Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2024 13:15:24 -0600
From: William Marshal <williammarshal5301@gmail.com>
Subject: I Own the Quarterback

I Own the QB: Chapter 1

I'm sure from the title of this memoir, `I Own the QB,' you have a pretty
good idea of where this story is headed. However, just because it's cliche
doesn't make it predictable. Anyway, let me start by telling you who I
am. My name is Bryan Jefferson Edwards, but my close friends called me BJ,
an ironic nickname for the school fag.

First, let me say I hate the word `fag', but I am gay. I didn't have to
come out. By the time I entered high school, everyone somehow seemed to
have figured it out without me coming out. It wasn't that I was some
effeminate sissy or that I was chasing down all the other boys and kissing
them, it was just that I was gay and couldn't, well didn't, hide it.

Being gay wouldn't have been a big deal if l lived in a city, but Little
Arrow, Oklahoma was very different. Oh, and before you think Little Arrow
has some Native American connection, it doesn't beyond appropriating Native
American culture to sell gasoline and tacky souvenirs. Little Arrow got its
start as a tourist trap on old Route 66, the part of Route 66 that lost out
when the interstate was built. Later, it never really benefited from the
Route 66 nostalgia craze. There wasn't anything cool about Little Arrow; we
had to invent our own brand of cool. Growing up, my group and I would joke
we were from East L.A.; although the closest we got to a minority in the
group was Jess Parker, who was one-quarter Cherokee.

I lived with my maternal grandmother, Frida Gunderson, and her partner Judy
Bickler. They were `partners' in every sense of the word, and proud of
it. Granny Frida had gotten pregnant in what she called her `conforming
days.' However, she soon found Buddy Edwards, my `grandsperm donor' to be a
bore and a deadbeat, so she kicked him to the curb. Then she called her
college roommate Judy and said "You were right. I'll be in Little Arrow in
two days." She then loaded her 66 Impala and drove from Akron, Ohio to
Little Arrow.

When Frida left Akron, she didn't know she was pregnant, and Buddy Edwards
died before Lana Edwards, my mother, was born. Buddy wrapped his car around
a tree while driving home from the bar.  No doubt he was drunk, but his
buddies at the Akron police department listed the cause as icy road
conditions. The result was Granny Frida got his life insurance and survivor
benefits.

Frida and Judy both went to school to be teachers, but they were realistic.
There wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that two lesbians with a baby were
going to get teaching jobs in Oklahoma in the 60s. Looking at their
options, they had the small farm Judy had inherited and Buddy's life
insurance money. So, they invested in sheep, goats, and cheese-making
equipment, and started "Two Gals Cheese." They also made sand plum and
strawberry jelly and wine during the summer and turned their herd's fleece
into very expensive sweaters. Of course, the locals started calling them
the "Hippy Dykes" behind their backs, and sometimes to their faces.

I always figured that if same-sex attraction was hereditary, I definitely
got it from Granny Frida. What I didn't get from her was an attraction to
women. I was born gay and there was no need to `experiment' to clarify my
sexuality.

I know you're wondering about my parents. The answer is, that my mother,
Frida's daughter, died soon after I was born from an infection she likely
got in the hospital, and I didn't have a father. No, I'm not some miracle
child. I do have a male progenitor, but he is a total ass. I know who he
is, but l will never meet him. Our only connection is money.

It seems that my sperm daddy was also my mother's boss. She was a paralegal
in his family's Chicago law firm. Lana wanted to be a city girl and the
same-sex attraction absolutely skipped a generation when it came to
her. Not that she was a slut, but she did like men, particularly rich men
who could wine and dine her. Men like Jerod Shelby III. Shelby was
sophisticated, wealthy, and a total dog. In addition to a wife, an ex, and
a mistress, he regularly connected with the women at the law firm. Although
he was a brilliant attorney, Shelby let his penis do the thinking too
often, and his penis was a moron.

When Lana discovered she was pregnant, she was under no illusion that
Shelby would step up and do the right thing by her child without a
figurative knife at his throat, so she put all her skill as a paralegal
documenting their relationship and her pregnancy for the inevitable
paternity suit and `settlement.' So, when Frida and Judy cleared out Lana's
apartment, they found the files. With the evidence, a combination of
feminist rage, motherly grief, and a determination to provide for me,
Granny Frida and Granny Judy stormed the law offices of Shelby, Schmidt,
and Tucker.

Granny Frida once told me about Judy's negotiation strategy, "Yeah, no one
at the law firm had ever met anyone like her. She just stormed into their
law office and demanded to see the `head shyster.' When Jerod Shelby II
came out of his office demanding to know what was going on, Granny Judy
said, `Your boy knocked up our daughter and we're here to see that our
grandson gets what he deserves." Apparently, the entire office was privy to
the encounters. At first, Shelby II attempted to deny the possibility that
his son was my father, but Granny Judy handed him a photocopy of Lana's
diary with entries documenting her liaisons with Shelby III, his bizarre
sexual proclivities, and his offer to pay for an abortion. It also included
a list of Number III's other sexual relationships with subordinates and the
wives of clients.

Then Granny Judy said, "I am sure there is plenty of support there to get a
paternity test, and of course, that will give credence to Lana's diary,
which I'm sure would make juicy copy for the gossip columnists. When Shelby
Number 2 saw the names on the list Lana had compiled, the color drained
from his face and he quickly ushered them into a conference room, then he
called his son to get his cheating ass back to the firm on the double.

When they sat down to discuss terms, Granny Judy said, "This is our bottom
line, you argue or try to negotiate, we're out of here and headed to find a
lawyer and then to the newspapers. We want $2000 a month of child support
for little Bryan, a $250,000 trust fund for his education and to start his
adult life, and we want numb nuts to sign over all parental rights to
Frida."

Shelby II said there was no way his son was my father, and then he made
some disparaging comments about Lana.

Shelby II had no idea who he was dealing with. She and Granny Frida got up
and started to walk out. There was panic in the firm because the wives of
some of their largest clients were on the list of Shelby III's
extra-curricular affairs. According to Granny Frida, the partners were
running down the hall yelling offers like they were trying to outbid each
other at an auction. Now, my Granny Frida has been known to embellish a
story, so I can't vouch that everything that I just told you was true, but
I can tell you that when I graduated from the University of Oklahoma, I was
debt-free and had three hundred thousand dollars in the bank.

So, the truth is that despite losing my mother before I knew her and having
an asshole for a father, I never was wanting for love or material care. Oh,
I guess I should tell you my parents did bequeath me good genetics. Today,
I am 6'1", toned, with blonde curly hair, blue eyes, and strong Northern
European features. The difference between me now and my senior year in high
school was that back then I was a distance runner and had the semi-starved
look of a runway model. I was never effeminate, never wore makeup, and the
only jewelry I wore was a wristwatch and my class ring. I might have worn
an earring, but they were prohibited for athletes at my school. As far as
my style is concerned, it was basic jeans, T-shirts, and Nike runners. As
much as I hate to say it, I was, and still am, pretty. Secretly I want a
scar.  Nothing disfiguring or hideous.  Just something to toughen up the
look of my face and give me a good story to tell.

You should also know that I had the biggest cock in my high school. Ironic
isn't it, that the gay guy possessed the greatest symbol of male virility
and reproductive capability at Little Arrow High School, an 8" cock.

So, enough about me, let me tell you about my high school nemesis, Jake
Norris. Jake was the football quarterback and big man on campus. My
graduating class had 105 students. Fifty-four of them were girls and the
rumor was that Jake had slept with at least 22 of them and was beginning to
work his way through the Junior class pussy. I was pretty sure those
numbers were fictional. Jake was not nearly the stud his propaganda
claimed, but that didn't mean he wasn't by far the most sexually active kid
in my class. Part of the reason he slept with so many girls was he wasn't a
particularly good fuck. While it was rep-enhancing to have slept with the
QB, once done there was little reason to put up with, and put out for, a
bad and selfish partner. I, of course, was the only person at Little Arrow
who knew the truth about Jake, because as the `gay guy,' the girls told me
everything. Hell, even Jake didn't know how bad he was in bed, or the bed
of his truck, or under the football bleachers, or the sleaziest place of
them all, behind the dumpsters at the Kum and Go. And yes, Kum and Go is a
real Midwest convenience store chain.

Anyway, like most kids attending Little Arrow High, I had gone to school
with Jake my entire K-12 life. In fact, until the 6th grade, we had been
good, maybe even best, friends. However, when we started the 7th grade
something changed. I suppose it had to do with Jake being the first person
to ever call me a fag. Of course, everyone joked about something being gay,
or pretended to ring the Tinkerbell when someone did something a bit too
sissy; however, being called a fag was an entirely new level of insult. I
would later learn that Jake's little league baseball coach was the first to
suspect I was gay, and he told Jake to watch out or I'd be recruiting him
for the fag squad.

Whatever the reason he said that to Jake, it was the moment Jake and I were
no longer friends. However, the weird part was that, while we were no
longer friends, Jake continued to act like we were. In P.E. he always
picked me first for his team, whenever there was a partner project in a
class, Jake's hand would shoot up and he would say, "Bryan and I want to be
partners." Then there were the parties, be it his birthday party or his
first kegger, I would get an invitation with a veiled threat that there
would be some terrible calamity if I failed to show up. Of course, every
party invitation put me under an obligation to invite Jake to my
parties. Jake could go days without saying anything to me, but come game
day, he would make a point of asking me whether I was going to come to
watch him play."

Of course, as a self-loathing gay boy, I took everything Jake dished out
and said thank you. He even figured out a way to use my pride and joy, my
cock, against me. One day, we were all in the locker room changing and
someone said, "Fuck Edwards that thing is huge" and Jake said, "That's what
happens when you play with it all the time. You're gonna stretch it out of
shape." Of course, everyone laughed. Then there was the day in Freshman
Wood Shop when he said, "Hey everyone, why does Bryan wear button-up
jeans?..... The sound of the zipper was scaring the sheep." For the rest of
the week, Jake would randomly make a "ZZZZZZZ" sound and the other boys
would go "BAAA! BAAA!" It only stopped when Jake failed his Algebra I test.

Oh, you wonder how failing a math test made the harassment stop? Jake was
dumb as a fence post and had been cheating off of me for years, one of the
reasons we were `still technically friends.' So, on the day of the
Polynomial Operations test, I faked being sick in English class. When the
office sent word that Granny Frida was there to pick me up, I slipped Jake
a note on my way out of the room. It said, "Good luck on the math
test. BAAAA, you're FUUUUCKED." Jake couldn't tell you the difference
between a polynomial and a pollywog."

That evening, Jake stopped by my house nearly in tears because, as
expected, he failed the test. What I didn't know was that he was going to
be ineligible to play football on Friday night. Yes, even as a freshman
Jake was an essential part of the team. The math teacher, who was probably
the only person besides me in Little Arrow that didn't give a shit about
football, was giving him a chance to retake the test Friday morning, but he
needed crash tutoring to be ready. So, like a sucker, I spent two hours
trying to teach hamburger for brains how to factor polynomials. Actually,
I'm being unkind to Jake. He wasn't exactly stupid, he just didn't see a
reason to be good at school work when he was great at sports. In the end,
between my tutoring and a little grace from Miss Zinky, Jake scored high
enough to play on Friday night.

Jake was on fire that Friday night and although he wouldn't be the
quarterback until his sophomore year, he was a great wide receiver. He
scored three of Little Arrow's four touchdowns. How do I know that? Because
I was there to see it. I saw every one of Jake's football highlights. I
played trumpet in the marching band-- yes, even then I liked to blow
things.

Of course, on Monday morning Jake was back to his old ways. The asshole had
the memory of a goldfish when it came to gratitude. So, we were in
Biology-- I had the seat right in front of Jake-- and I heard "ZZZZZZ"
followed by a herd of sheep. I was pissed, turned around looked him right
in the eye, and said, "Listen asshole, we have a test in English over Romeo
and Juliet on Wednesday. I'm beginning to feel ill. Cough, cough. Even
someone as stupid as you should know what it means if I hear one more BAAA
this entire year." Jake got the message.

Fortunately, after my freshman year of high school, I had very few classes
with Jake. I was on the advanced college prep track, and he was on the
`slide-by-jock' track. The one place where our lives overlapped was
basketball. Some idiot on the school board felt that students were not
getting enough physical activity and convinced the rest of the board to add
a P.E. credit requirement for every year, a credit that could be met by
playing on one of the school's sports teams. I'm convinced the person
behind the requirement was the wrestling and football coach. It seems that
one year there weren't enough students enrolled in P.E. to give him a full
schedule, so they assigned him a freshman World History class. The school
did not have enough videos to fill the entire year and he had to actually
teach a couple of units. So, the next year, everyone had to have P.E. or
Athletics as a class so Coach Dumbass didn't have to be a real teacher.

Unfortunately for me, the addition of the required P.E. credit meant that I
either had to forgo one of my college prep classes or participate in a
sport. Fall and Spring were no problem. I ran X-country in the Fall and
track in the Spring, but Winter was a problem. I either had to go out for
the basketball team or wrestle. While I might have enjoyed rolling around
on the mats with a sweaty boy, the problem was I might have too much
enjoyed rolling around on the mats with a sweaty boy. With my cock, a thin
singlet wasn't going to contain my enthusiasm. So, basketball it was.

I played JV basketball my sophomore year, but I wasn't into it. The
assistant coach happened to be my chemistry and physics teacher and
understood where I was coming from. So, he made a deal with me, I would
dress out and practice with the team, but on game days I would be the team
manager. Of course, this was in the day before high schools had
professional sports trainers, so taping ankles and stuff was left to the
student managers. I had to touch a lot of stinky feet.

So now you know the background to this story... oh wait, I guess I didn't
tell you what Jake looked like. Well, he was a gay high school boy's wet
dream. He was muscular and stood just over 6 feet. He looked like he was
chiseled from granite. He had very masculine features, intense brown eyes,
and chestnut hair that was always fashionably uncombed. Jake was also the
first boy in the class to sprout body hair, and by the time he was a senior
in high school, had a modest covering of hair on his upper body.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It all began the week before basketball season, our senior year. I was
trying to track down a problem with the school's computer network. I know,
today no school IT manager would be foolish enough to give an 18-year-old
access to his high school's network and server, but they didn't have much
choice. The school's librarian was also the IT department and what she knew
about computers was where the power button was located. It was either have
me do the troubleshooting, or wait for the company that installed the
system to send out a tech. A tech who a year earlier had probably been
rebuilding electric typewriters and servicing copy machines. A tech whose
solution to any problem greater than a loose cable was to disconnect
everything and take the server back to the shop for the `real computer
geeks' to work on, meaning the network would be down for at least two
weeks.

Anyway, I was trying to figure out what the problem was when I noticed that
one student's files seemed to be taking up an unusual amount of the
system's storage space. When I looked to see what was going on, I
discovered a shit load of gay porn, I mean a shit load. This was in the
days before schools had web content filters. When I checked the logs to
find out who had downloaded the porn, I was floored to see that it was
Jacob Norris. Fuck, that was some powerful info, but what to do with it?

I decided to download the logs, burn some of the files to a CD, and then
clear out Jake's `extra-curricular' files. When I was through, no one at
the school would ever know what Jake was up to...unless I told them. I did
leave all of his assignments untouched, and I added a MSWord document that
simply said, "I know your secret. Signed, Mr. X." I know signing the note
Mr. X was pretty silly, but I for sure wasn't going to sign it, The Gay
Avenger. Now, if Jake had stopped to think, he would have easily figured
out I was Mr. X, but therein lies the problem, Jake would have to stop and
think.

For several days, Jake was on edge. He almost jumped out of his skin every
time the intercom turned on or an office proctor delivered a teacher a note
from the office. However, when a week and then two passed with nothing
happening, he was back to the old Jake. By that time, basketball practices
were well underway.

Early in the season, there weren't a lot of injuries for me to deal with,
just a couple of ankles to tape and Jake's groin strain. Jake had pulled a
muscle in his groin area at the end of football and now had re-injured it
during basketball. This was in the days before compression shorts, so we
would wrap it with an elastic bandage. The way it was wrapped was starting
six or so inches above the knee the bandage would be wrapped tightly around
the thigh up to the crotch, then it would be wrapped around the waist, then
again around the thigh, then back to the waist, and finally to finish off
with another wrap of the thigh. Needless to say, this put a trainer's hands
close to some forbidden fruit. When I wrapped Jake, we were usually the
last two in the locker room, and he would be wearing just his jock.

The first couple of times I wrapped Jake, there wasn't much said, but after
a while, Jake began with the innuendos. At first, it was just between him
and me, and I could brush it off. However, it wasn't long before he would
say shit while other players were still in the locker room. It all came to
a head one day when Jake decided to get ahead of the guys needing their
ankles wrapped. Then while I was wrapping him, he said, "Hey, while you're
down there, why don't you just suck my cock." That was it, I lost my mind
and I grabbed his balls and squeezed. Jake screamed in pain and dropped to
the floor like a sack of potatoes. The two boys waiting to get taped were
stunned and just stood there with their mouths open. I grabbed my shit and
ran to my car and then straight home. I was scared shitless. I was so going
to get my ass beat.

I seriously thought about getting Granny Frida to call in me being sick the
next day, but I knew that was just putting off the inevitable beating and
probably making it worse. So, I sucked it up and drove to school. As I
expected, Jake and a couple of his football thugs were waiting for me in
the parking lot. When I got out of the car, Jake grabbed me and said, "You
fucking little shit. I am going to fuck your ass up so bad that... that's
when I said it; I said, "I know your secret. I'm Mr. X."

The color drained from Jake's face and he shoved me back into my car, then
he got in the passenger seat and said, "Drive."

"Where," I asked.

"I don't know, just drive."

My thought was, `Well, I guess he's letting me pick where I want to be
murdered."

I eventually drove to one of those little pull-offs from the road where the
State Historical Society had put a marker. I figured they could just add a
little plaque for me below whatever happened in the 1880s on that spot. It
could say something to the effect of, "Here Bryan Jefferson Edwards, gay
boy and fruit-squeezer, met his inglorious end."

For at least 10 minutes, we just sat there in my 91 Camaro; by the way, I
loved that car. Finally, Jake asked, "What secret?"

"That you and me are alike. We're just alike."

"Bullshit," he yelled, "We are nothing alike. I like pussy, not cock. I am
not a fag!"

His reaction to being confronted with the truth confirmed what his computer
files had already told me. The stud of Little Arrow High was a limp-wristed
fairy. Okay, there was nothing limp-wristed about Jake, that was just a
stupid gesture people made to signal someone or something was gay. It was
like they were saying all gay guys were like Elton John or Jack on `Will
and Grace.' In redneck Oklahoma, `gay athletes' just didn't exist. FYI,
that's why, to this day, I have an autographed picture of Greg Louganis in
mid-dive hanging on my office wall. Aside from being hot as fuck in a
speedo, when Louganis came out in 1995 it made a serious impression on a
16-year-old me. Knowing that a gay man competed at the highest level of his
sport was inspiring to me.

I know it was different for guys like Jake who played team sports,
particularly football. To even admit to themselves they were gay, was to
risk losing their team. As a runner, I didn't need anyone else, it was just
me and the track. I get that. What I didn't get was why someone like Jake
had to hide his sexuality by making me his target. That pissed me off. I
was angry and I said something I probably shouldn't have, considering
Jake's ability to inflict the need for some painful and expensive dental
work on my face. I wasn't thinking when I said:

"Look asshole, I have your computer history and your pictures of naked
men. I downloaded them from your school account. I know you like looking at
naked men and men having sex with each other. I know your shameful little
secret, and I have the proof. So go ahead beat the shit out of me, but even
if they have to wire my mouth shut for six months, everyone in Little Arrow
will know you are a fag just like me!"

That was when Jake hit me. I had never taken a punch and fuck did it
hurt. The entire side of my face was screaming with pain, my vision was
blurred, and my nose was bleeding. Looking back on it, I was lucky we were
still sitting in the car. I probably wouldn't have a straight nose today if
Jake had been able to get his full body into it.

I grabbed a fist full of napkins I had laying around from a trip to the
drive-in, and at the same time I screamed, "Get the fuck out of my car!"

I think Jake was stunned when he realized what he just did, and he got out
of the car. I threw the Camaro into drive and stepped on the gas. I'm sure
my spinning tires kicked dirt and rocks at Jake, but I didn't care. I
wasn't sure what to do, so I just went home. Fortunately, my Grannies were
in Tulsa, setting up their booth for a Christmas show the coming
weekend. So, I ran into the bathroom and started shoving toilet paper up my
nose. I looked like a mess, and I had never hurt that badly in my entire
life. Obviously, I hadn't played a lot of contact sports.

After I got my nose to stop dripping blood everywhere, I sat down on the
toilet and cried. Not just because I was in pain, but because there was no
way things could go back to the way they were. As bad as I thought things
were, I knew how to deal with them. I had six months and then I was out of
Little Arrow, so why couldn't I hold my tongue for six fucking months.

Just then the phone rang, and I decided I better pick it up. I had a pretty
good idea who was calling, Granny Judy had just got herself a flip
phone. She said it was for the business, but I think it was because the
dial-up modem would tie up the phone for hours when I was on the
internet. I figured Betty Langford, the school secretary, was the one who
was probably tipping off my Grannies as to what had happened that morning.

"Bryan Jefferson Edwards, what the hell is going on?" I knew I was in deep
shit when Granny Frida used any word stronger than `heck.'

"Jake Norris and I got into it this morning."

"You got into it with Jake Norris?!" Granny Frida said, then I heard Granny
Judy say "Fuck, what E.R. is Bryan at?"

Despite the deep shit I was in, I almost laughed. Granny Judy swore like a
sailor and the fact she asked about the E.R. meant she knew how one-sided
any fight between me and Jake would be.

"I'm fine, Granny."

"You get your butt back to that school and wait in the parking lot for
us. We've got a meeting with the principal."

I barely beat my Grannies to the school, which meant that Judy broke every
speed limit between Tulsa and Little Arrow. I could tell that Granny Frida
was furious and, as we would say back then, my ass was grass. However, when
she saw my face, her anger melted away and was replaced with sympathy. I
looked like hell. I still had a bloody wad of toilet paper in my nose, and
my cheek was swollen and red.

I heard Granny Judy say, "I'm going to kill the son-of-a-bitch."

Anyway, when we got to the principal's office, Jake and his father were
already there. When Jake's dad saw me the first words out of his mouth
were, "The little faggot better not have bled on my boy. If he gave my
son..."

At the point, I wasn't the only person in the room bleeding. Granny Judy
was a big woman and grew up with three brothers. She knew how to land a
punch, and she threw Mr. Norris a hard right hook to the nose.

"That's it!" Principal Rogers yelled, "Bryan you and your grandmothers go
wait in the outer office."

When we were in the outer office, Betty Langford brought over a box of
tissues and said, "Poor dear, I hope Jake gets what's coming to him." Betty
was one of the few people at Little Arrow High that wasn't under Jake's
spell.

I could hear yelling coming from the principal's office, but couldn't make
out what they were saying. Finally, it got quiet, and then twenty minutes
later, Jake and his father walked out. Jake's father glared at me and then
at Granny Judy, but Jake just looked straight ahead.

Then it was our turn with Principal Rogers. Rogers started, "Since the
fight happened off school grounds..."

"Fight!? What fight?!" Granny Judy said, "Jake Norris beat the shit out of
our boy."

"Look Miss Bickler I'm between a rock and a hard place here," Rogers said,
"I have a gay grandson, I know what kids like Bryan have to go through, but
this is Little Arrow, Oklahoma. You and Miss Gunderson more than anyone
should understand what this community is like."

"We do," Grandma Frida said, "and that's why we don't want Bryan to be a
target for people like Jake Norris."

"Look, you all don't need to worry about me," I said. "I will take care of
myself." Looking back, they must have thought I was crazy. I'm surprised
they didn't burst into laughter.

"But Bryan..."

"No Grandmother Frida, I want to deal with this by myself. It's important
that I'm not seen as hiding behind you or Principal Rogers."

The only time I ever called Frida or Judy `Grandmother' was when I was
absolutely not going to listen to anything they were going to say. It was
my way of telling them `You are talking to a wall, so just punish me and
get it over with.'

Granny Frida exhaled deeply and said, "Okay, Principal Rogers, what's the
punishment?"

"I am giving Bryan and Jake two days of out-of-school suspension for
leaving school without permission."

I almost laughed, two days out of school for not being in school was
oxymoronic, but that was the American educational system. I was also aware
that three days, not two days, was the normal length of out-of-school
suspension. Of course, the first basketball game of the season was Friday,
so with only a two-day suspension, Jake would be back in school and able to
play in the game.

When we were outside, Granny Frida said, "Judy and I need to get back to
Tulsa to finish setting up for the show. You, young man will go home and
stay home. Do you hear me?"

"Yes ma'am."

"And just to make sure you stay home, I expect the North sheep barn cleaned
out by the time we get home."

So, I spent the rest of the day loading a wagon with straw and sheep shit,
then putting down fresh straw. I was just getting ready to haul the last
load out and dump it for composting when Mary Keagan drove up.

The first words out of her mouth were, "Pew, you stink."

"Well, you spend your afternoon cleaning out a sheep barn and you won't
smell like roses either."

"Sorry. Damn, that's quite a bruise you're going to have there. It will
make you look tough."

I laughed for the first time that day. Mary was my best friend and my
competitor for valedictorian, we both had 4.0 GPAs and were almost certain
to finish high school that way.

"I brought you your missed assignments," Mary said.

"That's nice of you. You know, you could have just lost them and then you
would be valedictorian all by yourself."

She laughed and said, "I couldn't do that. I need my big brother standing
beside me." We joked that I was her big brother because at 6'1" I tower
over her 5'5" inches. She had been my date to prom our junior year, and I'm
sure would be our senior year. Mary wasn't gay, she just intimidated most
of the boys at Little Arrow, so I took her and we had a great time. I, by
the way, am a great dancer.

"So, what's the word at school?"

"You won't like it."

"I know, but I've got to be ready for whatever when I get back."

"The football team is spreading the rumor that you made a pass at Jake, and
he beat the shit out of you."

"People believe that load of crap!?"

"Look, if the bullies tell you to believe the earth is flat, you believe
the earth is flat. You know how it is."

"Yeah."

"So, what are you going to do?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure I will have plenty of time to think about it
while I do whatever chores Granny Frida and Granny Judy decide I need to
get finished while on suspension. I can assure you I won't be watching TV
and eating bonbons."

Mary laughed, "I hope it doesn't all stink like this job."

"Oh Mary, you are such a townie. You need a day on the farm."

"Not a chance. I'll keep my job working at the Little Arrow Cafe. Which
reminds me, I need to get going. I'll leave your books on the porch."

I told her thanks then got on the tractor to dump the last load before it
started to rain; because the only thing worse than shoveling shit, is
shoveling shit in the rain.

When the Grannies got home, the first thing they did was check my
bruise. My nose had long stopped bleeding, and I had blown my nose several
times to clean it out, but the cheek and lower eyelid were just beginning
to turn black. They'd stopped and picked up hamburgers and I was starving.

As I started to chow down, Granny Judy said, "Well, at least his jaw still
works fine."

Then Granny Frida said, "Okay, Bryan, tell us what this conflict with Jake
Norris is all about."

I told them about the incident in the locker room and that I accused Jake
of being gay. I didn't tell them about having the computer logs or files
from Jake's account.

"I understand you being pissed about what he said in the locker room,"
Granny Judy said, "but seriously Bryan, grabbing his junk was just asking
for trouble. I also don't understand why you think Jake is gay."

"I know he's gay, but I can't tell you how I know."

"Even if you are right, especially if you are right, you had to know that
accusing Jake of being gay was going to set him off." Granny Frida said,
"What were you thinking?"

"I was so angry about all the shit he's given me over the years. I guess I
just lost it. I know I did something stupid, but it just happened so
fast. The words were out of my mouth and then..." Well, then I started to
cry, and Granny Frida and Granny Judy couldn't bear to see me cry. The
interrogation was over, it was time for dessert. The three of us sat on the
couch, ate chocolate pudding, and watched M.A.S.H. reruns. That was how we
put shit behind us.

As expected, I spent the rest of my sentence doing hard labor. In Oklahoma,
Eastern Red Cedars are an invasive species and can ruin a pasture. In days
past, they would have been controlled by prairie fires, but now they had to
be controlled in other ways. Because we didn't want to use herbicides where
the sheep and goats grazed, that meant manual labor.

The advantage of raising goats over cattle is that goats will eat anything
they can reach. So, all the Red Cedars were free of the nasty, scratchy
lower limbs and foliage. So, all I would have to do would be to cut them
and let them lay for a while, and then come back and clean up what the
goats couldn't eat. That still didn't mean the job was easy.

Wednesday morning, I took the tractor, trailer, and chainsaw and headed out
to the pasture. As I cut down the trees I'd keep an eye out for anything
that needed hauling out of the pasture to the burn pile. On the first day,
I got the pasture on the home place cleaned up. The second day, I was
working on a pasture owned by Granny Judy's oldest brother. He owned a
construction business in Tulsa and only used the pasture for hunting. There
was a nice creek that cut through the property making for some prime deer
and wild turkey hunting. The far side of the pasture bordered land Jake's
grandfather owned and it seemed Jake was also given the job of ridding the
pasture of Red Cedars; however, because the Norris' ran cattle, the bottoms
of the trees weren't stripped of their growth and he was having to fight
his way in to reach the trunk. I couldn't help laughing when I heard him
cursing the trees.

When Jake saw me laughing at him, he got pissed and drove his tractor over
near the fence where I was working, then yelled, "What the fuck are you
laughing about Edwards?"

"Oh, I'm just happy to be alive."

"Fuck you.  You are lucky to be alive."

"Are you threatening me, Jake? You do know that if I turn up dead or
missing, you will be the first person they go looking for, especially when
they find that CD filled with your porn, your search history, and the note
explaining how I found it." I hadn't written a note, but dipshit didn't
know that.

"They'd never prove anything," Jake said with a note of defiance.

I scoffed, "Really, you think you can outsmart the OSBI? I think you'd have
a better chance of passing college algebra. Hey, that reminds me, who are
you planning to cheat off of in college?"

"The OU athletic department has tutors."

"Oh, so you've been recruited?"

"Yeah, Coach Blake called me yesterday, so there!" For those who don't know
John Blake, he was Oklahoma's head football coach for three seasons between
Howard Schnellenberger and Bob Stoops and had a miserable 12-22 record.

"I'm happy for you Jake." I said.

"Really?"

"Of course, now you won't have to look at pictures of college athletes
showering, you can see them up close and personal." That of course was a
really stupid thing to say because Jake jumped down off the tractor,
yelling he was going to fuck me up, and started to come over the fence to
finish the job he'd started two days before. I was already running for my
tractor when I heard him yelling and cursing. When I looked back I saw his
foot had gotten tangled in the fence and he was hung upside down and unable
to get free.

I walked back, and again I couldn't help laughing as Jake hung upside down
trying to free his foot from the fence. His boot was keeping the barbed
wire fence from digging into his ankle, but it was also preventing him from
pulling out of the fence.

"Get me loose," Jake demanded.

"I don't think that's such a good idea because then you're just going
to... how did you say it... oh yeah, you said you were going to fuck me up,
and I don't think you mean fuck me up in a fun way." That made Jake yell
and struggle more and, in the process, tighten the fence around his
ankle. He started to scream in pain. Then he said, "Cut me loose! I'll do
anything you want. Just cut me loose!"

I took out my pliers and used them to cut the fence and Jake fell to the
ground. He was hurting and I said, "Let me help you up. Don't put any
weight on that foot until we find out if you broke anything." When he was
standing with my help, I said, "Put some weight on that foot." He did, and
it hurt but wasn't broken. I helped him get back across the fence and onto
his tractor. When he was gone, I did a quick fix to the wires I cut and
then decided it was time to call it a day. On the way back to the house I
couldn't help but wonder what would have happened to me if Jake hadn't
gotten caught in the fence. I didn't need to wonder, I knew: he would have
fucked me up and left me there. And no, this was no Androcles and the Lion
story. Tomorrow Jake would be the same entitled asshole he was yesterday
and today.

The real question was whether I was going to let him continue to treat me
like shit. I decided then and there, the answer was NO MORE!



I hope you enjoy "I Own the QB."

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