Date: Sat, 07 Nov 1998 13:54:27 -0500
From: Charlie <charlieje@mindspring.com>
Subject: Kenny, Part 5

 This is a story about a love between two young boys. The usual disclaimers
apply: If you are under the age of 18, or reading such material is illegal
in your jurisdiction, then please leave this story unread now.  There are
within the story explicit descriptions of sex between boys, but that is not
the main theme; so if your thing is reading stories that are purely sex in
nature then this story will probably not be to your liking.
 
 The story is made up of both fact and fantasy. The people herein are real,
but their names have been changed. The rest of the story, as I said, is a
mixture of fact and fantasy . . .  perhaps how I wish it had happened. As
to what is fact and what isn't, I shall keep that to myself.  As usual,
comments and suggestions are welcome; flames will be ignored.
 
 
              Kenny5: Back to School
 
 Monday morning, Jan. 5, 1953. I was getting dressed and ready to start a
new school week, a new year. I was as nervous as I could be, wondering if I
had changed visibly after the profound things that had happened to me over
the Holidays. I think if I could have seen into the future at that point,
I'd have simply gone back to bed and never get up again.  1953 would prove
to the best, and the worst, year of my life!
 
 I didn't see Kenny until noon. We didn't have a cafeteria in our school,
so we were expected to either walk home for lunch or eat quietly in our
home room. I had long ago dispensed with bringing a lunch and chose to
either sit at my desk and study, or just go for a walk. But not any more!
As I was getting engrossed in a book, Kenny came bursting into the room.
"C'mon, Charlie!" he ordered, "We're goin' to the gym to shoot some
baskets." This was not my kind of activity, in fact I had hardly ever held
a basketball and had certainly never put one through the hoop. But in spite
of my protests I was soon dragged kicking and screaming down the hall to
the gym.
 
 The locker room off the gym was little more than a bare room with a few
benches, really. There were no showers, no lockers, just benches where one
could sit and change. There actually were showers across the hall, but they
were reserved for the school teams. So we kept our gym clothes in our
school lockers, and just left our belongings on the floor in the change
room, or for those of us who didn't want our things rifled or stolen, took
them in the gym with us. When we finally got changed, with Kenny remaining
shirtless much to my delight, we joined a group of about ten other boys who
were playing and fooling around as boys will do on a basketball court. As
with other things I did with Kenny, he was superb, and I was at best
mediocre. But I had a lot more fun that I'd expected.
 
 After school we told Ron and Timmy that we had something we had to do, and
we went directly to Kenny's house. His mom was home and greeted with her
familiar cheerfulness. After a light lunch, we went directly to Kenny's
bedroom and closed the door. I still had the sight in my head of Kenny's
muscles rippling as he shot baskets. I would like to have ripped his
clothes off then and there, but we decided it was not a really great idea
with his mother in the house. "Stay over?" Kenny pleaded, "Please?" I could
see no reason why not, so I made a quick call home. Needless to say we went
to bed very early, as soon as our homework was done. We almost always did
our homework together now.
 
 The following week, posters appeared all over the school announcing a
school dance for the end of the month. "Let's go!" Kenny suggested.
 "But," I protested, "I can't dance a step! And even if I could, who would
I dance with?"
 "WHOM!" Kenny corrected with a grin.
 "Smart-ass!" I returned. I had never been to a dance because I was just
too self-conscious to admit that I couldn't dance, and I would never ask a
girl anyway because I was too fearful of being rejected.  But Kenny would
not take no for an answer. "I'll teach you to dance," he offered, "And
you'll be the life of the party."
 "Where'd you learn to dance?" I challenged.
 "Lots of places. My mom taught me to waltz, Robbie taught some of the
modern steps, and I took some dance lessons a couple years ago. Again I was
astonished and the depth of knowledge that was contained in his young
frame. It seemed there was very little Kenny hadn't experienced one way or
another.
 
 Kenny did teach me how to dance, and if I must say so myself I got to be
pretty good. Of course Rock N Roll was in its infancy and not really
popular, so we danced to the likes of Rosemary Clooney, Patti Page, The
Crewcuts, Les Paul and Mary Ford, The Four Aces, and many many more of the
singers now long gone. It was fabulous!
 
 I don't know if anyone else has ever noticed this, but those school dances
gave me the distinct impression that girls seem to be attracted to guys who
are gay. Whether it's because we are more sensitive (which I believe to be
true), or just rising to a challenge, or whatever the reason, I found that
I had no shortage of dance partners. Of course no one at the dances knew
for sure about my relationship with Kenny, but I'm pretty sure they had
their suspicions. Two or three of them even admired my bracelet and turned
it over to see the two hearts engraved there. What more proof did they
need? One girl asked who KC was, the others figured it out. But they didn't
say anything, just gave me a strange look.
 
 Dancing with those girls at school dances, and later at sock-hops, was a
lot of fun. But that's all it was: FUN. But when I danced with Kenny, it
was downright erotic! I had all I could do to control my actions and
concentrate on the business at hand. And my boyhood was totally out of
control and always stood at full attention when I put my arms around him
and we began gliding around the rec room in Kenny's home.  Oh yeah, for you
younger guys reading this, we actually touched, embraced even, when we
danced!
 
 Inevitably the subject of college came up with Mr. Collins. Kenny had
decided to go to UNB, and Bob wanted to know where I was going. "I'm not
going to college," I stated flatly.
 "Not going? Why on earth?"
 "Well," I said somewhat hesitantly, "My dad wants me to go to UNB and
study law. But I have no interest in that. I want to be an engineer, but
UNB won't accept academic High School grads into the engineering
program. So I guess it's a Mexican standoff. To go back to the technical
program I'd have to lose a year, and Dad won't let me do that either."
 
 "Charlie," Mr. Collins said with obvious concern, "Whoever told you that
you couldn't get in an engineering program from the academic high school
diploma?"
 "Mr. English," I replied. Mr. English was the closest thing we had to a
guidance counselor.
 "Well, Mr. English is wrong! You might not get into UNB, but there are
lots of good engineering schools that would love to have you."
 "It doesn't matter now anyway," I answered, "There's no money."
 Mr. Collins sighed. "Maybe I shouldn't be tell you this Charlie," he said,
"But there's lots of money. Your father took out quite a large life
insurance policy when you were born as a college fund for you. It matured
last year."
 "I know," I agreed, "But he paid off his mortgage with it.  He said I
could have it for a law degree, otherwise he was going to pay off his
mortgage.  So I said go ahead, because I'm not going to law school."
 "Well," sighed Mr. Collins, "You certainly have the courage of your
convictions. I'm not sure I could have resisted. But we're not going to let
that stop you. I'm not sure how or where, but we're gonna get you that
engineering degree!"
 
 Nothing more was said about college, but Kenny assured me that whatever
his father said, you could put in the bank. I began to fear that they would
dip into Kenny's college money, but Kenny put my mind at ease on that
score. "I don't have a college fund," he said, "Dad made some investments
that turned bad and he lost the whole thing!" Well, at least we were in the
same boat. That got Kenny a hug from me and both of us a hug from Bob. It
also inspired me. If Kenny could have confidence he'd get to college
somehow, I could too.
 
 High School was a lot more fun now, the way it suppose to be. Gone were all
the self-confidence problems; the wondering where I fit in the scheme of
things; the isolation. We were keeping our secret pretty well, at least
from the people who we knew would cause trouble, that is until one of the
girls I'd danced with a few times absentmindedly commented on my bracelet
to some of her friends.
 
 It was mid March, and everything had more or less settled down and we all
had become more or less comfortable with our situations. Spring was coming
fast, and with it a treat for me. I had run across a motorbike for sale
very cheap. It was small, what you'd call a moped today; it wasn't running,
but it had possibilities. I reasoned that I'd get to see my mom a lot more
if I had transportation, so I undertook to buy it.  To my surprise Dad gave
me the money to buy it, with the understanding that I would use my own
money for any parts and repairs it would need. Now as much as I've
criticized my dad and portrayed him as a father that I could do without, I
have to give him credit for this: He taught me from a very early age to be
a good technician, an analytic do-it-yourselfer.  My dad should never have
been a family man because he simply didn't know how to show emotion or
love. But that didn't stop me from loving him and shadowing his every move
for the first ten years of my life. Neither he nor I ever hired things done
but did them ourselves. Plumbing, electrical, carpentry, we could do it
all! Bottom line: I had that motorbike running in no time, and without
spending very much money. Thanks, Dad. I don't get to say that very often,
but this time I really mean it. I owe ya for that.
 
 I had been to visit my mom on my motorbike, and was going to Kenny's house
for dinner because Dad and Ellen were out for the evening, when the motor
suddenly sputtered and stopped. It was as if it was out of gas, but I knew
there was lots in the tank. I got off the bike and started looking at the
fuel filter, the carburetor, and various other elements in the fuel supply
system. My attention was distracted when a shadow darkened my view. Looking
up, I realized that I was surrounded by about six teenagers, all fifteen or
sixteen years old.
 
 "Having trouble are we, honey?" a voice that I recognized as a boy named
Rodney, one of my classmates, said.
 "It's ok, thanks," I answered. I didn't know what was going on but I knew
I was in trouble. I was petrified, but I was determined not to let them
know it. It didn't matter though, they neither knew nor cared what my
mental situation was. "Hey, I got an idea!" Rodney exclaimed, "Why don't
you wave that bracelet the girls think is so cute?  Maybe it has magical
powers!" So that was it! Now I knew I was in really deep doo-doo!
 
 I won't go into a lot of detail what happened then.  Suffice to say it was
pretty ugly. We've all been there, done that, as the saying goes. I was
beaten severely, in fact Rodney and his friends, for possibly the first
time in their lives, over-achieved. I could not get up, could not move! And
that resulted in my being discovered by a passer-by who called an
ambulance, consequently it was now a police matter.
 
 "What the hell happened?" Kenny demanded the next day when he visited me
in the hospital.
 "Just some guys from school," I evaded, "I guess I pissed them off."
 "I guess you did!" he agreed. "What happened?" I related the incident with
the motorbike stalling and what occurred afterwards.  Of course he wanted
to know who it was, but I just said I didn't know. I told him that they had
made reference to my dancing with girls at school dances, and from that I
had deduced that they were from school. But I really didn't know who they
were. I think he knew I was lying, but he let it drop and simply cried in
sympathy for my pain.
 
 A week later I was out of hospital and back in school when I was pulled
out of class to talk to the police. They told me that Kenny had told them
what I had told him, with the result that they had examined my motorbike
very closely and had found fingerprints on it that matched three boys in
our school. Someone had jammed a handful of sand in the fuel filter, which
had eventually cut of the supply of gas. They indicated that it was Rodney
and two others. They had reason to believe that there were more, and they
had no doubt that once I identified those three that they would be quick to
rat on the others. At that point something took hold of me that I cannot
understand to this day. "You've got the wrong guys!"  I told them.  "My
bike stalled, and Rodney and his friends came along.  Their fingerprints
would be on the bike because they tried to help me get it going."
 "Charlie," the detective said, "You know that's a bunch of crap!"
 
 I don't think I mentioned, my dad was a cop! Yup, he was a city cop, so of
course all the cops knew him and they all knew me too.  So they felt since
they were sorta personally involved, so to speak, that they could talk to
me any way they wanted, knowing full well that my dad would back them up.
So they gave me the third degree, eventually calling in my dad himself, but
I insisted that Rodney and company had tried to help me, not beat me up!
Eventually they gave up and accepted my story, but it took about two weeks
- two weeks in which six fag-bashers were really sweating bullets.
 
 Kenny gave me supreme hell, causing one of the biggest arguments we'd ever
had, or ever would have! "You know it was them," he accused, "Why are you
protecting them?"
 "I don't know, Kenny," I replied, "It's just something I gotta do. That
story about them helping me came outa nowhere, but it just seemed so right!
So that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. (I know, I know, that's a
country song now, but I couldn't resist).
 
 Three weeks after the beating incident, I found myself alone downtown,
staring Rodney straight in the eye! There was no one else around, and I was
sure I was dead meat. "Hey, man!" he said, "You ok?"
 "Never better," I answered. In truth I was scared to death, but I wasn't
going to let him know it.
 "They told me about the fingerprints," Rodney went on, "You know you
coulda sent me away for five years. Shit, man, I didn't know your dad was a
cop. Why'd you do it?" Of course I knew what he was talking about. I still
didn't know why I'd protected them, but I suddenly remembered a saying my
mom used to use: "You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."
 "Let's just say," I answered, "I'm kinda into honey." Of course Rodney had
no earthly idea what I was talking about, but it didn't matter. I had made
a friend, and a very influential one. Aside from a bit of verbal hassling,
we had no more trouble at school. At least from fag bashers.
 
 The big one, the one I'd been expecting but dreading, happened in May.
I'd been with Kenny until quite late on Wednesday night after visiting Mom
in the nursing home, had got home after midnight with my homework not done.
At 6 AM Thursday morning, Ellen ventured into my room and announced "Your
mother passed away last night."
 
 I didn't answer. I didn't cry, didn't react, didn't call Kenny, didn't do
anything! When I didn't show up at school the next day, Kenny figured it
out. So as soon as school was over he was in my bedroom where I'd spent the
whole day. Ellen had come in earlier to tell me that there was no need for
me to stay cooped up in my room, but what the hell did she know? It took a
good deal of restraint not to express a few feelings to her, but I managed.
"Charlie...." Kenny said, and then he was in my arms. There was no more
need for words and I think he knew it, so he just lay on the bed with me
and hugged me.
 
 "She's planning the funeral!" I said to Kenny Friday morning, "Ellen's
planning my mother's funeral!" I suppose I should have expected it, but
still it seemed kinda weird to me that the woman who'd had as much as
anyone to do with her death was going to be the one who buried her.  Maybe
it was the way things should be, but I resented it.  I'd had some ideas of
my own how it would go, but of course I was a kid and what did I know?
 
 I was sitting in the church on Saturday afternoon, Kenny by my side. An
usher had stopped Kenny as he walked in with me, saying that the section I
was going to was reserved for immediate family. I just took Kenny's arm and
tugged, while giving that usher a look that could freeze boiling water.  If
Kenny wasn't immediate family, then no one was! And there was no question
in my mind I would not get through this without him.
 
 As I said, we were sitting in a pew all by ourselves, having arrived
early.  It's customary for the mourners to be ushered in just before the
service, but I wanted to go in as soon as I got to the church, just
because. We sat there in silence, and then the organ started to play. "My
organ!" I muttered to myself.
 "What'd you say?" Kenny whispered.
 "Sorry," I said, "Just thinking out loud."
 "I thought you said My organ.' What'd you mean by that?"
 "It's a long story," I answered.
 "I got time," Kenny said. I knew he'd not give up till I told him the
story.
 
 "It was a little over two years ago. My mom had persuaded the organist,
Mr. Whittaker, to give me organ lessons. She had told him she thought I'd
make a great organist. I had started taking piano lessons when I was five,
but by then my mom had already taught me the basics, and my piano teachers
wouldn't keep me as a student because I was always improvising and trying
to improve the music I was given. They had said I needed to play only the
music I was given, that I wasn't Mozart and needed to understand that. So
my mom taught me.
 
 "I was already in the junior choir, so Mr. Whittaker knew me anyway. He
agreed to give me lessons on that very organ up there. Man is that console
big when you're only ten! It's a four manual Casavante, and totally
awesome! I loved that organ so much! To play the pedals I had to sit on the
edge of the bench, or actually stand on the pedals and sort of walk up and
down on them as I played. Mr. Whittaker always laughed and said I didn't
need to play the pedals, that I could just ignore them till I grew a
little, but I couldn't do that.
 
 "Anyway, after a year and a half or so I was getting pretty good. Mr.
Whittaker was so cool, and so talented! Knowing what I know now I'm pretty
sure he was gay, and I also think he had the hots for me; but he would
never have hurt me and I knew it. He just wanted to teach me all he could.
One day he said he had to go away and asked if I thought I could play for
the Sunday services. Well, I was terrified! But Mr. Whittaker said he knew
I could do it, and I trusted him, so I agreed.
 
 "He made a big deal the Sunday before the big day, announcing to the whole
church that one of his students would be playing next week. He didn't say
who it was, but he only had one student so it wasn't hard to figure out.
And the following Sunday the church was packed.  It was the last time Mom
came to church here, and I got a feeling she had something to do with so
many people here. I mean, her son, her twelve year old son, was gonna play
the organ for the whole church. She was so proud of me I felt super
confident about everything I did. I often wonder how I'd be different now
if she hadn't got sick, but I guess that's something I'll never know now.
 
 "I did pretty well at first. Mr. Whittaker had chosen the hymns, making
sure they were ones that I knew. I had practiced with the choir so I could
accompany them no problem. Mr Whittaker was a stickler on accompanying
singers, and had yelled at me more than once on how to, as he put it,
influence and guide without leading and dominating. So the choir anthem
went without a hitch.
 
 "The last hymn was my downfall. As I was playing the first verse, it
suddenly all came down on me. I was sitting at this huge organ with all
this power at my fingertips, five hundred people singing along to whatever
I played. I guess I sorta got high on power. I was so overwhelmed with the
Christian message and the influence I could have at the moment, I went
sorta crazy. I used the Crescendo pedal; I modulated up a key on every
verse, and there were five of them. During the last verse of the hymn you
coulda heard us in Montreal! The younger people in the congregation were
swaying and clapping their hands, and everyone, I mean EVERYONE, was
singing! Kenny, it was so totally awesome! I bet that old organ hadn't had
a workout like that in years!
 
 "Well, the elders of the church were not impressed. Mr.  Whittaker was
yelled at for letting that child' handle their precious organ, taxing it
beyond what it should have been. They even told him that my playing was not
in keeping with the worship atmosphere they were trying to convey.  He
tried to defend me, saying that from all he'd heard I'd done a good job,
possibly better than he could've done. "Perhaps," he told them, "What we
need is a little fresh blood, a new approach."  But they directed him that
I was not under any circumstances to play again for a service in that
church. So he quit and left the church. I don't know where he went.  My dad
wasn't there, but when he heard about it he was ready to kill me for
embarrassing him. But my mom.... my mom ran up to the organ and grabbed me
before I even got off the bench and hugged me till I could hardly breathe!
Kenny, My mom was sick and could hardly walk! But she sure had no trouble
that day getting up to that organ!"
 
 About that time my dad and two of my mom's sisters walked in and sat
beside me, so I stopped talking. "That was awesome!" Kenny whispered. I
could see tears in his eyes, but my eyes were still dry. I had been
expecting this for two years, yet now that the moment was here, I was still
in shock.  This simply could NOT be happening! And yet it was.
 
 At the grave site I finally lost it. I had kept it all in during the
funeral, had made my dad proud (or so I thought) and not blubbered, not
cried. Then at the grave, listening to the preacher's final words, dropping
the first rose on my mother's casket, watching various other relatives
doing the same, I was like a rock. But then they started lowering that
casket into the ground, and it all came falling down on me! I sank to my
knees and started sobbing. I was vaguely aware of a hand on my shoulder.
"Is this the boy?"  I heard someone say. I looked up. It was Mr. Pike, the
minister!
 
 Even in that moment, watching my mother sink slowly into the ground,
almost hysterical with grief and... well, even panic, I thought. "Is this
the boy?" I heard over and over. "Is this the man?" I thought.  Was this
the man who, only a few months before had been so happy I'd sang a solo in
church? Was this the man who had said what a great job my mom had done
teaching and raising me? Was this the man who was so proud of me?  And now
he didn't even know who I was?
 
 I dissolved then, totally incoherent, completely out of control. I was all
alone now, and the church, the institution I'd valued since I was in
diapers, was something alien to me. I made the decision then and there I
would never darken the door of a church again, would never allow myself to
be hurt again like that. That's when I felt another hand on my shoulders. I
was about to shrug it off when it slid down my back and around me. It was
Kenny's hand. In less time than it takes to tell his arms were around me,
we were both sobbing unashamedly, sitting in the mud where my mother's
grave had been dug. We were connected, and suddenly everything was all
right. I knew, I really knew, that my love for Kenny would never die; and I
knew that I had nothing to be ashamed of, that to love anyone so special
couldn't possibly be wrong!
 
 I'm going to stop here for tonight. I had some other things I wanted to
relate, but something just happened that's more important.  Two nights ago,
it came on the news that there'd been a terrible highway crash in which two
teenage boys, aged 15 and 16, were rammed by a drunk driver and killed.
Terrible you say? Of course it was! But, both those boys were registered
organ donors. The next day at Duke Medical Center there was a heart
transplant, two lungs, and a kidney. Other organs were flown to different
parts of the county. As a result of their deaths there are at least five
people that I know of, and probably more, that now have a new chance at
life. So what does that have to do with this story? Just this:
 
 The day my mother died, something snapped inside me. Up to that point, as
you might have gathered, I was terrified of my father, would never have
defied him nor questioned anything he said or did. I don't know if I was
just trying to keep the peace for the sake of my mother, or whether there
was some unknown deeper meaning. But I do know, after that burial scene in
which Kenny totally engulfed me in his embrace, his love, his caring, I was
no longer subservient to my father. I no longer needed what I'd never had
anyway. I think I still respected him for what he was, but I also was an
individual, with rights and feelings. When those boys died the other night,
it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, my mother had to die so that I
could be free. I didn't realize something had happened, but over the next
few months I found myself defying my dad more and more.
 
 Before we knew it, summer was upon us and school was out for another year.
Kenny had made straight A's as usual, but I didn't do quite so well.  Up
until the time Kenny's dad had told me I had other college options, I'd
been trying to flunk out of the accelerated program and consequently not
working very hard. Once I went back to serious work there was just too much
catching up to do. My grades would probably have been good enough had I not
been in the special program, but as it was I was going to have to repeat
11th grade. I would be in the mainstream, but in the last two years of
school it made no difference anyway because we were all in the same
classes. So I would possibly have classes with Kenny, and of course we'd
graduate together. So in my mind things had gone wonderfully!
 
 As summer wore on I spent more and more time with Kenny.  Ron and Tim had
both gone away for the month of July, so Kenny and I just did our thing. It
got so that I had more clothes at Kenny's house than I did at home.... I
knew Dad wouldn't mind, if he noticed at all that I wasn't there.  So now
there were two more issues I had to deal with. I was turning 15 in July,
Kenny was planning a big party for just the two of us, and Dad was asking
more and more questions about our relationship. He would have to be told,
and soon! It simply would not do for him to find out any other way than
from me personally.

If you like this story or have any comments or criticisms, please e-mail
them to charlieje@mindspring.com