000
Friday morning
was clear and sunny as Robby joined the pilgramage in front of his
house down Sycamore and he was almost in a good mood as he crossed 18th
St. and joined the crowd in front of the school. He was tripped only
once on his way to his locker and called "Ronald McDonald" only twice
by the time he was seated for First Period Social Studies. Gavin
Dietrich gave him a murderous look, a bruise around his left eye and a
cut beneath his nose reminders of the thrashing Robby had given him the
day before. Yet, he said nothing. Biff LaFrance, oddly, didn't even
look toward Robby, seeming to act as if he didn't exist. Mr. Osborn,
however, was quite aware of Robby's presense and quickly walked toward
the boy after depositing his brief case on his desk.
"Robby, son, I am so sorry. I should never had
forced you to read those articles of your father's before the class
like that. I should have known that would hurt you. I am so sorry."
Robby was embarrassed and looked down at his desk.
"It's OK, Mr. Osborn. I... I'm glad I read them. I
needed to read them."
It looked as if the teacher had more he wanted to
say, but the bell rang for the start of school. Mr. Osborn sighed and
smiled before turning and walking up to the front of the class.
Second Period French was notable only in that Sean
actually spoke to the other boys first, without being prompted. He was
still hesitant and nervous, still stuttering and blushing fiercely. Yet,
he did make the effort and it was rewarded with Zhenya, Ethan, and
Robby including him in their practice and conversations. The four also
sat together at lunch, which was notable in that Jack Purvis did not
feel it necessary to invoke the wrath of Mr. Osborn again. Robby
noticed, however, that other kids seemed to be avoiding them, or, at
least, him. Some guys, and even some girls, who had, over the last few
days, nodded or asked, "How's it going," were now pretending not to
notice him or were turning to look in other directions. But, it was not
until Sixth Period Gym class that it became apparent that the four were
being lumped together by the school in general and that they were
looked upon as "strange," or, at least, different.
Robby was changing into his gym clothes as he
noticed Jason Huffnagle beside him, pretending not to notice him.
"How's it going, Jason?" he asked in a cheerful
voice as the two sat tying their gym shoes. Jason quickly turned, as if
just noticing him, and smiled.
"OK," he replied before quickly standing and walking
away.
Robby frowned. Yeah, he thought, they think I'm a
freak.
After calisthenics, when coach sent the class
outside for football, all four of them were the last to be chosen.
Robby blushed and looked at Ethan, who didn't seem to care. Sean,
accustomed to being the last chosen in any athletic competition, seemed
unaware that anything was different. So, too, was Zhenya, whose
experience in American schools was rather limited. But, Robby knew they
had been singled out. He could see the signs, after six years of
American school, and it was as unpleasant a sensation to him as it was
unfamiliar. It had been the Gavin Dietrich episode. He knew it and as
he lined up for the scrimage, along with the others, he bitterly
excoriated himself for his weakness. How could he have appeared so
emotional reading his father's writing in class like that? Heck, he had
almost looked like a girl! Then, going crazy over Gavin Dietrich's
taunting. Making such a fool of himself in front of everyone. He hated
himself.
As the first play ended in the other side losing a
few yards, a whistle sounded and coach appeared at the door to the
locker room.
"Spencer!" he shouted. "Get your butt over here.
Now!"
Ethan looked at Robby for a moment and fir the first
time, Robby saw a look of actual irritation come across his new
friend's face. He turned and looked at the coach with disbelief as he
said to Ethan, "He's not gonna give you swats again, is he?"
Coach couldn't have heard him from that distance,
but he could see clearly.
"You got a problem, McDonnell? You wanna join your
friend? Maybe your other freaky friends?"
Ethan gave Robby a slight shake of the head to tell
him not to get involved and then strode over to the coach. Robby
watched during the next play and as Zhenya came up to him after the
other side gained back the yards they had lost on the first play, he
asked, "The Coach does not like Ethan, does he?"
"I don't know what his problem is," Robby replied.
"But, I think he's a jerk."
Just as he said that, however, as Coach seemed to be
speaking to Ethan with great asperity, the boy suddenly sat down on the
asphalt and crossed his legs. Robby watched as Coach seemed to look at
the boy in amazement. he was waiving his arms and yelling incoherently
at him. Yet, Ethan seemed to be, well, serene. He was sitting quietly,
calmly, his legs crossed, his hands resting on his knees.
"McDonnell! Line up!"
Robby was startled as Jason yelled at him. For
several more plays, the two sides fought over a few yards of ground as
a stalemate seemed to develop. Robby kept a watch on Ethan. Soon, the
Principal, Mr. Huber appeared at the door of the locker room with
Coach. He seemed to have a conversation with Ethan, but the boy
remained seated on the ground, unmoving. Eventually, Mr. Huber turned
and re-entered the building, followed by Coach. Ethan remained seated.
For the rest of the game, boys battled over turf,
gaining and losing, straining and struggling, with one eye on the game,
the other on the weird boy seated by the door to the locker room. When
finally coach appeared again and blew his whistle for the boys to
return to the locker room, he appeared to say something to Ethan, yet
the boy still sat unmoving.
"What are you doing?" Robby asked as he came up to
Ethan.
"Civil disobedience," he replied.
Robby was about to inquire further when an eighth
grader shoved him from behind through the door, muttering, "Freak."
Robby started to responded, but the flood of sweaty, energetic boys
pouring into the locker room prevented him from stopping and
responding. He sighed as he went on to his locker and stripped off his
gym clothes. Why did Ethan have to be such a freak, he asked himself,
unconciously echoing the words of the bully earlier. Yet, deep inside,
Robby felt a twinge of admiration and fascination with the boy.
As he entered the shower, however, these thoughts
all ended. He found himself next to Zhenya, soaping his body.
"What is Ethan doing?" he asked.
"I think he's protesting," Robby replied, struggling
not to look down at Zhenya's dick. "I think Coach probably wanted to
give him swats again for not getting a haircut and he's protesting."
"You can do that in American schools?" Zhenya asked
in wonder as he bent over to soap his legs.
"Well, yes and no."
"In Soviet Union, protestors are arrested. Sometimes
they go to gulag like my Uncle Misha."
Robby was about to ask about Uncle Misha when his
eyes, despite his best efforts, focused on Zhenya's privates. He froze.
This was not at all what he was expecting.
Zhenya's dick looked unlike anything he had ever
seen. It didn't look like a dick at all, in fact. It was a little
thick and long and hung down, but it didn't have a cone at the end.
What it had was, well, lots of skin sticking down like a tube. It was
weird, almost like it was deformed. But, before it became obvious Robby
was looking in surprise at the Russian boy's privates, more laughs and
hoots erupted from behind him.
"Hey, Zac!" one kid called out as Zac Melville stood
erect in the corner of the shower again. "I think you got competition!"
"Naw, he's got an admirer!" yelled another. Robby
looked in the direction everyone was looking and his heart sank, (and
sped up). In the doorway to the showers stood Sean, a look of horror
and utter humiliation on his face and, in plain sight for all to see, a
very obvious... boner.
"Lindquist, you fag!"
"Fuck, what a fucking fag!"
Sean hurried to an empty shower head, but not before
accidentally bumping into a hostile seventh grader, one of the boys
showering him with derision.
"Get the fuck off of me, you queer!" he barked as
Sean seemed to withdraw inside himself, both emotionally and
physically. His shoulders and arms scrunched together as he looked down
at the tile floor, rinsing his body as his penis stood stiffly before
him. Robby felt a surge of excitement within his own dick as he looked
at
Sean's, even as his heart went out to the boy. Suddenly, the contempt
he had felt for Sean before, the feeling that the boy was a loser and,
basically, deserved whatever was happening to him, dissipated. He
wanted to come to the boy's defense. However, it was, surprisingly, Zac
Melville who did so.
As he was walking out of the shower, his own boner
rigidly
leading the way, Zac put a hand on Sean's shoulder and said,
"Hey, don't worry about it. It happens to the best of us."
Louder, he said to the boys at large, "Hey, don't
blame him. Everyone tries to out do Superdick. But, nobody can beat
Superdick!"
As Zac prodeeded to the towel bin, one of the older
boys retorted, "We couldn't beat Superdick if we wanted to! You're too
busy beating it yourself!"
The laughs as Zac grinned and churned his hips for
everyone seemed to direct attention away from Sean, who quickly
followed Zac to the towel bin. Robby, feeling a little pressure,
himself, in a sensitive area, also followed.
As he stood waiting to pull a towel from the bin, he
glanced back and saw Zhenya looking about in shock and disapproval at
the other boys, and covering his private area with his hands.
Ethan still hadn't entered the locker room by the
time Robby had finished dressing. He was holding his gym bag before
him, ostensibly to carry it to his outside locker to take home after
school for laundering, but actually to hide the rise in his pants, when
Mr. Huber and the Assistant Principal, Mr. Barker, appeared in the
locker room. They marched solemnly to the door leading outside,
disappeared, and then, moments later, reappeared, carrying the limp and
unresisting form of Ethan under both arms. They marched through the
locker room again, to catcalls from the other boys directed at Ethan,
and out to the hall. As he passed, Ethan's eyes met Robby's and he
winked. Robby looked at him with both conern and disbelief.
Ethan did not appear in Orchestra as Mr. Stern
introduced the class to the Rogers and Hammerstein overture from Cinderella. For the entire hour, as
they practiced and the teacher worked with each section, Robby and
Zhenya both looked toward the door numerous times. Robby saw Sean
sitting in the middle of the flute section, the sole boy, withdrawn,
almost autistic, in his continuing humiliation. He felt the sudden urge
to run over and hug him.
When the bell rang and they all began to put their
instruments away, Zhenya said, "I hope they will not arrest Ethan."
"Oh, they don't do that here. He won't get arrested,
but I bet he gets suspended like I did, or something."
"Why won't he get a haircut? In Soviet Union..."
"Zhenya, this is America. You can be yourself here.
You're free here."
Robby suddenly found himself, in his mind, defending
the very qualities in Ethan that, only a day before, angered him. Robby
stopped and, amazed at himself, sat back in his chair. Zhenya noticed.
"You are Ethan's friend now?"
Robby grinned self-consciously.
"Yeah, I guess I am. He's pretty weird, but he's OK."
Zhenya smiled and stood to leave.
"Hey, Zhenya," Robby asked as they left the
Orchestra room, "you have to practice this afternoon?"
"No, but I must go to College to meet friends of my
papa."
"Oh, I was gonna see if you wanted to come over. I'm
gonna spend the night over at Ethan's and I thought..."
Zhenya frowned.
"I wish I could."
An eighth grader from their gym class ran past them
as they descended the stairs to the first floor. He turned and sneered,
"Man, your friend is a freak. We don't need freaks at Waldo!"
Robby and Zhenya both were about to respond angrily
when Zhenya saw Ethan approaching from the school's offices. He hurried
forward, followed by Robby.
"What has happened?" he asked with concern. Ethan
grinned.
"I moved a mountain."
"What?" Robby was looking at him with confusion.
"Coach can't swat me anymore without permission from
Mr. Huber and I don't have to get a haircut."
Robby looked agast.
"How did you do that?"
Ethan smiled.
"Civil disobedience. And, my mother."
Robby rolled his eyes as Ethan grinned and continued.
"They called my mom and she was really torqued. She
had to leave a meeting with a client. At first, Coach didn't believe
she was a lawyer and was all stuck up and stuff. But, Mom really went
after him and when she was through, Mr. Huber was all apologetic and
Coach was just sitting there fuming. Anyway, if you don't get mad, but
don't take it, you can move a mountain when you have justice on your
side. That's what my Dad taught me."
"Wow," said Robby with awe. "I just don't believe
it. That is wild."
Ethan smiled.
"See? I'm really not crazy afterall."
And, so, ends Chapter Four. I hope you have enjoyed it. For those
wondering if there will ever be a love a scene in this story, your
hopes will be fulfilled in Chapter Five and, I hope, beyond your
satisfaction! In the mean time, please
let me know what you think at chriswriter@operamail.
com. I appreciate the email and
support and
thank you for reading my story!!