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TRIPOD
Chapter -- 36
ME: Hey, Uncle. Got a favor to ask
Uncle Noah: Hey there! What's up?
ME: Can you run HIV tests for Darius and me?
Uncle Noah: Of course! Are you worried about something?
ME: NO! But we're getting kinda
serious and you know...
Uncle Noah: You wanna go skin on
skin
ME: 🫣 🫣
🫣
Noah: Don't be
embarrassed! You guys wanna have lunch on Saturday?
I'll bring a couple of tests home from the office.
ME: ❤️ Let me check with Darius.
Say hi to Jermaine
ME: Hey stud
Darius: Hey stud.
Sup?
ME: Free on
Saturday @ 12? U know how we talked about getting tested? My uncle says he can
do it for us. Then we'll eat lunch in Boystown with
him and his hubby
Darius: Yeah!
Can't wait until I can let your naked monster roam around my man cave
ME:
🙄 🙄 🙄 Got
a better metaphor?
Darius: Can't wait
for the cobra to spit into my brown eye
ME: Ugh, getting
worse. Try again
Darius: Can't wait
for you to park your monster truck in my garage without the car cover?
ME:
🤣 🤣 🤣
And I couldn't
wait to have Darius meet Noah and Jermaine. For any gay kid, having gay role
models is important. Noah's been someone for me to look up to for as long as I
can remember, even before I could admit to myself that I was gay. As much as I
love my mom's brother Julio too, Noah and I have always been close. Maybe he
knew I was gay before I did. I mean, the subject of sex was never mentioned
until I turned seventeen but he was always just the fun uncle who took me to
museums, musicals, the zoo, and stuff like that and Jermaine always supported
that relationship. I wanted to share him with Darius.
Saturday rolled
around and Darius and I took the L down to the Addison stop. We made our way to
Noah and Jermaine's condo building on Lake Shore Drive.
Roman the doorman
was sitting at his desk looking buff and scrolling through his cell phone. He was
wearing a tight, short-sleeved shirt even though it was December and freezing
outside. Apparently, the gun show was an all-season event.
He looked up from
his cell phone screen, smiled and raised an eyebrow.
"Hi there. Jaime,
right? Here to see Noah?"
"Wow, great
memory. I haven't been here for two months. How's everything going?"
"No complaints.
Christmas is right around the corner and most folks in this building are pretty
generous," he smiled. "Who's this handsome guy?"
"This is my
boyfriend, Darius"
"Boyfriend? Nice.
He's hot. Wanna share?"
"Hey, I can hear
you, you know." Darius blurted out.
"Noah's taking us
to lunch," I responded. "Maybe some other time."
Roman looked
Darius up and down. "Too bad. Let me give him a ring."
Two minutes later
we were knocking on Noah and Jermaine's apartment door.
Noah answered
dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt.
"Come on in!" he
said as he scooped me up into a hug. "Darius, it's so nice to finally meet you.
You're every bit as handsome as Jaime's said."
"Thanks. What a
beautiful apartment. Great views, too," Darius replied.
"But your doorman
is just a touch too...friendly," I volunteered.
"Roman? Been there,
done him. He's hot, but you're right, no filter sometimes. I'll have a word
with him.
We headed into the
living room where Jermaine was seated on the sofa. He smiled broadly, stood up,
and walked toward me. He hugged me tightly and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
"How's everything
going? We've missed you."
"I'm great. This
is Darius."
Jermaine pulled
Darius into a hug and said, "Hi! Welcome to our crazy family."
"I'm happy to be
here," Darius laughed.
"So, there's a
fun, little Chinese place on Broadway. The food's amazing and the waiters are
delicious, too. Sound OK?" Jermaine asked.
"My mouth's
watering already," Darius snickered.
"Let's do those
tests first. It will only take a couple minutes to draw the blood," Noah said.
"Blood?" Darius asked.
His eyes went wide.
"Yeah, the blood
test is a lot more accurate and sensitive than the cheek swab. I'll keep the
samples in the fridge over the weekend and get them processed on Monday. I'll
have the results by Tuesday morning."
Darius suddenly
looked pale.
"Are you OK?" I
asked.
"I really hate
needles," Darius said.
"You? Mr.
Confident. Champion wrestler. The guy who saved Tyler's life after he got shot?
Can't handle a little prick?"
He shook his head and
smiled weakly. "Nope. Just the big ones."
"You can say that
again," I laughed. "So, you're not gonna get tested then?" I asked, concerned
and a bit annoyed at the same time.
"I didn't say
that," Darius responded. "I'll look the other way and maybe you could hold my
hand?"
"OK, you can go
first and get it over with. I'll be right here the whole time, but how did you
hold it together with Tyler?" I asked.
"I guess if was
the adrenaline and all the stuff my dad had taught me. I didn't have time to
think about the blood, but honestly? Yuck!" Darius moaned.
Uncle Noah led us
over to the kitchen table and sat us down. He pulled out two test kits, along
with rubber gloves, alcohol swabs, and rubber ties. He slipped on the gloves
and gently reached for Darius's right arm. Darius started to tremble. I sat on
his left side and slipped my hand into his.
"Look at me the
whole time, OK?" I said.
Darius nodded
meekly as beads of sweat started to form on his forehead.
"OK, make a fist,"
Noah instructed.
Darius did as he
was told.
I held Darius's
gaze firmly, "Think about what we're gonna order at lunch. Steamed buns. Pot
stickers. Spicy noodles. All served by hot waiters in tight jeans," I said.
"All done," Noah
said, putting a small piece of cotton and a bandage on Darius's arm, then
bending the arm at the elbow. "Just hold your arm like that for a couple of
minutes."
The color returned
to Darius's face, "That wasn't bad at all."
"Next," Noah said.
Darius and I switched
places and Noah started the procedure over again. I smiled at Darius, then
turned my head to watch, finding the whole thing kind of interesting, like
watching one of those medical shows on TV.
Just as blood
started to fill the test tube, I heard Jermaine yell, "Oh, shit!"
I turned to see
Darius fainting dead away, as Jermaine rushed in and caught him just as Darius
fell off the chair, preventing him from hitting his head.
Luckily Noah,
seeing what was happening, grabbed a hold of me to keep me from moving.
"Nothing to worry
about, Jaime. I'll get to him in a second. Let's finish this first," Noah said
calmly.
Once the needle
was out and my arm bandaged. We laid Darius out on the floor. After about five
seconds he opened his eyes.
"Darius, do you
know where you are?" Noah asked.
Darius nodded. "On
your kitchen floor making an idiot of myself. Did I pass out?"
"Right on cue," I
said. "You OK?"
"Yeah. Now you
know why I never hang out at my dad's office on take-your-kids-to-work day."
"Dude, he's a
dermatologist," I shot back.
"I know! I can't
even watch that show where the doctor pops pimples and takes out cysts. Ugh,
needles and bodily fluids just creep me out."
"Not all bodily
fluids," I said, turning to wink at him.
Noah and Jermaine
let out laughs. Darius screwed up his face and stuck out his tongue. Then
slowly stood up.
As promised, the
food at lunch was really tasty: steamed pork bao, shrimp shiu
mai, spicy chile noodles, and
stir-fried mustard greens with oyster mushrooms.
Plus, the waiters
were knowledgeable, friendly, and very cute.
"Who's in charge
of the Christmas feast this year?" Jermaine asked.
"That would be
Barry," Noah volunteered. "He's keeping the menu a secret."
"He's already
recruited me as the pastry chef but hasn't let me in on the theme. We still
have a couple of weeks," I said.
"Darius, will you
be joining us?" Noah asked.
"I haven't been
invited," he replied.
"I thought you'd
be in California with your grandparents," I said. "Will you be here?"
"Yup. Not really a
holiday in my family. We were just in Cali for Thanksgiving, plus my dad's
going out of town for a convention in January, so we figured we'd just stick
around."
"Then you're
invited. I still have relatives for you to meet and I really want you to meet
Mr. Choi. He's coming over, too," I added.
"Who's Mr. Choi?"
Jermaine asked.
"He's my chemistry
teacher. Great teacher. Super nice. He's tutoring Asher. Oh, and did I mention
he's gay and hot as hell. Looks like a runway model."
"Well then," Noah
interjected, "sounds like this holiday celebration will be a lot more fun than
usual."
Jermaine nodded
and reached for the chile noodles.
***
By Tuesday
afternoon, I still hadn't heard anything from Uncle Noah and had received a
text message from Darius asking about the test results. I decided to text Noah.
ME:
Hey, uncle. Got the test results yet?
It took
Noah about half an hour to respond.
Uncle
Noah: It's been crazy in the office today. Flu season. Let me check. I can't
text you the results. It's against HIPAA laws. I'll call you in a few.
Five tense
minutes later my phone rang.
"Hey,
Noah. Well?"
"All good.
Negative."
"And
Darius?"
"I can't
tell you. It's against the rules. I'll call him now."
"Should I
be worried?" I asked, feeling a knot forming in my gut.
"Jaime,
it's the law. I can't tell you either way,"
"Ugh, OK,"
I replied.
Ten
minutes later my message notification tone rang out on my phone.
Darius:
Im good. U good?
ME: 💯
Darius:
Rev up the monster truck and leave the car cover home!
ME:
YES!!! 🍑💦🍆 🍑💦🍆
🍑💦🍆 GONNA FUCK YOU SOOO HARD.
Darius: Counting
on it! 🫶🏻
ME: ❤️U2 (not the band)
***
"Your little brother is a sponge, Jaime," Brandon blurted
out at lunch.
"That can be taken two ways, Brandon. Do you mean he's like
a parasite who asks for favors and shit from everyone or that he's super smart
and a really fast learner?" I asked.
"You know what I mean," Brandon replied. "Braden says that
in three weeks, Asher has already gotten through three months' worth of
algebra. He just gets it. He loves doing those weird word problems that I
always hated."
Tyler jumped in, "'If train A leaves Kansas City heading
east at 50 miles an hour and train B leaves St. Louis heading west at 40 miles,
but leaves 10 minutes later. In what town will they crash head-on?' Yeah, I
remember those."
We all laughed, except Eddie, who was scrolling through his
phone with a deep look of concern.
It was December 17, the day that many of the top-tier US
universities send their early acceptance e-mails to student hopefuls. The early
acceptance process is always a gamble. You tell a university that you're
extremely interested in attending, but it can have higher-than-usual admissions
standards and more limited slots than the regular admissions process. The
advantage is that, if you're admitted, you save time and money sending out
applications. You can only apply for early acceptance at one school and if
you're accepted, you commit.
No one in our lunch group had any doubt that Eddie would
get into his top school. The kid is a freaking genius, after all. He had
academic and athletic awards and a GPA well above 4.0 thanks to the advanced
placement classes he was taking. His college entrance exam score was close to
perfect. But Eddie being Eddie, he still worried that he wasn't good enough,
although a few months of therapy had noticeably softened his anxiety.
Eddie had sent his early decision application to MIT. Tyler
had no interest in majoring in math or engineering and knew he'd never get into
MIT anyway, but Tyler and Eddie had a plan: Tyler would wait until Eddie got
his news from MIT before he applied to schools that were within 100 miles
(160km) of Boston.
Tyler would have sent off his applications already but his
parents had asked him to wait just in case. Most schools have a January deadline
for regular-admission applications, so this made sense; he'd be able to send
out the applications without missing the deadlines. His folks had no issues
with Tyler and Eddie wanting to be close, they just didn't want to waste money
on sending applications to schools that wound up not being geographically
desirable if Eddie didn't get in.
"Anything yet, babe?" Tyler asked.
"Nope," Eddie mumbled, fidgeting in his seat.
I'd decided to apply for early decision to Northwestern
University right here in Evanston. Even though I thought it would be fun to go
away for school, Northwestern really offered a perfect combination of majors in
radio/television/film and communications. If, as Dad said, I decided to go into
public relations, having classes available in both of those areas would be
perfect. Even if I decided against PR, either of those two majors did interest
me.
Northwestern is also one of the top schools in the country,
plus Mom and Dad both went there. Now, with Asher in the picture, there was even
more reason to stay close to home. If I didn't get into Northwestern, there
were plenty of good schools in the area that I was pretty sure I'd get into. I
also had really good grades and excellent test scores.
On the other hand, Darius's future was still up in the air.
His top pick UCLA doesn't have an early decision option, so he wouldn't know
until March if he'd gotten in. He'd also applied to USC and Berkley but all for
regular admission decisions. All of those schools are notoriously difficult to
get into, but between Darius being in the running for valedictorian, his
excellent test scores, and his athletic awards, he stood a good shot at all of
them.
Seán had opted to skip the early-decision process, as had
Brandon.
Just before lunch ended, Eddie checked his phone again.
"Oh fuck! Oh fuck!" he screamed.
"How much are they offering you in scholarship money,
babe?" Tyler smirked.
All of a sudden Eddie sunk down into his chair looking as
if all the air had been sucked out of him.
"'Dear Edward," he began, "Thank you for your interest in
MIT. After careful consideration, we have placed you on our waiting list for
admission. We will inform you by March 15 if we can offer you admission. In the
meantime, we strongly encourage you to continue the application process at
other universities."
Amid the boisterous background noise of a hundred-fifty
teenagers chattering away in the cafeteria, the stunned silence at our table
was deafening.
Tyler swallowed hard, gave a weak smile and reached out to
grab Eddie's hand. This was the worst possible outcome for Eddie and Tyler.
Eddie had already applied to Cal Poly, Stanford, Georgia Tech, Cornell, and the
University of Illinois (U of I). Now Tyler had to apply to schools in northern
and southern California, Georgia, New York, and Illinois. Schools in and around
Boston were still in the running too, because there was still a chance of Eddie
getting into MIT.
U of I would seem to be the ideal choice for both. Unlike
Eddie's other choices, it offered majors that interested Tyler and Tyler was
likely to get in there. Not to mention that paying "in-state" tuition would be
really attractive. But it was Eddie's "safe" school. Eddie only wanted to go
there if he got turned down everywhere else, which was unlikely. Not that U of
I is a bad school. On the contrary, it's a really good state school, but Tyler
would never push Eddie to go to a lower-ranked school if Eddie could get into
the best in the country.
Tyler had hoped that with Eddie at MIT, he could go to BU
or Northeastern and only be separated from Eddie by a short ride on mass
transit but that quick solution was now on ice for three long months.
Sending out applications is time-consuming and expensive,
but that was the least of it. Eddie was likely to get scholarship money
wherever he got accepted because of his incredible talent. Tyler was less
likely to get piles of scholarships and going to school out of state was going
to mean tens of thousands of dollars in student loans that would take years to
pay off. Tyler's family is not poor. He'd told me that his folks had saved up
money for college. But with some tuitions at private universities pushing
$50,000 a year now, he didn't think they had that kind of cash squirreled
away. The University of Illinois would
cost a third of that for Illinois residents.
While the thought of graduating from a university with
little debt was certainly a consideration for Tyler, being separated from Eddie
was an agonizing option. Tyler is always quick with a joke and maintains a calm
exterior but Eddie really is his other half. They'd been together since they
were thirteen. Finally coming out as a couple had only strengthened their
bonds. Their open relationship only proved that hearts and cocks can operate
completely independently. Tyler existed for Eddie and vice versa.
The bell rang and we all stood up and hugged Eddie and
Tyler in unison before shuffling off to our next classes. Eddie and Tyler shot
off quick text messages to their folks letting them know what had happened.
***
One hour later, as I walked from History to English, I
checked my phone and a much-awaited email was sitting in my in-box.
"Dear Jaime,
We are delighted to offer you admission to Northwestern
University's School of Communications for the quarter beginning in September..."
I didn't need to read any further. I sent a quick broadcast
text message to my whole extended family, plus Darius, Brandon, and Seán.
Me: I'm in at Northwestern!!
Dad: 💯 🦚
Mom: 💯 🫶🏻
Asher: 💯 MAZEL TOV! (Sorry for screaming) 😂
Obviously,
the texting lessons had paid off. None of the dreaded thumbs-ups. Dad got extra
credit for his proud as a peacock.
Darius:
UR AMAZING! Let's celebrate. 🥂🍑 💦🍆
Seán:
Awesome! Congrats.
Brandon: So proud little buddy!
Within minutes, the grandparents and uncles also sent
glowing text messages.
I decided to talk to Tyler and Eddie in person. Shooting
off a text about getting into Northwestern after what had happened at lunch
seemed kind of cruel. There were no athletic practices that week because of the
upcoming Christmas break.
Me: Meet me at He-Brew after school?
Tyler: Sure. `Sup?
Eddie: No prob. RUOK?
Me: All cool. Thought you could use a friend right now
Eddie: Yup. But any time's a good time to hang with Jaime
Tyler: LOL 🍆🍆🍆 Fo
sho!
***
At 3:00 PM on the dot, I raced across the street to He-Brew
and splurged on a dozen rugelach and a double espresso. The place was only half
full, and I was able to grab the coveted sofa in the back.
Eddie and Tyler walked in a couple of minutes later holding
hands. It was hard to miss their looks of disappointment. They spotted me,
ordered their coffees, and came to sit down.
"I know this kinda sucks. And I
know that there's really nothing I can say to make it easier, but I bought some
rugelach and I'm here to listen if you guys feel like talking," I said.
"We'll figure it out," Eddie began, biting into a rugelach
and letting out a sigh of satisfaction. "I'm not gonna start to cry. MIT only
has a 4% admission rate, after all, and I've been waitlisted. That's pretty
damn good. Most kids would be thrilled to get that far. Maybe if this had
happened a few months ago I'd be playing the `If I'd only...' game and kicking
myself and thinking that I'm a failure. That was the old Eddie. I'm
disappointed, but hey, we'll be OK. It's just a little more complicated now,
right, Ty?"
Tyler had just shoved a whole rugelach into his face and
the slightest of smiles appeared on his previously tightly drawn face.
"Sorry, did you say something?" he laughed. "These cookies
are so fucking good. Yeah, we'll work out a plan. It would be awesome if we
could be close, and we'll try our best to make it work, but we've already
talked about what happens if we have to be apart. I mean, it's not like the 20th
century where people wrote letters and paid a fucking fortune to make
long-distance calls to landlines. We can do video chats and have virtual sex
whenever, right? Thanks for the cookies, Jaime. I feel better already.
"I'm glad. Put me on the guest list for your
fiftieth-anniversary party, OK?" I joked.
"You'll be the guest of honor at our orgy celebration,"
Tyler laughed. "We'll hire a construction crane to help you get it up."
"I've got some news, too," I began. "I wanted to tell you
guys in person."
"Well? Spit it out," Eddie said.
"I got into Northwestern."
Tyler let out a scream and all of the patrons turned around
to see what was going on. He and Eddie jumped up and lifted me up off of the
sofa for a hug.
"I know it's been a tough day for you two. I didn't want to
rub it in. I love you guys."
"Hell, Jaime. It's a better day now," Eddie said. "That's
fucking awesome. I bet your family's so proud.
Second-generation Wildcat. And Asher gets to have a brother at home for his
whole time in high school. That kid thinks you're a superhero."
"Straight from the superhero universe, it's Tripod!" Tyler
blurted out. "Able to pole vault over the highest buildings with his monster
cock, which also doubles as a battering ram!"
Eddie and Tyler couldn't contain their laughter. Even I had
to admit it was pretty funny.
End -- Chapter 36 -- "Tripod"