Date: Thu, 21 Oct 2004 09:09:47 -0400 From: Jeff Wilson Subject: W.A.R. Part 6, Chapter 9 W.A.R. Part Six - Commencement Chapter Nine -- Surviving Sunday by Jeff Wilson I barely slept that night. I had the most unusual dreams when I slept. I had that dream again... the one with my dad. I dreamt about when I was a kid and Brett used to be the biggest cry-baby in the class. I dreamt about the first time we made love. I kept hearing him screaming in agony when Dustin touched his leg. And that kept waking me up. I gave up going back to bed at 6:30 and took a shower. I went to the kitchen and made some toast to eat. It tasted like cardboard, but I ate it anyway. After about ten minutes, Dave joined me in the kitchen. "Good morning, Bill." He said. I made a noise to let him know I'd heard him. I didn't want to be rude. Dave fixed up some eggs and bacon and then sat down at the table with me. I just wanted to be left alone, but I didn't say anything. "Trouble yesterday, huh?" He said. "I guess." I replied. "Your mom said he was going to be okay. He'll be in a lot of pain, but he'll recover. That's what they made painkillers for." "Oh, that's comforting." I said sarcastically. Before David could respond, mom came into the kitchen, dressed in her Sunday best. She placed some food on her plate and sat at the table. "Well, I hope you learned your lesson." She said. "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked. "Don't yell at me." She said sternly. "I'm not the one who decided to disobey God's laws and flaunt it in front of everyone." "Flaunt it? I didn't want anyone to know! You're the one who told everybody about it!" "I was only exposing the sin and bringing it to light. I was hoping that it would stop you before something like this happened." Mom said. I started to figure out what she was hinting at. "Wait a minute... Are you saying that God is supposed to be punishing Brett because he's in love with me?" "I'm saying that if you disobey God deliberately, then there are consequences." "And I'm saying that you're full of shit!" I replied. Mom slammed down her fork. "That's it! I am sick and tired of your mouth." "Well I'm sick and tired of being treated like a monster because of who I love." "What's happened to you, Billy? You used to be such a good boy. You were so good and smart and funny. Look at what's happened to you. You've grown so angry and bitter, and it all goes back to what you're doing with Brett. Why can't you see that?" "No, it all goes back to you treating me like shit! I was a good kid! I'm still good! I don't smoke. I don't drink. I get good grades. I went to church with you until you humiliated me in front of all of those people. And none of it means anything to you. You're stuck on the whole stupid gay thing! Well I'm not just some gay guy who wants to fuck every guy I see. I'm in love with Brett. And now here we are, with the only person I love with his damn leg snapped in half and all you can say is that he deserved it for being gay." "You are so selfish!" Mom replied. "All you care about is your own pleasure. Well what about me? Do you think it's easy having people know about you? You think you're the only person affected by your blatant disregard for common decency?" "Do you even care that Brett's hurt?" I asked angrily. Mom paused. "Of course I care! How can you even ask that? Despite the current situation, I have never hated that boy. I am incredibly angry at him for what he's turned you into, but I don't hate him. He used to be a very nice boy." "He still is a very nice boy, mother! The only problem is that you've decided that because he's gay he's evil. He didn't deserve to get hurt like that and he didn't deserve to get kicked out of this house either!" "There are very good reasons for keeping him out of this house, Billy." Mom replied. "You think that by keeping us apart you can break us up? Just because you gave up on dad after a month it doesn't mean that I'm going to give up on Brett. Hell, we fuck more now than we did before." Mom looked away from me when I said that. I kept up the pressure. "We fuck all the time at his house. On my birthday, I came twice. You ever cum twice during sex, Dave? It's fucking awesome. We fucked up in the woods. We fucked at school. We even fucked on the school bus. We just fuck, fuck, fuck all the fuck long day." "Would you shut up?" Mom said angrily. "Your defiance is only making things worse. No, I didn't think that you would stop being disgusting with that boy when I forbid him from the house. But I hoped that you would at least think about the consequences! But I see that even now you still refuse to realize that you are in willful defiance of God's Word." "You're a bigot!" I said. "How dare you!" Mom gasped. "You are! You're a homophobe. If it was a girl, you'd be all happy and motherly and have her over for tea and cookies all the time. You sure as hell wouldn't have banished her from the house!" "At least if you were with a girl it'd be normal." Mom replied. That one really hurt. I was going to really hit her with the worst, meanest insult I could think of for saying that about me, but then I heard, "Paula, that's enough." Both mom and I were shocked. David, who had been silently watching us for so long had finally said something. "David, I hardly think..." "And that's part of the problem, dear." Mom's jaw dropped in surprise. So did mine. "You're hardly getting anywhere by belittling the kid." "David, I don't expect you to understand... You don't have any children of your own, but sometimes you need to be tough with them." I saw a little twitch in David's lip that I'd never seen before. "It's one thing to be tough, what you're doing is ignorant. The boy obviously isn't going to respond to the way you're going about this. You've humiliated him in front of the town, you've ostracized him, you've banished his boyfriend from the house. You're not helping him to find the right path, you're only making him more obstinate." "Pastor Carl has said that you have to confront evil, David. And homosexuality is evil." "Is it any more evil than if he were having sex with a girl?" "Yes it is! At least it wouldn't be this homosexual stuff he's doing with Brett." Mom insisted. "I disagree. I think that they are both equally sinful. I think that Pastor Carl tends to view some sins as more serious that others, when they are the same thing. I agree with you that what Bill is doing is wrong, but it's no more wrong than if he were doing it with a girl. Sex outside of marriage is sin, regardless of who it is with." "Oh sure, we could always get married and then we wouldn't be sinning. Oh wait! We can't do that either because we're not straight! Real nice system you guys have got there for people who aren't perfect little baby makers to keep the church pews filled." I said in frustration. "Okay." Mom sighed. "We're getting nowhere." "You mean you're losing." I replied. "Well, I guess since Brett's going to be off his feet for at least two months it's a moot point anyway." David said. "He couldn't come over here if he's got a cast on his leg anyway." "That's not the point!" I replied. "Why can't you get it? I didn't choose to be gay. I wouldn't have chosen it even if it was a choice. But I love Brett. Yes, I love him! I love him so much it makes me sick that I'm not with him right now when he's in pain. It's not about sex, it's about being with the one person in the world that I was meant to be with. Sex is just a bonus." Mom sighed deeply. "Well... I guess you're going to want to go visit him." "Obviously." I replied. "Very well. You can borrow my car for a while today, David and I will go in his car." "What?" I asked, unsure that I'd heard correctly. "I said you can borrow the car. Don't think this is in any way an admission that you are right about this. You're still totally against God's will for you. But I'm not going to force you to not visit the boy when he's stuck in the hospital. That would just be cruel. Regardless of the situation, he's been your friend for years." "I don't know what to say... Thanks." I said. "I am not condoning your relationship in any way. That boy is still forbidden to enter this house. I'll not have you defiling this place." "Okay." I said. I didn't care what she was saying at that point. I wanted to get in the car and get to Brett as fast as I could. "David, we need to get going. Billy, please be careful." "I deliver pizzas, mother. I think I can handle a little trip up to the hospital." I replied. As soon as mom and Dave left, I was dressed and ready to leave. As I pulled out of the driveway, I remembered that Brett had left his cell phone at Dustin's house and thought I'd do him a favor and pick it up. Dustin and his mom weren't home, so I went around to the back and found the house key hidden in an empty flower pot. Dustin's house was eerily quiet without anybody in it. I'd never been there by myself before. I looked on the kitchen table, but the phone wasn't where Brett had left it. "Dustin must have moved it..." I said to myself. I decided to go up to his room and see if he'd put it in his room. I walked up the stairs and down the short hall to Dustin's room. The room was its usual disaster area. Dustin wasn't the most organized kid in the world, that's for sure. I found the phone on the desk by the computer and I put it in my pocket. That's when the curiosity got the better of me. I'd never been in Dustin's room without him with me except for that time when he almost choked me to death. The temptation to spy became irresistible. The computer was turned off, and Dustin had it set up so that you needed a password to get on, so I wouldn't be able see if he was still visiting those disgusting websites with all the dead bodies and shit. But I could snoop around the other things he had laying around. I found his school books on the desk. I checked to see if he'd done his homework, and surprisingly, he had it all done and had written a half-way decent report on submarine warfare in World War II. I checked out the bookshelf. It looked like Dustin didn't keep a journal or anything. Of course, with what he'd been through, that journal would have been pretty tough to read. Then I found a photo album. I remembered when I bought him a camera for his birthday when we were like ten and all he did for a year was take pictures of everything. I opened it up and was greeted by the most eerie picture I could have found. There was Dustin's dad with my dad. Dad was probably over to help him fix something. But the thing was, in Dustin's dad's hand was a beer, and in my dad's hand was a Mt. Dew. "Guess you only had yourselves to blame for what happened to you." I said to no one in particular. I turned and found a picture from the bowling alley, when Dustin and Brett were in kids league together. It was a picture of Dustin's old team, back when they were on the same team together before they started fighting so much that they had to get split up. I guess Brett would be out of bowling for a while now. He was going to hate that. Brett was adorable in the picture though. He had grown so handsome over the years that I had forgotten just how cute he was as a kid. Dustin must have surprised him when he took the picture, because Brett had a look on his face that was a cross between 'I'm the most delightful boy in the world' and 'get the fucking camera out of my face.' I found a picture of me on the next page and had to laugh. I remembered when he had taken the picture. I was just waking up after sleeping over at his house and he snapped the picture right as I was getting out of bed. My hair was totally blond and was all over my head and I had my mouth open wide enough so that you could see the gap that braces had fixed. The next page had a picture of Dustin's mom and his sister. It was amazing how thin Amanda was back then, but also how fat Mrs. Smith was. Mrs. Smith had to have lost at least a hundred pounds since then, and Amanda gained them. Amanda's dark red hair was tied back in a ponytail and she was almost cute at age twelve! Almost... There was a picture on the next page that someone else must have taken, because Dustin was in it. It was at the beach or something, and Dustin was standing in the water up to his hips. His hair looked almost brown when it was wet, and it was before he started going to Ben to get his hair cut because it was a bowl cut. Part of why Dustin had been so picky about his hair had to have been because of the years that his mom had mauled it with her hair cutting skills. The next page had a picture of me, Brett, and Dustin all at Brett's house. Brett's mom had taken it, as I recalled. She grabbed the camera and told us all to smile. And the results were interesting. Brett had his arm around my shoulder and was smiling the best, brightest smile in the picture. He practically jumped out of the picture with cuteness. I was smiling too, but no teeth were showing. That was about the age when I started to get self-conscious about that damn gap. I guess when you keep hearing that you're going to need braces long enough, you start to care about stuff like that. Dustin looked like he was in the middle of saying something when the photo was snapped. He actually looked a little peeved about something. I put the photo album away and decided I should probably go. I wrote a note to Dustin that I'd stopped by to get the phone and then I was on my way. I enjoyed the trip. The weather was still nice for a February. The roads weren't busy, even though it was Sunday. It was just a nice relaxing trip up the road a bit to the local hospital. It wasn't until I got to the hospital that I realized that I had no idea where Brett was in the place. I went to the registration desk and found out that he was in room 312, and headed up the stairs. I walked down the hall to the nurses station and found out where the room was. A nice nurse directed me down the hall toward the room. I walked to the room and headed inside. Brett was sleeping. His leg was hoisted up on a sling and he had a cast on from his toes all the way up to midway up his thigh. He was wearing one of those terrible hospital gowns, and a blanket covered him. He looked so peaceful sleeping there. So much cuteness was still in him that it made me want to kiss him all over. They had cleaned him up pretty well after the accident, as he had been covered with blood and dirt when last I'd seen him. I kneeled down close to him and whispered his name. "Brett..." He stirred a little, then opened his eyes. "Billy?" He said. "How you feeling, bud?" I asked awkwardly. Brett rubbed his eyes and blinked a little. "I guess I fucked myself up pretty good, huh?" "Yeah." I replied. "I don't know what they put me on, but it sure is good. I guess they had to do surgery on me yesterday." "I figured." I said softly. "You didn't look too good." "Did you see it? You could actually see my leg bones." "Yeah." I shuddered. "Pretty cool, huh?" Brett said hoarsely. "I wouldn't necessarily call it 'cool.'" I replied. "How often do you get to see your own bones?" Brett said. "I already told the doctor that I want the x-rays. That'll be one to show our kids." "Our kids, huh?" I laughed. Brett was right, they did have him on something good. "Yeah. You don't think we'll have a couple of brats someday who'll do something as stupid as me?" "Not unless you're planning on getting pregnant." I chuckled. Brett laughed and then coughed. "No, dingbat. There's other ways to have kids. We'll have a few someday." "This is the first time you've talked about it." "Well this is the first time I've almost ripped my leg off. It makes you think about things." Brett said. "Funny... You've always been the one breaking stuff. Guess it was my turn. Does it always hurt so bad?" "It felt like a knife stabbing through my head when I broke my eye socket. I was in shock when I broke my hand. I don't remember how it felt." "I remember everything from yesterday. It's like it was all in slow motion." Brett said. "You still owe me a blow job." I laughed loudly. "You didn't hurt that, did you?" "Oh no, no... The Big Reilly survives to fight another day." "So, what happened yesterday?" I asked. "Well, after I got out of the yard and on to the road, things went pretty well. I was moving along and it was pretty fun. I'd forgotten how fun it was to ride a bike. But anyway, I decided to head up toward the house and then follow the trail like you did. But I hit that spot on the trail where it kind of dips down. I kept control but I was wobbling. I veered off the trail, hit a big black lump in the ground, and then lost all control and slammed into that tree. You know the sick thing is, I felt my leg get crunched. Like you said, it felt like I was getting stabbed, only it was like with fifty butcher knives all at once, and over and over again." "How long were you laying there before we found you?" "Well, I called for help for a few minutes, but then it really started to hurt. I knew you'd come find me, so I wasn't too scared or anything. I sure wish Dustin hadn't touched it. He might as well have dropped a toaster on my leg, it hurt so bad." "Yeah... I've never heard you scream like that before." "Not in the bad way, anyway." Brett said smiling. "You're really becoming a perv. You know that, right?" I laughed. Brett laughed. "I was always a perv. I turned you gay didn't I?" "Oh shut up, mom." I said, laughing. "She was very nice to me, considering she hasn't said two words to me since your birthday. She's got a good bedside manner. She took very good care of me until I got here." "Oh please... She still isn't going to let you near the house. We just had a big fight this morning. She thinks you got hurt because God is punishing you for being gay." "Well okay then Mr. Negative. It's not going to turn around in a day, you know. Too much has happened for that. But that doesn't mean you give up." "I hate when you call me Mr. Negative." I said. "Then don't be so down. Life's supposed to be fun sometimes too, you know." "I know." "Look at me. I get to legally miss two months of school because of what happened yesterday. There's always a bright side!" We talked for a while about nothing in particular. Just our usual conversation where we could talk for three hours about absolutely nothing. Sometimes I think we just did it to hear each other's voice. He told me to keep his phone until he got to go home, because he couldn't use it in the hospital anyway. A nurse came in at 2:00 to clean him off. She asked me to leave for a while and I was about to until Brett stopped me. "Why should he leave? I don't have anything he hasn't seen before." "Well, for your privacy we..." "Who cares about that? Stay Billy." "Well sir, we really must..." "He's already had everything I've got in his mouth anyway, it's not going to hurt me if he sees it." "Brett!!!" I said, mortified that he'd say something like that. The nurse turned even more red in the face than me with embarrassment. But she didn't make me leave. She washed him up and actually, it made a little jealous that someone else was touching my boyfriend naked. Even if it was totally innocent... The funny thing was seeing the nurse keep looking at me oddly while Brett just chatted away with me as if it were perfectly normal to be talking to me while someone wash washing his dick with a sponge. Before she left, the nurse stopped and looked at me very oddly. Then a look of recognition came over her face. "Oh! You're Paula's gay son!" I scowled at her. "I'm her son. You must be her straight friend." The nurse quickly realized what she'd said. "Oh... I didn't mean to offend you. I just meant... I'm sorry." "Yeah." I said. The nurse quickly left, leaving me steaming. "Don't do it, Billy." Brett said. "No, I'm sorry, Brett. That was just ignorant." I said angrily. "She said she was sorry. It's over." "Why should we let people get away with being obnoxious? I'm sick of it." "I know. I am too. But you have to pick your battles. You can't fix the world all by yourself. People are always going to be rude." After another half hour or so, Dr. Reilly stopped in. "Billy. I figured you'd be here. We need to talk." Then she turned to Brett. "How are you feeling sweetheart?" "Did you bring some boxers for me? I feel like I'm just swinging in the breeze here." Brett said. "I would have been here sooner but I had to wash them." Jen said, handing Brett a bag. "At least I was wearing clean underwear yesterday." "So Billy, what was Brett doing on a dirt bike with no adults around?" Dr. Reilly asked. "I'm seventeen mom." Brett protested. "And I'll be eighteen in three weeks." "There still should have been an adult there." "I don't need a babysitter. I've been taking care of myself when you weren't around since I was twelve." "But not on a moving death machine." Dr. Reilly said. "I'm sorry." I said, hoping to save Brett some stress. "I talked him into riding. I thought it would be good for him. He's always been so scared since he wrecked last time." "Well, now he has two months in a wheelchair to think about why it was a good idea to be scared. And another three months on crutches... And another six months or more in a brace... Not to mention the metal rods in his leg! Plus who knows if he'll be able to feel his foot after all that." "I feel sharp stabbing pains in my ankle, if that makes you feel better." Brett replied. "You do? That's great!" Dr. Reilly replied. "Well anyway... I'm not angry with you Billy. I expect you to be the sensible one, though. I don't need to tell you that Brett can be a handful. Now, Carol Smith, I could slap." "She wasn't even there." Brett said. "And that is the problem. We had quite the conversation last night. She volunteered Dustin to do all of the work around the house while you're down, Brett. But still, if I wanted to, I could have her insurance pay for you." After that brief little scuffle, we had a pretty good afternoon together. I could see why Dr. Reilly would be unhappy with me about what happened, but she didn't blame me for it. I don't think I could have taken both my mom and Brett's mom against me. She asked if I could come to the house sometime during the week to bring down some of Brett's things from his bedroom to the living room, where Brett would be living for a while. "Who's going to feed my fish?" Brett asked. "I will, dear." Dr. Reilly said. "What about my computer? Can you bring that down?" "No problem." I replied. "Who's going to change Bob Cat's litter box?" "We'll have Dustin do that." Dr. Reilly said, laughing much more deviously than I'd ever seen before. We had a nice afternoon together there. Brett and Dr. Reilly were taking Brett's injury way better than I was. We had a lot of laughs and I felt so comfortable that I didn't want to leave. This was my family now. I had never felt that way when dad was around, but now more than ever I was more a part of Brett's family than I was my own. Jen treated me just like she treated Brett. She didn't try to make me feel terrible that I was in love with her son. She didn't try to break us up. She had adjusted to the fact that Brett and I were together and she embraced us and encouraged us to be ourselves. It was nice to be accepted for a change. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Well, I'm sorry for the delay. Things are hectic around here right now, and I didn't want this chapter to suck. Looks like Billy's home situation hasn't changed. If anything Brett's accident just solidified Paula's position that Billy's sexuality is going to send him to hell. Well, feel free to write! You might even encourage me to get off my lazy ass and get the next chapter out! vicioussquirrel@hotmail.com or jkwsquirrel@yahoo.com I look forward to hearing from you! I also have the yahoo group you can join! Here's that address: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/squirrelwriter Next time: All sorts of stuff happens!