Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 14:56:34 +0000 From: M Williams Subject: Living with a Past - Chapter 2 - DISCLAIMER - The following story, novel, or chapter contains homosexual themes and is not intended for anyone under the legal viewing age - If depictions of homosexual activities disturb you - Do Not Continue To Read This Story - Feedback appreciated Copyright - 2005 - Max Williams (Kollegekid54321@hotmail.com) Chapter 2 Jason sped pleasantly enough down Montgomery Ave, the main street of Capetown. The entire village was a grid of tightly woven well treed old-growth suburbs squeezed between Montgomery Ave and the waterfront of Lake Erie, most of the frontage to which was within the boundaries of Capetown Park & Beach. As such, Montgomery Ave was a beautiful, walk-able street packed with a few large general stores and a million little ones. At the end of Montgomery, the street culminated, with a few others, in a wide, lushly planted traffic circle that overlooked the park, and from the circle only one industrial-looking four lane road continued along the waterfront through the scores of later mid-40's and 50's ranch and cape cod tract houses that eventually blended into the denser environment that was Cape City. Capetown, specifically Montgomery Avenue, now that Justin looked at it through his sunglasses, was actually kind of a tourist trap - anyone that came to Cape City looking for local places to eat and a nice park to see the lake from would invariably wind up at Capetown, mingling with all the confirmed residents that also enjoyed the thriving village. Granted, property values dropped once you got a few blocks away from the main drag, and Jason knew that if his house was worth what it would be if it was in any way overlooking the lake, his relatively hand-to-mouth family wouldn't be living there. A sham, he thought, but what a sham. At least when this sham is said and done, we get something good at a price we can afford. He laughed to himself as he reached the end of Montgomery Ave and eased into the traffic circle, and then eased out of it again and was off like a shot down the 40 mile-an-hour roadway to school. Jason Colby was an easygoing guy. The things that had bothered him that morning were resolutely pushed to the back of his mind, and he knew that he had a day of school to look forward to. With the sun shining and the remaining snow melting off the ground, Jason knew that soon soccer season would begin outside and replace the void that had been left after hockey season ended the month before. More immediately, he had to worry about his Spanish, English, Social Studies, and Government classes, then Lunch, Music and Gym on every other day, Math, and a free period that he usually spent either in the gym working out with his teammates or behind the gym making out with Meghan. He smiled to himself as he eased his car into the crowded parking lot and tried to find a parking spot, because he was thinking about what a great day it was going to be. Not that he particularly enjoyed any class that didn't allow him to be physical, but he was doing alright in most of them, had most of his homework, and just plain liked days when he didn't have to worry about that kind of crap. The only thing that might possibly ruin it all was Music the dreaded class where he had no friends and was often lost. As a child, Jason had learned the guitar from his father, and had clung to that through the years, although he'd never really played too well. Because of that, he was entirely gung-ho about signing up for music lessons to really develop his guitar playing when he was offered the chance the year before. However, what was ambiguously labeled as `Music' on the schedule turned out to be `Music Theory' once he began going at the start of his senior year. Jason had grown to hate the flighty, annoyingly easygoing male music teacher who more than once had made him uncomfortable with his flouncy ways, and Jason felt sure that some of the guys in that class were of the same bunch that did the faggy musicals, and probably hung around with assholes like Fredo and Fredo's little gang of homos and . . . Jason stopped stressing himself out about his music class. If Mr. Braun was queer, then Mr. Braun can go fuck himself. For the second time, Jason thought whatever to himself, and then, having parked, locked his father's car and jogged up to the school's side door. "Hey - Jase!" Voices immediately greeted Jason once he entered the school. His two best friends, Sean and Trevor, immediately came over and the three got into a conversation about soccer positions and who was going out for what, and it successfully kept Jason's mind off of Mr. Braun, and his mother for the remainder of the morning. He and Sean had the first two classes together, and he and Trevor had another together before lunch. Lunch found Jason sitting amongst Mike Richiazzi, Dave Pellegrino, Jay Billings, Greg Bellgraph, and a whole gaggle of other names that were famous around Cape City High for their sporting prowess. Jason high-fived them all and, saying he'd see them over the weekend at a party at Greg's house, packed up his books for Music Theory and slowly but resolutely walked up the two flights of stairs to the second floor crescent-shaped music room. The music room was really just two class rooms that had been joined together by taking out the common wall, and then a crappy plywood curved wall had been erected so that risers could be installed in a half-moon shape, radiating from around the Baldwin baby grand piano that chubby Mr. Braun always draped himself on as he conducted his choir and taught his theory class. Today, Jason looked, as he always did, at the floor as he entered, at the steps as he climbed the risers, and at his knees as he seated himself on the uppermost riser on the end, so that worst case scenario would still only mean one asshole sitting next to him. He allowed his gaze to look slightly up at the class entering, but it was always the same old jerks. They knew about music, he didn't. They made jokes that referenced something from theater or plays or some shit like that, and he would smile, because Jason liked to smile, but basically, feel removed and isolated. He resignedly began drawing a crude map of a soccer field and absent-mindedly worked out a defense strategy for a seven-man team as the rest of the class filed in. "Mornin'" Jason looked up to see whose voice it was, and almost dropped his pen. Fredo was leaning over the railing of the risers, grinning idiotically, and, Jason noticed, wearing a very non-characteristic dress shirt and neck tie. "What the fuck?" Jason knew immediately after he said it that the normal things he'd say around Sean or Trevor wouldn't fly with the musical crowd - they all gave him a dirty look for his relatively loud expletive. Still, he went on, "what the fuck are you doing here?" "I'm TA-ing the class. I've got study hall this period and Braun wanted me to help out, because I get this shit and a lot of kids don't." Fredo paused to give Jason a chance to speak. After a silence, Fredo went on, "Look, I don't know why you hate me, but I don't still like the shit we used to pull. I mean, sure we had fun, but we were little assholes, and I grew up. I mean, you can hang out with me now, again; I'm not gonna smoke up or set fire to Cremshaw's mailbox again or anything. Jeez, at least stop pulling this shit in class, Jase." Jason's jaw tightened. So much for being relaxed. "That's not why we stopped hanging out." Jason's voice was low but strong, and every word was punctuated with tones so sharp they could have been cut from a block of malice with a razor-edged knife. "I don't want to talk to you. I don't like you." "You liked me fine three years ago." "Shut up." "Jase, c'mon man, you know we used to hang out so much. I miss that. I miss our friendship. I miss . . . you, Jase -" "SHUT THE FUCK UP!" It wasn't the words that startled Fredo, or indeed, the rest of the class, but rather the venom with which they were spoken. Jason, had he realized, had that same combination of confusion and hurt on his face, except this time it was half-buried under anger and embarrassment, although more people noticed the precariously positioned fist that Jason held in the air. His developed bicep stood out in clear relief from his arm, and it was perfectly clear that his punch could land on any part of Fredo's body with swift precision. "All right, all right. I just wanted -", Fredo began again, and watched the fist elevate six or eight inches in the air. He swallowed. "Fine, have it your way. By the way, you look like fucking hell." Fredo jumped backwards off the riser and exited the door. Jason watched him, and then swallowed and found that his hand was balled into a fist, and ridiculously high in the air. He suddenly realized that he was sweaty and anxious, and if his face looked as flushed as it felt, then he probably did look like hell. He probably looked like a nervous wreck that was on the verge of beating someone over . . . words? Jason ashamedly went back to his drawing, although his heart wasn't in it. He pushed it around some, his eyes pointed towards it but unfocused on it, as he replayed the exact words that Fredo had used, and the ridiculously condescending words that he had heard from other people around him once his fist had gone up. He took a deep breath, and when Fredo came back into the room, Jason tried to make eye contact. He didn't know what to say, but he knew that not continuing to look down was the first step in rectifying the problem that he apparently had with this guy. What Jason wasn't expecting was that Fredo ignored him completely. After another eternity of pushing around his defense plan and peripherally watching Fredo silently go over the lesson plan at the teacher's desk, Mr. Braun finally came in and began the class. Jason thankfully got lost in the note taking, and was pleased to find that Fredo wasn't very much involved with the class at all, beyond helping to distribute handouts. Mr. Braun was a small man in his early 40's, who had, at one time, been extremely handsome. But over the years his looks had faded minimally, just like his few gray hairs, which had been met with an overabundance of exuberant exercises in revitalization that had left Mr. Braun looking over-coiffed and over-glammed rather than dapper and youthful. His gray temples were patchily died a beautiful light brown, although the rest of his hair that hadn't yet turned was almost black. His handlebar mustache was trimmed so perfectly it could have been done with a slide-rule, although the laugh lines it was grown to conceal were steadily growing every year. His polished white caps clashed terribly with his ochre originals, and his sparkling eyes were accented by eyebrows that were beautifully shaped and obviously waxed at the ends, although they connected in a monster-like way over the bridge of his nose. Combined with his affinity for respectable shirts worn open, most disrespectfully, to his mid-chest, and extremely tight pants, he portrayed more of a caricature of a bad 70's lounge lizard than he did an actual human being. Normally Jason laughed loudly inside his head at this hideous man, but today he just ached for the class to be over. Braun was going on about the romantic movement in music, and the different ways in which music was passion, and passion was music, and all that shit. Then Braun went off on a tangent and Jason almost entirely zoned out until Braun sat down and punctuated his point with the opening bars of a peculiarly metered waltz. Jason's eyes snapped open, and he knew he'd heard that before. The kids sitting next to him were startled when he, for the first time all year, sat up in on the riser and paid full attention. Braun, oblivious to the difference, was still going on about the way that music awakes the soul, and a few other ambiguous artsy comments that Jason committed to memory and then immediately forgot, and then Braun played the piece again, and Jason reeled. It was so familiar! It was so ridiculously familiar, and Jason had no idea where it could have come from, although it was stirring something within him. Something . . . beautiful . . . and rare. This time Braun kept playing into the next movement of the piece, and Jason simply closed his eyes. Jason was not, and had never been into classical, or even non-rock music. But this was amazing - it was speaking to him, directly, and he felt as though the sliding descants were in some way akin to the peaks of pleasure that he felt sometimes with Meghan, or like the rumbling bass was clamoring through his irrelevant body to the core of his very soul and jarring it awake with its song of rough, natural, and untamed influence. Jason reeled again, and suddenly felt something move within him. It started, like an air bubble under his skin, at his throat, and he could feel it moving slowly down his chest. As the song increased, the feeling, the ball of raw, untamed, wild, ritualistic, energy started slipping across his broad chest, and Jason felt it move to the left of his body. For a moment his mind screamed heart attack!, but every other part of him was buried in the swirling contrasting melodies of the roughly elegant waltz. The tight little ball of tension finally settled in the middle of his chest, and then throbbed for a second. Not long, but for a second, and then he felt it sink into his chest, deeper and deeper, going through his bones, through his lungs, so far into his body he felt like it would burst out his back when suddenly he felt the need to scream as the concentration of feeling burst, in a single, elegant sweep, into his heart, and he felt his own organs start to shiver with the elevated actions of a super-functional system. Jason began to shudder violently, and instinctually put his head down, where his mouth opened in a low hum and his eyes rolled loosely in his head. He heard vaguely the music end and someone say his name, and felt vaguely the risers flex under him as someone climbed up them to get to him. They flexed too violently, in fact, and he, in his comatose state, slid forward and tumbled, head over heels, into the risers. His heavy body broke one of the levels, and he heard someone screaming into a phone for an ambulance. He knew, somehow, as he closed his eyes, that he'd be fine. In another part of the state, in another kind of setting, for the first time in a hundred years, a pair of yellowed eyes opened, and looked around the shoddy remains of a room that had literally spent a century rotting away. The eyes, unused to air, watered immediately, and shut again. But they would reopen . . . they would reopen for a long time to come. Meanwhile, Jason was fine. He was lying, comfortably, on a stretcher in the school nurse's office, after having apparently made a full recovery from his . . . episode. The Nurse repeatedly took his temperature and asked him if he was dizzy, but Jason was fine. He sat there, perfectly aware, and perfectly happy, and perfectly normal again. The music was gone, the feeling was gone, his innards felt fine, and he wanted to know why he was in the nurse's office for falling asleep in class, falling forwards in his sleep and bumping his head. However, when young Jason Colby told the nurse this, all she did was shake her head and ask him if he remembered anything else. To her immense chagrin, and eventually his, he honestly told her no. Eventually, she believed him.