.
The school year was really flying by as Winter quarter rolled into
Spring. Kent, who was in my chemistry and lit classes in eleventh
grade wound up in my psychology class that quarter and Don was taking
some other classes. I'd see him between classes but that was
about it. Sometimes we'd have lunch in the cafeteria but nothing
much more than that. Alan and I continued to grow in our
relationship but I had some concerns about his impending
graduation. Yeah it was months away but he would also be going
off to UGA on a football scholarship. UGA is a party
school. I wasn't worried that much about him as I worried about
the distance. Things were still somewhat stressful at work with
Philip. It still felt strange to be around him, to say the
least. Alan had joined the baseball team at school and all of the
extra workouts in the gym were really making him fill out a bit
more. God he was gorgeous.
April came and so did the fucking stomach cramps, again. This
time my dad ended up taking me to the hospital. Again, the same
agonizing, stabbing pain. This time a g.i. specialist doped me up
with valium (a lot of it) and used a scope down my throat to see if
there were any ulcers inside my stomach. I vaguely remember him
telling me to "swallow." With Alan that wasn't a problem, at
least not any more, but this tube was just a wee bit longer than
him. Nothing was found. No ulcers. I stayed in the
hospital two more days for observation. This was over the weekend
and the only thing on was golf. I hate golf. More than
getting up in the early morning. You hear these two numbskulls
whispering "birdie, par, par, birdie, birdie." They're in a
fuckin' booth so far away from the action I don't think that the
golfers are going to hear them. I wanted to jump out the
window. Fuck! But Alan's birthday is also in April, and it
was a week or so after the hospital stay. I demonstrated for him
how to swallow that ulcer scope thing. I think he liked it.
Here comes May and I'm a mother fucker if the cramps didn't come
back! But hey, this time I received a barium enema. How
charming! The day after I was admitted, once the cramping had
subsided, I got to take that Fleet nightmare that cleans you out
completely, just before they douche you with two goddamn gallons of
water to rinse it all out. Alan was filling, but not that
much. The next day I go into this procedures room, having not
eaten for a couple of days, and they warn me about this pinky-sized
tube they were gonna shove up my ass to administer the barium.
Trust me honey, I thought, that thing might just fall out. Okay,
so they give me the tube, then raise the bottle of barium and my lower
g.i. is filled with creamy fluid; and not the kind that I really
enjoyed. Then I'll be goddamned, they want you to do fuckin'
acrobats on the table as they take x-rays from a myriad of
positions. Then they tell you, "Okay Paul, you need to go to the
bathroom and evacuate your bowels." You're goddamn right I
do! I've got ten gallons of alfredo sauce up my ass and I
squat/run to the commode before my ass explodes. Now you know why
I ain't into gerbils.
So after having a television tube go further than Alan's cock ever had,
and after having my fun chute filled with a hastily-made cream sauce, I
was found to be healthy as a horse. Literally, that's what all of
the doctor's concluded. One came just short of saying that the
pain might be psychosomatic, or brought on by stress. I went for
the latter. Times were bad working with Philip; I was still
reeling internally with awful feelings from being molested and having
those feelings surge up again; I was worried about Alan going off to
school, even though that wouldn't be for months. I was seeing and
visiting Don off and on at school. I had a friggin' lump in my
throat. Basically I was a fucking mental case.
But as I'd been able to do with other major events in my life, once I
was confronted with or identified a problem, making a decision on how
to handle it was easy. I decided that I could no longer be a
basket case. I released Philip from my mind and just considered
him another stranger that I worked with. I decided to stay cool
about Alan, let the relationship go where it went and just see what
happened in the fall; I could take it. Don could go on the back
burner. The lump hadn't moved so I really didn't need to worry
about it. Whew!
Well, whatever I'd done or however I started thinking must have worked
because I've never had stomach cramps like that again. They came
out of the blue and then never resurfaced after that May. Thank
God!
And so my friends, remember back in chapter three or four where Dr.
Goodstein had examined some of my medical records and determined that
the Hodgkin's had not spread to my abdoman? It was the medical
records that he'd had from the times I was in the hospital for the
stomach cramps. Isn't it amazing how some things work out?
What caused me such God-awful pain in the spring of 1988 would save me
from having to have chemotherapy in 1989. And ironically nothing
was ever discovered in wrong with me in '88. So I look at it this
way. My being molested, the rough times I was having with Philip,
the worrying about Alan, the kvetching about the lump in my neck - all
of those thoughts had me so stressed out that my body shortcircuited
from the stress. If those things hadn't happened I'm convinced I
wouldn't have had the stomach cramps. If I didn't have the cramps
there would be no medical tests available to Dr. Goodstein.
Sometimes good things can come from bad situations.
* * * * *
* *
Am I done with this story? Hell no! We have a lot to cover,
peeps. So stick around and find out about what it's like spending
time with Alan at the beach. Holy Jeeze!
* * * * *
* * *
Okay dudes - what do you think?
Mark
mlogan6969@hotmail.com