Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2003 21:32:06 -0400 From: Jeff Wilson Subject: W.A.R. Part 4 - Chapter 3 Greetings! How about we take this chapter and tie up a loose end or two? W.A.R. Part Four - Rehabilitation Chapter Three: Loose Ends by Jeff Wilson "Billy! Wait up!" Dustin shouted as I walked down the hallway at the school. "What do you want?" I asked, not too nicely. Dustin didn't seem to notice my tone. "I just wanted to see how you are doing." He replied. He was smiling. "Why?" I said. "I was worried about you. I thought you might still be mad about everything." He said. "Mad? I'm not mad. I'm just busy. I've got a lot of stuff to do today." "How's your dad doing?" He asked. "Fine." I said. "Well did he wake up yet?" "No." "Is your mom driving up there every day?" "Dammit Dustin will you quit asking me questions! My dad is still at the hospital. I haven't seen him yet. I don't know how he is. My mom's staying in Pittsburgh and I'm staying at Brett's. That's it. That's all I know. You know as much as I do now. Happy?" "Geez, Billy! Don't bite my head off... I'm just worried about you that's all. See you later!" Dustin smiled at me again and then walked away. What was he so happy about? He had a totally different look about him today. I could see that it wasn't an act like usual. He was genuinely happy today. Could it be that he was happy that my life had fallen all to pieces? Could he be happy that my family had been torn apart again because of a stroke? Could it be that he was happy that my hand was broken? Could it... Aw fuck it! That's not why he's happy. That's just silly of me. Sure Brett seems to think that Dustin was responsible for my hand, but I really don't think he is. At least I hope he's not responsible... I know why he's happy, though. It's because he had sex on Saturday. He was happy because he wasn't a virgin anymore. That had to be it. Whenever I looked at him I could still see the look on his face when he was fucking Mike. That look of complete happiness that was still there today. His face showed no signs of the fear and insecurity that had always been in his eyes before. Funny, I had always hoped that Dustin would be happy someday. But now that he was, I wanted him to be as miserable as I was. Weird... And another thing... What about all the times he ripped on gay people? Was all of that an act? Was he only pretending to hate gays? I thought that with all his talk about his being so sure that Brett and I weren't gay that he would never do what he did on Saturday. Oh well... It was time to do what I had come to this hallway to do anyway. I walked into Coach Donaldson's office. "Oh no!" Coach moaned as soon as he saw me. "Will, what happened this time?" I told him the story of my dad's stroke and of my unfortunate run in with a mirror. Coach was concerned. He asked how my dad was and all the usual stuff that everyone had asked me all day long at school. I guess when your life falls apart at someone's pool party, everybody knows by the next day. "Yeah, well anyway... I'm quitting the team. I'm no use to the team now. And since I broke my left hand I won't be able to do score keeping because I can't write." Coach was sad that I would not be a part of the team anymore, and offered to let me come to the games anyway. But I really didn't like the idea of sitting around during a game that I couldn't be a part of. Plus, I'd have to hang out with Dustin. I really didn't want to do that at the moment. So with a simple conversation, my baseball days were over. And I didn't know if I'd ever play again. When I walked out of Coach's office, I almost ran right into a tall, pale boy with dark circles around his brown eyes. He looked like he hadn't slept in a month. With his dark brown hair in a buzz cut, I didn't recognize him at first. But then he spoke in a soft, tired voice. "How you doing, Billy?" "Jerry?" I said awkwardly. "Is that you?" "Yeah." "You're back! Everyone thought you were a goner." "Well, I'm only back for today." He said sadly. "Why?" I asked. "Because I have to go to reform school..." He answered matter-of-factly. "Because of the drugs?" I asked. "Yeah I guess. My dad made a deal with a judge and signed me up when I was still in the hospital. In return, I don't have a criminal record. That's what I get for having a lawyer for a dad. It's for the best I guess. At least I'll be away from Max and that crew. You heard Max got arrested, right?" "Yeah." I replied. "It's a good thing too, because my dad says if he gets his hands on him, he'll kill him. I believe him too. I thought he was gonna kill me. But he just came to my room at the hospital and said, "Boy, I told you to either shape up or ship out." And that was it. I knew what he meant. He's barely said two words to me since. He can't afford to have an embarrassment to the family name running around. Say, how's your dad doing?" "He's fine." I said quickly. "So just like that you're leaving?" "Things have been shitty since mom left anyway. It's probably for the best." "Your mom left you?" I asked. "Yeah. Two years ago. You mean you didn't know? I thought everybody knew about that. She ran off with some guy she met on the internet. Didn't even say goodbye. Just left me and dad and my brothers like that. Dad blamed me of course. Since I wanted the internet and all. Of course she wouldn't have left if he wasn't such a dick. Oh well. I didn't mean to bore you with my life story. Anyway... I guess I'll see you around some time." "Yeah." I said. Then he was just about to go into Coach's office when I realized something. "Jerry!" I shouted. "What?" He replied. "Do you still have my address?" "No." "Well here." I quickly wrote my address on a piece of paper and handed it to him. "In case you ever want to talk to somebody. I never meant to drop you as a friend, you know. We just..." I hesitated to say what I was thinking. A first for me! "I know." He replied. I was amazed at how calmly he was accepting his situation. "I should have never let you and Brett get away. I sure would have been better off having you guys as my friends than the assholes I ended up with. Hey Billy... ummm... Thanks. You're the only person here who's even talked to me today. Everybody else has treated me like they'll catch something from me. I'll see you." Then he walked into Coach's office. I stood there for a few minutes. It was weird. I don't know why, but I felt sad that Jerry was going away. I mean, we hadn't even been friends for two years. We'd just said more to each other in five minutes than we'd said in those whole two years. I couldn't believe how calm he seemed about the whole situation. If my life was falling apart like that, I sure wouldn't be as accepting as he was. It was like he wanted to go to reform school. "You still here Billy?" I was brought back to reality by Dustin's voice. "Yeah. What do you want now?" I said. "I don't want anything. I was just making a statement. God, you're cranky." "I'm not cranky! I just don't want to be bothered by somebody who sold out my dad." "What? So you are still pissed off about that! Geez Billy. You act like I said that you're being abused or something. I know your dad's a good guy. I told them that!" "Then why did you tell a cop, of all people, that he hit me?" I asked angrily. "I told you. It was scary. You've never had a cop ask you questions before. I practically pissed myself when he asked me if you had been in an argument with your parents recently. I mean, I had just heard your mom and Brett's mom talking about it in the waiting room. That's when I went to find you." "But Brett said..." "I don't give a fuck what Brett said." Dustin snapped. "Can't you see what he's doing Billy? He doesn't want you to be my friend because he hates me. He's been doing shit since Christmas. It's like he thinks you're all his. Don't think I haven't noticed!" "Don't say things about Brett, Dustin! He never did a thing to you!" "Oh for crying out loud, Billy! Wake up for god's sake! Remember when you came to stay at my house and you could only do it because Brett was in New York? Why was that, huh? I'll tell you why! It's because he's got you so wrapped up around his finger that you won't do anything without him! I always knew I was your second choice, but it didn't piss me off until I realized just how much of a bastard I was losing to." "Don't you dare call him that!" "Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!" He mocked. "You miserable little weasel!" "Weasel? Oh that's good! At least I don't piss the bed! And at least I don't say secrets like that in front of all of your friends like you did to me you fucking traitor!" Now that hurt. Why did my friends have to be so good at knowing where to hit me? I had to make him pay for that. I had to hurt him even worse than he had hurt me. I knew where to strike. "Well at least I'm not having..." But just as I was about to totally destroy our friendship forever, the door to Coach's room opened and Coach and Jerry walked out. "What are you boys doing out here?" Coach asked. "Get to class." Coach shooed us down the hallway. Thank goodness he did. I had almost really said something that I would have regretted. Dustin and I walked in silence to our classroom. I couldn't believe how angry I was at him. I really wanted to hit him, but I knew that wouldn't make things any better. And I really didn't want to ruin what little was left of our friendship when it could still be saved. I went to my classes and had to answer the same questions about my dad and my hand at each one. Why do people have to be so nosy? The only teacher who didn't make a big deal out of it was Miss Winston. In fact, she made us all take our final exam! I had to use my right hand for the multiple choice, but she let me answer the essay questions orally at her desk. When the bell rang, Miss Winston asked me to stay behind. I figured that she was going to ask me all the same questions everybody else had. But she seemed to know the situation already. "Billy, if there's anything you need this summer... Anything at all, you call me." "Okay." I said. "Now, if you still want to help with the volleyball, that's still open for you. You don't have to, but it might be something to take your mind off things. I can pick you up at your house. Then your mom can worry about more important things." "I still want to help, Miss Winston. But what good will I be with this?" I held up my cast covered hand. "You still have your other hand, right? You can chase a ball and blow a whistle if I need you to. There are always ways to work around injuries. I once blew out my knee and walked on crutches for four months. We'll make do." "Great. When do we start?" "Second week of July. Don't worry about having to set up the net or anything until your hand heals up. I found another boy to help out as well." "Really? Who is he?" "Dustin Smith. He's a friend of yours, isn't he?" I felt my stomach flip over. "Yeah... a friend..." I said sickly. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Well... There we go... Baseball - over. Jerry - off to reform school. Dustin - about to get really interesting. Billy's eight grade school year - finally over. And he's more happy about that than you can imagine! So with those things out of the way, I realize that we've covered just about one year in the life of Billy Roberts. I hope you've enjoyed the ride so far. I know that it hasn't been all about sex and about Billy and Brett doing it every chapter. If that's what people expected, they probably gave up long ago. As you can tell, I'm much more interested in telling a story than about telling a sexcapade. Those can be fun, don't get me wrong, it's just not what I'm trying to do here. That doesn't mean there won't ever be sex in the story. But it's not the main focus of this particular story. But if you've come this far, you know that already. I've told some of you this in email before, but I'll say it here now. I'm much more interested in writing a story about a boy who happens to be gay, not writing a story about sex. Is Billy gay? Well, yeah! But the point is, in this story... So what? How important is that in life anyway? We still have to live our lives the best we can no matter what the circumstances are. To me, the interaction between the characters in the story is more interesting than ten sex scenes. How much has Dustin added to this story? Or Billy's mom and dad? Or Brett's mom? Even Dustin's unusual family. Making these characters feel like real people... That's my motivation. Watching them react in good times and in bad makes them real to me. I've been honored to share this story with you. If I have been able to take you into the mind of this sometimes angry, sometimes confused, often stubborn boy, then I feel like I've accomplished something. It has been my pleasure, and I hope it has been a pleasure for you as well. I've grown through this story. I've relived some of my past. No, Billy isn't me, but he's a part of me. Thanks for letting me share that part of me with you. I'm looking forward to sharing more with you in the future! If you have thoughts about my story, I'd love to hear them. Does this story mean something to you? vicioussquirrel@hotmail.com See you next time! Wait a minute... this all sounds like I'm all done with the story or something... Hell no! We're just getting warmed up!