Date: Sat, 7 Aug 2010 13:01:44 -0700 (PDT) From: Jonas Henley Subject: Kids of Indian Spring, Chapter 26a Kids of Indian Spring By Jonas Henley Chapter 26a Tail of Two Cities The Morning: Recalled to Life `It was the best of times, it was the worst of times' Thursday, 22 June 1995 01:32 am The Village of Sweetwater "Mom!! What are you doing in here??" Ezekiel Prosper frantically looked around for anything to use to cover himself; all he saw was a washcloth he and Nathan had used earlier. He grabbed it anyway and held it up in front of him. It was an old washcloth, and small and shrunken as well, but nevertheless, it did the job and hid his pubic hair, his plumped out, but still hanging penis and his dangling balls from view or scrutiny. Mostly. It didn't hide much else though, like the naked skin of the embarrassed, 12-year-old boy all around the edges of the wet cloth. It also didn't do any good to hide everything from any view, as Mimi Prosper had already got a good view of everything the boy had before he covered up. It was the first she had seen her Ezekiel since he started getting hair down there. And as far as scrutiny went, she might have looked a little longer, not because she was sexually interested in her own son's boy equipment, as nice and classically 12 as it was, but because she could have sworn it looked like his filled-out , but flaccid, penis had Vaseline on it. That could have explained why they were both naked, her son and his spend-the-night friend, Nathan Carlin. Maybe they were jacking off together. Well, she could wait until later to ask her husband, Jacob, about that. She wasn't a prude. Boys probably do that together a lot. Maybe. Even her stocky-ish, athletic and popular son might do that from time to time with his friends. Even if it was with a shorter, slighter, cute blond boy that was suddenly his best friend. Nothing . . . . . unusual . . . . . there. She would have to ask her husband In the meantime: "I heard a noise, a loud bang or thump, and there was running toward your bathroom." "It's the middle of the night!" Zeke asked, almost frantically, "What are you even doing up?" "I'm the mother here, young man, and I might ask you the same thing!" "Wha--? We were just sleeping!" Zeke protested. His mom looked at Nathan, naked and kneeling on the floor by the toilet and then looked back over to her own son, whose nakedness was so blatantly obvious around the skimpy washcloth he held in front of himself, taking care to hold it slightly out and away from him, so that his penis wouldn't make an impression in the wet white cloth. But he didn't want to hold it too far so his mom could see around the edges. The end result was that the last two inches of dick were making an impression in the cloth that had molded around the bit of shaft and its helmeted head. Zeke caught his mom's inquisitive look of disbelief and went on the defensive: "What?? I always sleep naked !!" --- with a another boy . . . . . . also naked . . . . . . in my bed. Shit shit shit. Zeke just closed his eyes and felt his face flush. When he opened his eyes again, he looked down and away. He couldn't look at his mom again; not right now. Not tonight. Mimi decided not to pursue the illogic, or unlikelihood, of that statement at the moment. She let it slide and would take it up later with Jacob. For now, she was a little more worried that Nathan may be sick. Nathan was still on the floor and still bent over the toilet like another eruption might come up the gullet. The nausea was fading, but it still felt like something might come up. "Nathan, sweetie, are you all right?" "I, uh, I don't know . . . . . just . . . . uh . . . . .sorry I wasted your food, Mrs. Prosper. It really was good when it was going down." "Oh sweetheart, you really shouldn't worry about that . . . ." While she was talking, she took in the naked body of the beautiful boy who was only a month younger than her Ezekiel, but they looked like there could be half a year or more between them. She supposed that was what happened around 12 and 13 when boys started hitting puberty at different ages. Plus she knew that Zeke was more active and therefore a stronger boy anyway. It showed in their bodies as well. But was that a small bump on Nathan's head? And . . . was that some bruising around the neck? It was in splotches more than any strangle pattern . . . but odd. They hadn't been there earlier. She looked again down the body and thought she saw some reddened areas at the side, like the waist of the body had been grabbed awfully tight and held. And his bottom cheeks, where they parted - ordinarily she would have looked away, and not only for modest considerations. She had seen enough anuses changing Zeke's diapers for 2 ½ years. But there on either side of the lower cheeks, it almost looked like there was slight bruising. And the boy's anus . . . . it was reddened . . . . . almost like it had been . . . . . oh, no. No, no, no, no, no ,no . . . . except, it WAS greased around the edges, just like her own son's penis had been. Then she remembered the room. When she had come in, the room looked like it had been torn apart, like there had been a fight. There was a broken picture frame, the bedside table overturned, there had even looked to be, on a quick glance, some dents in the wall. She stepped back in the room and looked around until her eyes lit upon a ripped pair of underwear that did not belong to her son. A horrified look began to creep across her face. This couldn't be; this couldn't be. Mimi Prosper stepped back into the bathroom and looked again at the slightly bruised buttocks and red-rimmed anus of the boy on the floor now puking a second time. She looked back at her son, her precious and only son; that was when she noticed the scratches on his chest from when Nathan had ripped off his T-shirt. But with everything else she had seen, it just looked like the smaller boy had been struggling. She looked truly horrified and met her son's bewildered stare. She threw her hand up to her mouth and looked like she was about to cry. Now, SHE felt like throwing up. Zeke took this in, bewildered at first, but becoming alarmed, rapidly, at the still unknown reason for his mom's sudden shift in appearance from concerned to very much upset and disgusted. He followed with his eyes from Nathan with his hickies and slightly roughened body from the wild sex that they had had, to the torn up room and back to Nathan, realizing suddenly that she must have seen the same reddening slight puffiness around the anus that he had been worried about, although worried for an entirely different reason. He then looked down at his chest and remembered the scratches, the scratches that he had completely forgotten about but that she very clearly had seen. He looked back up into his mother's eyes. He was alarmed and surprised, and she was angry and disgusted. "No, mom, no . . . . you don't understand." "How COULD you???" "Mom, no, it wasn't what you think, honest. . . . " "Jacob Calloway Prosper, my only son, how could you do this??!!!" She practically screamed, very upset now. "Mom, you don't understand!" "Get OUT of my SIGHT!! GO in your room, and DON'T come OUT until I tell YOU!!!" Now wasn't the time to argue or debate anything. Ezekiel was scared she might hit him or throw something at him she looked so angry. He grasped the washcloth around his genitals and made a run for his room, trying to keep his backside away from her. Mimi very quickly ran over to Nathan and helped him up and wiped his face. Nathan didn't know what the screaming was about, but it couldn't be good. It sounded like she had figured out that they were having sex, except that he had been so distracted by the taste of vile acrid vomit in his mouth, by his burning throat near the back of the same mouth, and by the fear of what might come up again, that he didn't catch that the drift she was on was totally the wrong drift about what had happened. "Nathan, sweetie, put this on, quickly, and come with me," she said as she grabbed Zeke's seldom used bathrobe and put it around the boy, ushering him from the room, yelling back to a very scared and shocked Zeke over her shoulder, "And don't you DARE move from this room until I or your father -- or someone else! - comes and gets you!!" His father. Oh shit. This was bad. What the hell just happened?? Ezekiel Prosper stood in the center of his partially torn up room clasping a wet ragged washcloth about his now shriveled nuts and completely deflated penis. He didn't know what he was supposed to do next. "I just can't believe that Zeke would do something like that, Mimi. I mean . . . . good grief, we're talking about Ezekiel here!" "I know who we are talking about, Jacob. Did you think I would forget who he was? Hmmmm? Did you somehow think I would forget this is about my own son??" "Maybe they were just wrestling . . . and . . . . things . . . . got out of hand . . . but still just wrestling out of hand sort . . . ." "Did what I described to you sound like `wrestling,' Jacob??" "No . . . .but it doesn't sound like Zeke, either!!" "I know. . . . . .I know . . . . . but go in there and look at the injuries on that boy. Look at his --" Jacob held out his palms to stop her right there. "I am not going turn some boy over, that's not even my son, and look inside his most private area." "Are you saying I imagined it??" He looked at Mimi with her arms crossed. No he didn't believe she imagined it, and he too could think of only one possible answer. But he hated that answer and didn't want to believe it, so he very much DID want to say that she imagined it. But he was afraid of her as well; the stance she was in signaled `don't cross me' more than it ever had before in their married life. "No . . . . no, I don't think you imagined it." He looked dejected, like he had suddenly lost all his energy. His son could NOT do something like this. Could he? "Oh, why did it have to be Tamara's kid?" He didn't realize that last part came out loud. "Tamara?" His wife asked, catching the very personal concern in Jacob's voice. "Yes, uh, that's Nathan's mom's name. Um, I . . . . . " "You know her?" "Uh . . . didn't I say that before? From, um, work." "Mhmm. That wasn't a `from-work' moan of her name, Jacob." "Um, don't we have more important things to fight about right now?" "Yes. You're right. But don't think we won't be revisiting this later." She turned her back on him and looked at the door into the kitchen, where they had parked a very nervous Nathan at the breakfast table. "Maybe there is something else to this. I don't see how, but let's both go talk with Nathan, and then we'll call Zeke down here." They tried talking to Nathan, but the boy was so nervous about what they did or didn't know and so much wanting to protect Zeke, that his rambled assurances that he was all right and that nothing had happened and that Zeke was the greatest person, sounded more like the ramblings of a person in fear from further abuse, or from the fallout of it. Unfortunately, it did nothing to help alleviate the deepest fear of Mr. and Mrs. Prosper, no matter how natural Nathan tried to make his forced smile. "I want you to know, Nathan, that no one is mad at you; we know what happened," Jacob Prosper tried to say with concern in his voice. "You aren't?" "Oh, you poor boy, why would we be?" Mimi asked. "But why would you be mad at Zeke? Cause he's your son?" "What Zeke did was wrong, Nathan. It's OK for you to say that." "Uh . . . Mr. and Mrs. Prosper . . . . . . what, uhm, what exactly is it you think he, I mean, uh, we . . . . did?" Mimi and Jacob looked at each other, each uncertain of how to proceed It was about this point Zeke stepped into the kitchen and answered the question for them, "They think I raped you." Everyone was a bit startled, both by the sudden appearance of the boy and his casual mentioning of the shocking concern his parents had. "You mean . . . . .? " Nathan started, shocked even further. Zeke sat down at the only chair left, facing his mom and dad at one end, and with Nathan on his right, sitting, now confused, at the out-of-time-and-place breakfast table. Zeke was dressed in pajama bottoms, now, with a plain white T-shirt and his hair somewhat wetted and combed. "I didn't do anything like that." He stated simply, not looking directly at his parents and feeling somewhere between ashamed and angry. "We were just . . . playin' real rough." "You see," Jacob said happily, pleased that all that uncomfortable nonsense was put to rest, although conveniently ignoring the obvious evidence to the contrary. Mimi looked at her husband hard for a moment and returned to question her son. "I know what I saw Ezekial Prosper. You had something greasy on your penis and the same thing was around that poor boy's . . . . anus! I know you were forcing your sex into him." Nathan was a bit alarmed and had no idea how he should join in the `discussion,' but Ezekiel just looked disgusted. He still wouldn't look at his parents, and instead just examined his hands on the table before him, his nose curling up at the edge to show just how revolting he found the notion of his abusing Nathan, or anyone to be. "Fine. We had sex. So what? But I didn't force Nathan to do anything." "You . . . . . . had sex?" His father was no longer thinking about rape concerns, but instead was just floored by the admission of his only son that he had had sex with another boy. And that it was no big deal. It wasn't just that Ezekiel was still only 12, but . . . . . . another boy??? "Ezekiel," his mother started back, basically ignoring her husband, Jacob's, ineffectual lack of contribution to the fact finding needs. "It didn't look very consensual. It looks like Nathan was forced . . . " Again she saw that look of repugnance roll across his facial features -- something like that couldn't be fixed. "I told you, we BOTH just got a little too rough. We've . . . . . had . . . . . well, done . . . . .this stuff before. Just never this hard." Ezekiel's voice had trailed off, and he began to even more minutely examine his hands. He looked for all the world like any other rugged 12 year old boy facing the regular issues of growing up, perhaps a bit indignant at the moment, but not like a child professing to his parents his early and somewhat forceful entry into the world of sex, especially with another boy. Jacob Prosper's mind was blown. He was watching his son, his only offspring, the one that was so well rounded with school, sports, friends and everything a father wanted his only son to be. He figured that Ezekiel, being so active, popular, and ruggedly handsome, would have an early entry into sex, perhaps tagging his first girl at the age of 15, requiring that father/son condom talk maybe even at 14. But this . . . . . This he couldn't fathom. Ezekiel gave a quick look up at his father before returning his concentration to something going on with his thumbnail. That brief look was a searching one, an inquisitive one, even a worried one, but it only appeared for all the world to be a blank look up of a stubborn boy that seemed unwilling to admit or discuss anything. And yet he had so calmly dropped this huge bombshell. "Ezekiel . . . . . ." His mom started, wanting to believe him, but just as shocked, though she couldn't admit or even understand it at this point, as his father was. "From what I saw . . . . . . . and Nathan being so scared to even talk about it . . . . . . how do you explain how worried and nervous he is?" Ezekiel gave the same look to Nathan that he had his father, biting the previously examined thumbnail in the process, except that he regarded Nathan for 6 whole seconds before he returned to examining his fingernails. He answered his mom, but his voice was matter of fact and devoid of any specific emotion. "He's just scared of it being his fault if I get in trouble." "Nathan, sweetie, you don't have to be worried about anything," Mrs. Prosper said, patting the boy's nervous hands. "You didn't do anything wrong." "I didn't do anything wrong, either," Ezekiel said, with an angry twisting of his face finally more fully betraying his emotions. "And how am I supposed to know that, Ezek-" "BECAUSE I'M YOUR SON!!!!" Ezekiel shouted, finally looking straight at his mom, finally losing control of the false calm that was on his exterior. It hadn't been through any will of his own that the calm had been there to start with. It was more of a shock, and a confusion of how to handle the sudden flux of anger and embarrassment that had flooded his consciousness the moment his mom figured some things out. The moment that she had at least figured out that they had had sex. Everyone at the table was taken a back, but the emotion that poured out of Zeke couldn't be stopped, at least not without some extreme effort on his own part, and not before he loudly and angrily yelled out further: "I wouldn't do that! Not to Nathan, not to anybody!!!" "Ezekiel," his mom started, though now not so sure of herself. "I . . . . how would I . . . . I wouldn't want to believe you could . . . . but . . . ." "It's horrid!!" The boy bellowed. "For somebody to do something like that." Jacob Prosper furrowed his brows, forgetting for a moment that they were talking about his only and cherished son having sex, actual sex, with another boy. There was something else here, something behind this emotion. Something they were missing. "I believe you, Ezekiel, we believe you, OK? Nathan, is this true? Did you want to do all these things?" Nathan just nodded his head, but unfortunately still looked frightened. "I don't like this, Jacob, and I don't just mean the fact they are having sex way too young. Something else is going on here that we aren't being told." Mimi stated, looking from one boy to the next. Nathan would look at them, but his face was blank with . . . . fear? Concern? Bewilderment? Something. Ezekiel just went back to examining his clasped hands. "I told you, I wouldn't do something like that," he muttered angrily. "Ezekiel . . . . try to understand . . . ." "I told you . . . ." "Well, you'll have to do better. There's more to the story and we want to know what it is." "I . . . . . . wouldn't . . . . . do . . . . . that!" The boy said, biting off each word and clenching his hands harder in anger. Now Nathan was looking at the same pair of hands, but no longer in his bewildered shock, but now out of concern for Zeke. Something in the boy looked like it was about to explode. His father was looking at the boy with growing concern. He was now certain that something horrible had happened, and he was just as certain that it had nothing to do with his son's relationship to this son of his own former love interest. It was something else much more sinister. But his wife was still on the tack of the superficial problem at hand. "Ezekiel, I do want to believe you, but how would I know this, besides the fact that you're my son . . . ." "Because I know what it feels like!!" Zeke finally burst out again, looking directly at his mother, "I know how much it hurts, how embarrassing and humiliating, how . . . . . " He stopped mid sentence. There was an absolute quiet at the table as everyone came to the realization at the same time of what had been just said. But it couldn't be reeled back in. It couldn't be backtracked. Not something like that. Ezekiel's mouth dropped in disbelief that he had actually come out and said it. He knew he couldn't unsay it, and he was searching the expression of his parents to see if they had really caught it, if they had grasped the import of what he had spilled. Nathan was just as shocked, but he still no more knew what he should do or say than he had the whole time he had been down there. He was still only in a bathrobe, but he suddenly wanted to be fully dressed and headed out the door and into the waiting car of his own dad and home to his refuge of acceptance. But it was 2 in the morning and he wasn't going anywhere. Jacob and Mimi were equally shocked. How had something like this happened to their son. THEIR son??? How did they miss it?? "Who . . . . . ." his mom began, but she couldn't get the words out of her suddenly dry mouth. "Oh my g----; it wasn't your Uncle Matty, was it?" Zeke just looked down at the table. He frowned and shook his head. He wanted to pull that admission back in, but he knew he couldn't. And they weren't going to let it go until he told them what had happened. He took a deep breath and called up more courage than he ever had in his life, and more than any 12 year old boy ever should have to, and decided to just tell them. "It was Randy." He said flatly. "Randy!" Both his parents exclaimed in surprise. "yeah." The boy's voice was flat, and it took another deep breath to get it out what he needed to say -- not wanted, but only needed. "Randy was making me . . . . . do sex stuff for him . . . . . for a few months." His parents may have been in more shock now than they had when they were first confronted with the now fading possibility that Ezekiel had abused Nathan. "Son, were you, or are you still, mixed up in all those drugs? Is this how Randy . . . . . made you . . . . . do things?" His dad asked, half disgusted at the thoughts of what `things' would mean, and half outraged that anyone had hurt his son. But if drugs were involved, then there was still a real chance that his son could still be at risk. "And what about you, Nathan, are you involved in these drugs, too?" Nathan screwed his own face up in disgust and vehemently shook his head no. He wouldn't know where to find drugs if he wanted them, and why on earth would he want them? "No, dad," Zeke said, casting another brief glance at Nathan to see how he was doing, "there was never any drugs." "But Jackson sent Randy to a drug rehabilitation center -- a long term center." His mom asked, confused now on the point of drugs or no drugs. "No, mom, Mr. West just said he was sending Randy there; just to protect me, so everyone wouldn't guess that it was me Randy was doing stuff to. He's really at some psych-something place, Mr. West said. It's a long word, or words, but he cant come out til they say he's ready, and then he'll have to go on some voluntary probation, or something like that." "Then how did he make you do these things son? You could have easily taken Randy out!" "Jacob, we have never encouraged Ezekiel to use violence to solve his problems!" "Well, I sure as hell would, Mimi, if it meant he was going to be raped . . . . . or . . . . . whatever it was that happened." Somewhere deeper inside Jacob, he was hoping this was only about forced handjobs or something less subjugating or humiliating like his only boy bending over to be used by another boy. The very possible thought sent a shiver of disgust down his spine. "I only meant," his mother said more calmly, "is that he should have come to us first, before this escalated. I mean there had to be something that happened before. What happened that Randy could have . . . . abused you . . . . like this. Ezekiel?" Zeke gave one quick glance over at Nathan and then went back to staring at his hands, again examining the cuticle of his thumb in minute detail. He took a while to answer, but you could tell he had heard the question and was turning over chaotic thoughts in his mind, debating the merits of silence and containing the humiliation versus speaking and risking the unknown. "Randy saw me getting . . . . . um, . . . . . fucked," Zeke struggled with saying that word in front of his parents, but he didn't know any other way to say it, "and uh, he told me one day he had pictures, and if I didn't let him do the same thing that he would show all the guys at school. I didn't want everybody knowin' about it, so I let him." His admission was only met by shocked silence. There were so many starting places of confusion that his parents were still lost as to where to be lost. "I hated it," Zeke continued, still not looking at anyone. He wiped a big rolling tear off his right cheek, but his anger at Randy flared back up and prevented any more tears from forming. "But I thought I was stuck. By the time I figured out he never had any pictures, well by then he had made some secret movies that made it look like I wanted him doing stuff. And then he just kept doing more and more." His mother was pale with the shock and disappointment of what had happened to her baby, how she could have missed such a thing, and how his own best friend could be so heinous and horrible to him. Her poor baby!! If she wasn't in such shock, still, she would be crying profusely. "Eventually, he made me . . . . ." Zeke screwed up his face in disgust at what his memories dredged up next, ". . . . . put it . . . . his thing . . . . . in my mouth . . . . . and . . . . . . . ." But he was done; he couldn't continue. In fact, shock was the only thing so far that had allowed any of them to discuss this with such low emotion. "That's why you were so moody and angry, recently . . . . ." His dad said quietly. Zeke just nodded a couple times, but just as quickly looked somewhat unconcerned as to that part of the whole matter and now just stared at the table in front of his hands. All that could be seen on his face was a slight frown and a silent, seeming affect of non-participation. "How the hell did we miss that?" His dad added, still quiet and in some disbelief that he had seemingly failed so miserably as a parent. Ezekiel had no response; he wasn't so sure that there was something that they should have caught, or how he would have reacted and/or lied if they had at the time. Jacob and Mimi silently grasped hands and shared the unspoken sentiment that each held that they had indeed failed their son. "What about the first boy?" His dad asked, "The one Randy said he saw you . . . . uh . . . . with. How did he make you . . . . . . um . . . . ." Jacob just couldn't bring himself to end the sentence. Fortunately Zeke wasn't going to force him to end it. Zeke still couldn't look at his dad, but he shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know. His name's Ian, and he's even younger than me. He just . . . . I don't know . . . . . . kinda talked me into trying stuff." "He talked you into it?" "I don't know what to tell you, dad. Yeah, he kinda just talked me into it. I don't know how. I mean, later I wished I didn't, not cause of Randy, but I really don't like that Ian kid. I don't how he did it. I guess I always kinda wanted to know, maybe, about just foolin round with another boy, and . . . . . and . . . it . . . . . felt kinda . . . .good. I guess." "It felt . . . . . good?" "Yeah, dad, I liked it, all right?" Now some emotion and anger was being heard coming out of Ezekiel again and he actually looked up at his dad. "I mean, I didn't like it was Ian, and I certainly hated it was Randy, but it partly felt . . . . . I mean . . . . . . I . . . . like it." His father looked at his own son in disbelief. It wasn't disgust. Even though he found the idea of two guys having sex to be repulsive, he loved his son too much to ever actually look at him with disgust. But it was certainly disbelief. It couldn't be his son saying this. This certainly could not be right. "Ezekiel . . . . . son . . . . . are you . . . . .telling us . . . . . that you think you're gay?" Both his parents stared at him, unable to breathe, waiting for his answer. "What??" Ezekiel's expression screwed up into the typical adolescent look of are-you-even-on-planet-earth that is often cast toward parents. "No!" "But . . . . " His dad was a little lost. He was very thankful to hear his son say, more or less, that he wasn't gay, but something didn't fully add up. "You said . . . . . . that you like it. This, um, interaction with other boys." "Sex, Jacob, it's called sex," Mimi said, getting frustrated at not getting down to brass tacks. "For goodness sake, we aren't in a high level meeting with the mayor." "Well, I'm sorry, Mimi," Jacob responded to his wife with in a slightly sarcastic tone, "if this is a little bit difficult for me to understand, especially so soon after the bombshell of an admission we just got, and on top of that someone was hurting my son." "He's my son, too. You aren't the only one trying to grapple with all of this." "Well I guess you have more experience in dealing with this situation, then?" "Like you do? Don't tell me anything like this has ever come up in any of your power meetings." The arguing went on between them, with Nathan looking on in a very tired amazement. Zeke looked over at Nate with a shrug of his shoulders and a slight movement of his hands, to suggest that he too was bewildered some by this reaction. "Can we go, now?" Ezekiel asked his parents, who seemed to have quite forgotten the boys were there. They broke off their argument to say "No!" at the same time, the only thing they had agreed upon since first holding hands in concern of their failure as parents. "I want to know how Jackson West found out about this and we didn't," his mom suddenly asked him, and somewhat angrily, too. So Ezekiel went into the whole story about Randy telling him to come over that night and then forcing him to do things with him and telling his cousin Todd that Zeke did this stuff cause he wanted to. Then Randy made him pretend to want to do stuff with Todd, and also he ended up doing stuff with Todd's little brother Chad, who had figured out what was going on. "Todd West, Andrew's boy?" Jacob asked. "That's why you were rude to him when he came over!" His mom suddenly said. "Oh sweetie, I'm so sorry I got on to you!" Ezekiel just shrugged and said it was OK. "Anyways, Todd didn't know what Randy was doing. I think he was really sorry about it, and not just cause his uncle beat his butt later." "Where were Jackson and Sheila during all of this?" "They went out and left Todd's dad in charge. Only he got drunk and just let everything happen. Randy's little brother, Mark, found out about it all and got real mad. The next day he called his dad at work and told him to come home and then showed him all the pictures and movies Randy made. When I went over there later, I was trying to tell Randy no more, at least, that's what I wanted to do. But that's when I found out Mr. West knew. He sent his brother, Todd's dad, to rehab and said if he didn't completely clean up he would tell the police that he knew what was going on but didn't stop it; and then later he sent Randy away. And I got whipped for not telling anybody anything to start with." He took a deep breath and told his parents that that was about all. They still had a few clarification questions before Mimi Prosper looked over and finally remembered Nathan, who at some point in Ezekiel's story had gone to sleep. "So where does Nathan come into all this, Ezekiel?" "He knows Ian's bother, well one of his brothers. The cool brother, at least. I, um, . . . . ." he almost said that he walked in on Nathan and Duncan having fun of their own together, but there was such a thing as too much truth. "Um, anyway, I figured out that Nathan was gay, so I tried some stuff with him." "And?" his mom asked. It certainly wasn't going to be his dad asking. A very large part of Jacob still didn't want to admit this was happening, and most of him certainly didn't want the details. "And," Ezekiel shrugged, though still not looking at his parents, "and we did some sex stuff, and . . . . . I . . . . liked it. A lot." "Of course you did, Ezekiel, sex can be very physically gratifying, almost with anybody, but that doesn't mean you should be doing it!" "Yes . . . .," his dad said dumbly, feeling so far out of his element. "What she said." "Why not?" he asked. "Well, it's, uh, complicated, Ezekiel, and , um . . . . maybe we should have that part of the discussion later, when we are all more awake and a little less in shock." "Yes." Again, it was all his dad could say at the moment. "Don't worry;" Ezekiel said, rolling his eyes. "I'm not gay. Nate is, and I really like him, but I think I like girls more. In fact, I'm pretty sure I like them whole lot more -- just maybe later." "Ezekiel, it doesn't matter whether or not you are gay!" "Well," his dad began, seeming to wake up a little from his information overload., "I don't know if I would . . . . .uh . . . go THAT far." "We just want you to be safe, And while you may think that that means no sex with anyone more than a year or so older or younger than you, what it means to us is no sex at all right now. It doesn't matter if it's with a boy or girl." "What??" "No arguing," his mother said. "I think we all need some sleep before we discuss this anymore." "No, wait . . ." "Your mother's right, Ezekiel," his dad put in. "You are too young for this. And we will discuss it more tomorrow. I'll also be talking with Jackson some tomorrow after work." "I think that's a good idea, except WE will BOTH be talking to Jackson AND Sheila later today, and we aren't waiting for you to get off work." "Wait, you can't . . . . ." "Ezekiel, we're your parents. This is something the parents very much need to discuss. And maybe it would be best if you slept in different rooms for the rest of the night, or . . . . . morning." "Ah, mom . . . . . don't start doing that . . . . ." "I, um, am not so keen on separating him out from his friends. He doesn't have the plague after all," his father said uneasily. It sounded magnanimous, but in truth he was more worried that keeping his son separate from other boys or even watching him suspiciously after this, would only be proof that they thought he COULD be gay, which wasn't something his dad could quite come to terms with yet, if ever. "But I do think it would be best if you can promise that everyone will keep their clothes on for the rest of the day?" "Dad-" "I mean it, Ezekiel. Fully clothed, as appropriate. That means tops and bottoms to the pajamas, with underwear." "Yes, sir," came the surprisingly sulky response. "And no touching each other's genitals. Can you promise me that?" Zeke turned a bright shade of red. It wasn't a request he had ever imagined hearing from his dad concerning one of his friends sleeping over. "Yes, sir; I promise." After rousing a now sleepy Nathan and assuring him that everything was fine for now, Zeke got the both of them back up to his room. He thought he would spend about half an hour trying to straighten up the mess of his room, simply because his mind was too buzzed to go back to sleep. Nathan started to help, but he was too tired. It was better that way, Zeke thought - once he got the boy dressed in pajamas and off to sleep - because Zeke needed time to think. It wasn't just the long late night conversation and confession that had taken the sleep out of him, or even the delayed shock -- which he was definitely feeling some of it now, as his heart would intermittently race, worries increased, and some light-headedness at the fear of it would appear and disappear quickly -- of just knowing that his parents had not only caught him naked with a boy, but actually knew that had been having sex. Those things were worrisome and troublesome enough. But now he had to think, did he really mean what he said downstairs? How much did he like Nathan? Where, honestly, could this really go? And could he handle the downstream effects of these decisions? The only thing clear in his head right now were the only answers to those questions: 1) he wasn't sure, 2) maybe somewhere for a while, but probably nowhere eventually, and 3) no. It left him with a lot to think about. You would think the first and last question would occupy the mind of a 12 year old the most, but there you would be wrong, because the second question depended on where `somewhere' went and where `nowhere' let out, and of course, what the ride was like. It was a troublesome chasm of questions that kept him up another 2 hours. In the morning, he was saved from having to deal with the fallout with a now awake Nathan by his parents. His mother, especially, did not leave the two of them alone after waking them separately to get dressed for the day. Zeke never thought he would be so thankful for being pestered and watched over. Even if it was going to grow old rather quickly, at least he could postpone any discussion with Nathan. By the afternoon, Nathan was gone, and Ezekiel was restless to get out of the house. `It was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness' 10:15 am the unincorporated area of Indian Spring Kelley got out the basketball and they went around to the small dirt court his dad had made for them on the side of the house, under the shadow of a massive oak. Kelley asked Malcolm if he had had fun with Duncan when they left yesterday. Malcolm said he had enjoyed going back to the Cormacks, but was nervous when Duncan, Ian, and Joey Vargas were talking about going swimming. He hadn't been sure of himself yet to go down to the main spot where all the other boys usually went. Instead they took him in an opposite direction, almost like they were going toward the back of Sweetwater. The Cormacks took him to another swimming hole, somewhere between the Mackey sections of the creek and the Near sections. It was just the four of them, and after some initial awkward sorting out of where Malcolm's real interests lay and where he was just drowning in the newness of social togetherness, they played in the Crazy Indian. Wholesome guilt-free play. Maybe it should all be guilt-free, maybe there was a problem with the label of `wholesome'. All Malcolm knew was that he was starting to feel whole. And Kelley could sense the change. Kelley smiled. He himself felt good about what Malcolm was experiencing. It felt good to have at least one good decision for the week in his stead. "What's the smile about?" Malcolm asked, shooting a basket. "Nothing. Just . . . . sometimes it's good to know you have something good in your pocket." "Oh? You got some surprise move up your sleeve, Tucker?" Malcolm smiled back, thinking Kelley was referring to the one-on-one basketball and having fun talking some smack. "Because so far I haven't seen anything to justify that awe they have of you on the court." "Oh it's not me. It's never me. It's the team. Always the team." "The teams you pick? Have you ever been Team Captain of a game and lost?" Kelley just shrugged and shot the ball. It missed. "Well, one of them must have lost if you were playing on it," Malcolm said as he rebounded the ball, and both boys laughed. The carefree banter continued as the boys played basketball one on one, but really more of a taking turns shooting with an occasional one-on-one hustle. And Kelley continued feeling Malcolm out slowly, seeing where he was mentally and emotionally, how comfortable he was with the recent change in his life. And what he decided was that he was a good enough spot for Kelley to push their friendship further. As Kelley lined up a shot and launched the ball, he asked the lanky boy, "What really happened to your mother?" "I told you," came a stiff reply. He had told Kelley that his mom died in a car wreck. "I told you the last time I came over here." "I know what you told me," Kelley launched the ball to the goal, "But you lied." The ball hit the backboard and bounced toward Malcolm who deftly plucked it from the air. He was about to send a rebound jump shot in when his whole demeanor became more grounded. He was quiet and studied the grooves in the ball for a while before he said anything. "She left." He said quietly. He continued to examine the ball, though for what, didn't matter. "She just left us. That's what happened. She aban- . . . . . . . just . . . . . just abandoned us. My dad started drinking, and . . . . .and she never came back. My dad never really did either." At this point the tears were flowing from him, but he was still holding incredible pain inside. "Happy?" Malcolm sobbed, challenging Kelley with a raised voice. "Am I telling the truth now?" "Yeah," Kelley said quietly, "Now you are." Malcolm hurled the ball in anger into the side of the house, about 15 feet farther off the makeshift court and left. Kelley called out to him, "I'm not going anywhere. Just remember, I'm still here!" He waited for the ball to roll back to him and continued shooting baskets on his own. He continued on for another 20 minutes without letting anything else build up in his head. He need to clear some space in the clutter of questions that his actions had created over the last couple of weeks. Eliminate some things, change some things, solve some things, and just plain move beyond some things. But first, he decided to concentrate on his shooting. As Kelley played on his own, he watched himself as he jumped and moved; he never realized before just how many baskets he missed. "Geez, I'm terrible." "Yeah, you are." Kelley spun around startled. He had been so focused in his zone that he didn't hear the boy approach. "Hey. You're back." "Yeah. I figured if I didn't come back then you would never get the ball in that basket. Probably be out here all week just trying to do it." "Ha ha, real funny." Kelley passed the ball back to Malcolm who jumped and sunk it with nothing but net. Nothing was said about his reddened eyes. "I didn't mean to startle you," Malcolm said. "I wouldn't think anybody could sneak up on you. Thought maybe your Spidey sense would be tingling or something." Kelley laughed, and missed another basket, and then frowned. "No, I was just wondering when I became so bad. I usually do pretty good in a game." "I've got an idea." "What?" "Maybe you're good in a game because you're surrounded by people. You know, you can sense their energy, whether they're gonna fake or not, doubts, confidences, who's weak and who's strong, and even what they think of you, what you can do and what you can't. And maybe you use all this stuff in your head without thinking about it. Maybe you just go on thinking that it's instinct that helps you move around the court and support your team. Maybe all that helps compensate for the fact you shoot like crap." "I don't shoot like crap! And anyway, why would you even think all that?' "I overheard you talking to your mom about your gift." Kelley froze in mid shot when he heard this, but he still sank the shot. "Uh, you know, you shouldn't eavesdrop." "I know, sorry. Kind of an old habit. I'm pretty good at it." "Well, funny thing about eavesdropping, you hear just bits and pieces that you can put together into all kinds of crazy things." "Yeah, well, funny thing about always being ignored, you hear and see lots more than bits and pieces and crazy things. Just sometimes you don't always put it together." "Like what?" "Like how you've never lost a single game if you got to pick the team. In any sport." "That's just something crazy you overheard at the basketball game earlier this week, I'm sure." "No, I've seen it. I also know how you cleaned up at a poker game in Deep Mackey last month and no one could bluff you. And you was playing against guys five years or more older than you, at least after the guys near our age dropped out. Or how you never fall for pranks. And how Carl and Steve, the eighth grade bullies last spring at that school we gotta go to now, failed three times playing keepaway from a kid every time you walked up. You seemed to be able to guess any fake they were going to make." Kelley didn't comment, but made another shot that sank right in where he wanted it. "Or when you were in Jamison's Dry Goods with your dad two months ago and that kid tried to leave and you asked him if he was gonna pay for the stuff he had in his pockets." "I remember that. Mr. Jamison is a friend of my dad's. My dad had told me he was barely making it on the mortgage for the store and the employees' salaries. He was almost gonna lose his store. So it made me angry that that kid was stealing from him. But how did you know about that?" Malcolm blushed and answered. "I, uh, I was there too, doing the same thing as Derrick." "You knew him?" "Sort of, we were starting to hang out, nobody here would, but after he got pinched his parents put him in this military reform place, and I didn't see him again." "Oh. Well, that was probably good for you." "Yeah, now I see it was. Oh, and I never ended up taking nothing from the store. But, uh, only cause I was afraid you'd say something. I don't think I even been back there after that." "Well, I'm glad, because Mr. Jamison is really nice. But Malcolm, all those things you think you've seen, none of it really means anything." "All right, well I believe it, even if you and your mom don't. I've noticed things about the Cormacks, too. I got some theories about some of them. But I think I probably shouldn't say." "No, I guess not." "I would never say anything about you to anybody, Kelley." "I know you wouldn't." "You can look and see it's true?" It was really more of a statement than a question, but the red-haired boy was looking for confirmation. Kelley paused before answering. Should he give credence to Malcolm's fairly accurate assessment or shrug it off? His dad said gifts sometimes work best when the fruits are shared but not the methods. He believed he could trust this Malcolm . . . . . . . But he still didn't know if he should let him in that far. Kelley bounced the ball for a little while, before looking up at his new friend. He still didn't look inside the boy's heart and soul to see if there was truth there. He already knew the answer to that. Screw it. "I don't always look inside, Malcolm," Kelley said, going with the lending of credence, "sometimes you should just rely on faith." With that Kelley popped the ball over his back toward the goal without even looking, and Malcolm watched it arc downward. "Whoosh." No rim, no backboard. "Wow, that was amazing." Malcolm said, stunned. "Really?" Kelley asked, turning around. "Yeah, I mean, you weren't even remotely close. That ball never got closer than 20 feet to the rim. You really do suck. You know, no pun intended." Malcolm smiled slyly at the last statement. Kelley couldn't help but smile -- and flip the boy off -- as he went after the wild ball and yelled over his shoulder. "Yeah, well it would have made a really nice effect if it had gone in." He threw the ball back in, and Malcolm laughed and caught the ball and sank a three pointer. "What do you see inside me, Kelley?" "Malcolm, it really doesn't work like that, I don't so much see things as I just sense deception, hidden reasons, diversions, uncertainty, nervousness, things like that." "I bet it's more." "With some people." "Like me." Kelley made the next two shots without answering, both of them going in the basket. "Sounds like maybe you have something of the same gift." "Just used to watching people. It's all I've ever done." Kelley nodded and answered Malcolm's earlier question. "I see a friend." Malcolm had the ball and dribbled it in and went for a lay up, but never saw Kelley come in and steal the ball. Malcolm tried to guard and prevent Kelley from getting a shot; but Kelley simply twisted right through him and angled the ball up so that the spin launched it off the backboard and onto the rim, and it ran around once before falling into the basket. "You're right. I am better against people." Kelley smiled. "I let you have that." "You're lying," Kelley said simply. "You didn't see it coming or happening." Malcolm frowned briefly, and then smiled. "I thought you didn't always look." "I don't. What makes you think I was?" Malcolm dribbled the ball a little and then looked up at him, "You don't have to look, do you?" Kelley reached another point of debate. How much should he tell the boy? "I'm not psychic, Malcolm; it's just . . . .well, if you believe Duncan's grandma, then . . . . nobody can deceive me, supposedly passively or actively. And I think, as I'm growing up, that I'm starting to believe it too. I just . . . . get these feelings. Maybe it will be my downfall believing that, but I do. And with some people, if I even bother to look, I feel like I can see more. Like . . . . almost what their soul is trying to say. And that can't deceive me either. I guess the big question really is, can I deceive myself?" Malcolm just held the ball and regarded his friend. "Wow, that's a lot. What do other people say about all that?" "Aside from my mom and dad? Well . . . .actually I've never discussed it with anyone ever before. Can't see me doing it again, either." "Oh. Sorry." "Don't be, Malcolm. You aren't the reason I'll never discuss it again. You're the reason I bothered to this time." The boys stared at each other for a while, and Malcolm slowly smiled, and yes, he even blushed a little. "Tell me Kelley, what did you see when you looked at me? Back up at the picnic place, last week. You saw something. You looked at me different then." "Before, once I bothered to open my eyes, I . . . . Malcolm are you sure?" The boy nodded his head. "I saw . . . . . pain. A lot of pain. Loneliness. Hurt. Anger. And something else that I don't really know what to call it. It was like there was no hope, except you had this small protected ball of hope inside but all around it was just swirling . . . . darkness . . . . . like . . . giving up; and that ball . . . . . . . it, uh . . . . . . well, it was, uh, fading out. Like it was going to disappear -- forever." `Despair' was the word that Kelley didn't know, and even as he described it, Malcolm felt the clutches of its painful raking grip on the edges of his heart, and he suddenly gripped his chest tightly in response. "Malcolm! Are you all right?" "Yeah, yeah," He had never realized how much it had hurt, though he knew how close he had been to getting rid of it forever. That was the day that Kelley had encountered him up at the public park at the headspring of the Crazy Indian. Something about his interaction with Kelley that day sparked his hope to hold out a little bit longer. He didn't know for what, but something flickered that kept the despair at bay for just a little while longer. And then the day he got the blow job from Kelley came, and it wasn't just the remarkable flow of sexual euphoria and the endorphins of orgasm that washed through him, but life itself. Something fanned the hope within, the drying kernel of love, the withered trust to reach out, one more time and hope without realizing that someone would see the pain and wash it away. "Kelley, please, tell me what you see now." "Don't you feel it?" Kelley smiled. "Light." "From what," as he felt the pain numbing and receding. "Faith, hope, love, everything my parents always told me what drove life itself. I see an immense amount of love, but . . . . " "But what?" "You still have some of it . . . . it's hard to describe . . . . some of that love is, um . . . caged." "Oh. Can you . . . see . . . anything else?" "Um," Kelley stared hard into the center of the boy's chest, even Malcolm glanced down to see if there was something obvious there. Kelley's eyebrows shout up in surprise as he seemed to look deeper. "What?? What is it?" Malcolm asked in a worried voice. "Wow . . . .uh . . . Malcolm . . . you, um . . ." "What?!" "You're . . . . . gay!" "WHAT?? No I am NOT!" Kelley bellowed out a laugh and kept going. Malcolm realized that he had been tricked on the last part and smiled, trying not to laugh himself. He made like he was going throw the ball right at his laughing friend. "Fucker!" Malcolm said laughing. But at that point, he remembered something else he had noticed about Kelley. The boy never flinched. If you actually threw the ball at him he would catch it or duck, but if you tried to fake him out, he wouldn't flinch. It was one of the first things he had ever noticed about the boy long ago, and why he had had an innate fear of him back when he was a bully loner. Kelley never ever flinched. Even a little. But that lonesome life of observation was over; at least he was relishing the thought that it definitely could be over. Malcolm was seeing Life for the first time since he was four. True there were the glimpses of it through the years that had kept him holding on, holding on perpetually to a lifeboat that seemed to take no notice that he was there. But some reason, now, after all this time, he was being pulled into the boat. If Malcolm could have been gay, he knew that he would be in love, or at least what little he understood as love. Instead he was just thankful for the tough kid that had been his unspoken, unrecognized salvation, Between Kelley and Duncan, he now had Hope. And it was almost another decade before he told anyone just how very close he had been to walking out of life forever when he ran into Kelley, Cole, and Ethan out at the picnic site. He had already seen his last sunset the day before. His plans that day hadn't included another one. But now he could live; he was still shaky on it, but he felt sure of it. There was just this one dark week ahead of him he had to get through. But he had hope now. He even extended that hope to his Aunt possibly keeping her promise this time that she would take him to her home for the weekend, so he wouldn't have to spend it alone, with a drunk dad who was getting worse by the day. It wouldn't come to pass. But it was still Hope.