Date: Mon, 29 Aug 2005 22:49:14 -0400
From: AJ Taylor <projectilepolly@hotmail.com>
Subject: The Mask of Brutality - I

Standard warnings apply: if you're under 18, close your eyes
and hit the back button on your browser.  If reading
anything even remotely homosexual bothers you, offends you,
disturbs you, or forces you to violate some asinine law,
then you should certainly know better than to click on this
in the first place.

If you're looking for a sex story or something to wank off
to, I'm sorry, but you'd best look somewhere else.  I have
my doubts about including any sex in this, although this may
or may not change in the future, depending on how much
fiction I decide to include.  This story is somewhat
autobiographical- whatever I don't remember or don't know I
make up.  Much of it is, though, based on my life as an
innocent college student's frustrated attempts at a
relationship (with extra emphasis on the word `attempts').
If that's the kind of thing you'd like to absorb yourself
in, read on.


It shouldn't be to surprising that I had never met him
before last summer.  After all, there were 6,000 students at
my university and he had just spent the entire last year
studying abroad in Senegal and France.  Still, even though I
didn't know all of the 1,500 or so people in my year, I at
least recognized a good majority of them.  He was a new face
though, and I still wonder why I didn't notice him before.

I actually saw a couple of pictures of him two years ago,
when he was a sophomore.  Short hair, too light to really be
red, but not exactly blonde either.  He was tall and he
looked out of place in the picture; probably felt the same
way too.  But he looked just like everyone else in this
school: preppy, proud, and not my type of guy.  That picture
looked nothing like the guy I first met.  It's a good thing
that I only saw those pictures after I met him; otherwise, I
may have judged him prematurely and never have gotten to
know him.  Then again, perhaps that would have been the
better course of action.

I decided to spend the summer before my senior year entirely
at home, so after a three-week stint at my parents' house
complete with the obligatory parental pressure for me to
change my mind and vegetate with them, I returned to campus.
It was early June, just in time for the sweltering heat to
greet me, but, thankfully, not in time for the cicadas to do
the same: their carcasses littered the streets and made
amusing crunching noises as people accidentally stepped on
them.  My new home-away-from-home, an old townhouse a few
blocks from campus, had creaking floors, no air-
conditioning, and a cricket problem.  But my parents weren't
around, which I guess made up for it.

Not content with being wholly unproductive, I would be
interning two days a week while the rest of my days would be
spent working at a coffeehouse to help pay the bills.  I got
copy of the shift schedule emailed to me before I arrived,
so I was able to see the names of everyone I'd be working
with.

Thursday 4pm-7pm: James Taylor (Manager), AJ Brooks
(Cashier)

Considering that I recognized almost no one on the list, I
didn't really care much about it.  I just hoped this AJ
person would be okay.  Oddly enough, I don't really get
along with most guys I meet- the vast majority of my friends
are female.  It's not that all guys hate me or anything, but
there always seems to be some sort of disconnect on some
level that stops me from being close to all but a few.
Hopefully AJ wouldn't be one of those cocky, jock-type,
snobs that I never get along with.  I had my hopes; the
coffeehouse was known for its hippie atmosphere, not as a
magnet for preppies.

Thursday afternoon rolled along, and I found myself showing
up to work at 3:30 (as the manager, I have to come in early
to do the deposits).  I was in the back office, frustrated
by the lack of a calculator and my inability to add, when a
guy walks into the store, past the office door.  Must be AJ,
I assumed, though I wasn't able to really see what he looked
like.  I finished counting the drawer, made the deposit, and
walked out of the office.  This was just my first week, and
though I had worked at another coffeehouse before this, I
was still meeting everyone for the first time and I didn't
want to screw things up by having people hate me at the
start.  I tend to be rather shy at first, and I sometimes
worry that people mistake it for arrogance or apathy.

He definitely was not what I expected, at least appearance-
wise.  Then again, I'm not too sure what I had anticipated.
AJ was just a couple of inches taller than me, but he seemed
to slouch a bit, and it actually took some time for me to
tell.  His hair was shoulder length, blond at the ends, but
a light shade of orange near the top.  Wearing the requisite
summer attire of shorts, a crumpled t-shirt, and flip-flops,
he had a rather scruffy appearance.  I like scruffy.  We
shook hands, introduced ourselves, went through all the
motions that you go through when meeting someone for the
first time.

Now, I definitely wasn't struck with love at first sight or
some lame fantasy of meeting `the one'.  In fact, my first
gut feeling was along the lines of `I hope he doesn't end up
thinking I'm a loser'.  He did seem nice, and not some cocky
guy full of himself.  In fact, he was rather humble at first
and shy.  I think it was because a lot of his friends
weren't around for the summer so he didn't know too many
people at school.  That, and he had just come back from
studying abroad, so it's a big adjustment since he hadn't
seen most people in a whole year.  I felt a bit bad for him,
so I promised myself to be nice.

One of the cool things about working at a coffeehouse run
entirely by students is that we have a lot of freedom to do
things that wouldn't be acceptable in an establishment like
Starbucks.  I loathe Starbucks, by the way, and if anyone
talks about a caramel macchiato in an appraising fashion, I
would not hesitate to bludgeon them for allowing themselves
to butcher the word macchiato for something that should be
just called a caramel latte.  But I digress.  One perk we
get is that we can play whatever music we want on the
stereo.  Well, almost any music.  A few months back we
received complaints for playing music with lyrics that
involved the words `fuck', `titties', and `suck'.  That led
to the prohibition of music with especially lewd language.
Someone called it aural rape; I disagreed. I digress again.

Anyway, I had recently been on a Michael Jackson fixation
after a friend of mine and I watched her Michael Jackson
Moonwalker on VHS.  Amazing, absolutely amazing.  Though I
have no doubts that he's screwed up in the head these days
and children should never be around him under any
circumstances, the man could definitely dance.  And the part
where he turns into a gigantic robot to waste Mr. Big is
just hilarious.  Afterwards, I bought the CD, Michael
Jackson Greatest Hits, and listened to it every day.
Needless to say, I wanted to listen to it again.

"I hope you don't mind listening to Michael Jackson," I
said.  "I've got this current addiction and he's all I
listen to."

While MJ was, in my mind, pretty much non-negotiable since I
technically outranked him, I didn't want to seem bossy or
anything.  I figured asking his opinion would at least make
me seem easy-going and not like some MJ-obsessed lunatic
which, granted, at that time I was.  Writing that makes me
so embarrassed.

AJ chuckled.  "Oh, MJ," he said, then turned to help a
customer.

Well, I guess that's a better reaction than looking at me
like some social reject from the gutter.  On the other hand,
I dress a lot better than him, and I'm a lot less scruffy.
Maybe he's the gutter-guy between the two of us.  Or perhaps
we both are.  Thinking about this confuses me.

"So you're a pop kinda guy?" he asked.

Uh oh, I thought, he's asking about my taste in music.  I
hope he's not one of those music Nazis that get angry if
they listen to any music other than the minute genre they
appreciate.  What kind of music does he like anyway?  He
hasn't told me.  Meanwhile, `Black or White' was blasting
through the speakers, preaching the importance of tolerance.
I rattled off some answer about having eclectic tastes,
which I do, and he seemed satisfied with that.  I'd hate to
be stereotyped as a dork who's into teeny-bopper pop.

We chatted more about anything and everything.  I learned
that he was on the swim team sophomore year, but he hadn't
swam in almost a year because he was abroad.  That came as a
surprise, since I wouldn't associate a long-haired hippy
with a college swim team.  He was from Wisconsin, a senior
as well, majoring in English and French.  The shift was
slow, with only annoying high school kids coming in think
that we were a Starbucks.  We spent the time making small
talk and reading cheesy teen magazines we `borrowed' from
the neighboring grocery store.  I was relieved that we
managed to stay away from topics that I never enjoyed
talking about: sports and girls.  Finally, a guy who isn't
wholly focused on football and females: that makes me happy.

The shift ended soon enough, and I said goodbye to him.  AJ
was a pretty nice guy from the three hours I had spent with
him.  No obvious psychological inadequacies, though he did
appear a bit quiet and subdued.  Still, he piqued my
curiosity, because he seemed like someone who'd be fun to
hang out with.  Surprisingly, I wasn't immediately smitten
with lust, nor was I reduced to a bumbling prepubescent
girl.  I just thought that it would be cool to work with a
guy who was chill and not anal-retentive like some of the
other people I had to persevere with.

I saw AJ a couple of days later while I was walking home
from campus.  It was late afternoon and the air, though
humid, was not nearly as hot as it was earlier.  Up ahead, I
saw AJ turning the corner heading towards me on a
skateboard.  Now, I have this thing for skateboarders.
Actually, I have a thing for guys on skateboards,
surfboards, rollerblades, and guys with bandanas or
fingerless gloves.  Yes, I am certainly an odd fellow;
forgive my weaknesses.  But a good-looking guy on a
skateboard makes my brain turn off and lose all sense of
rational thought, so to speak.

AJ drifted passed me with a casual hello and nod of the
head.  I'm sure I responded with something similar, but the
only thing on my mind at that moment was how cute he was.
Notice the use of the word `cute' instead of `incredibly
smoking hot' or something similar.  At that moment I had
just began to realize that AJ fit the kind of guy I normally
go for.  That is, if I had actually gone for any guys before
and did more than just ogle.  My perpetually single self
mulled over this illumination over the next few days.

The next week I found myself working the Wednesday closing
shift with AJ.  I was covering for a friend of mine, and I
was pleased to see that AJ was the one I'd be spending time
with at work.  Apparently he felt the same, because he
smiled when he saw me.  That made me feel glad inside,
because he looked genuinely happy at the prospect of hanging
out with me.

"You going to the keg night afterwards?" I asked.  The
employees of the store held keg nights every Wednesday at
someone's apartment- always a different apartment since
nobody wanted to host it more than once.  They were a fun
way to spend some time with friends, even though the beer
tasted like crap.

"Yeah, you going too?"

"Yup."

"Sweet, we can walk over there together."

I smiled when he said that, even though it really meant
nothing.  After all, we'd be leaving at the same time for
the same place, so why wouldn't we walk together?  Still, I
must admit that I was starting to develop a small crush on
the guy.  For a big scruffy guy, he could have his adorable
moments.

The store director came in around halfway into the shift to
see how things were going.  I had never really met her
before, but she seemed to be the type that was nice at
times, but could turn into a total bitch at the most
inopportune moments.  AJ seemed to know her though.

"'Sup Monica," he said.  Monica smiled and greeted him back.

"Hey, AJ, are you going to the party tonight?"  Well, I
already knew the answer, but it bothered me that she didn't
include me in the question.

"Yeah, James and I are gonna head over there once we finish
closing."  At least he included me.  Monica could go to
hell.

"Great!  Hey, I saw you at the party last week, but you were
only there for a few minutes.  Where'd you go?"

AJ looked a way and blushed a little bit, slightly
embarrassed.  That got my attention; Mr. Swimming-Jock
lacking in confidence?  My, what a scoop.

"Well, I felt kinda out of place," he began.  "I mean, uh, I
didn't really know anyone there and I didn't have anyone to
talk to or anything.  Yeah, so I just left."

That was not what I was expecting, and by now I must really
seem like a judgmental asshole for stereotyping people like
this, but AJ struck me as the quiet, confident type, not the
unsure, shy type like me.  Imagining him in someone's living
room, alone in the corner, sipping his beer made me want to
squeeze him tight like a giant teddy bear.  Only I'd want
him to squeeze me back too, and teddy bears aren't good for
that.  I thought I was the only dork around here who'd find
himself surrounded by a sea of strangers, alone in a crowd.
Apparently I had a lot more in common with AJ than I had
initially thought.

In the week I had known him, I pretty much pegged AJ as
totally straight, despite no mention of the fairer sex in
any of our conversations so far.   I was, of course,
disappointed, though not particularly surprised.  I have a
growing track record of falling for straight guys.  You'd
think I'd get smarter with experience, but alas, I remain
socially retarded.  It was definitely a shame though,
because AJ grew on me: the more time I spent with him, the
more I was attracted to him.  I guess it was because he was
a walking paradox that just constantly redefined his image
in my eyes.  He could be quiet and unsure of himself at
times, confident and strong at others.    He was a swimmer,
an athlete, but he was also a closet intellectual: a poet
who had a deep appreciation of literature.  He could be
blunt and crude- and often was- yet he could also be
exceptionally charming and polite when the need surfaced.
All these facets of his personality just drew me to him; I
just wanted to learn more about this walking mystery.

The rest of the shift was uneventful, and we closed the
store quickly so we could head over to the party as soon as
possible.  On the way, I asked him about the previous keg
nights he'd been to.  I hadn't been out in a while, because
my roommates were homebodies who preferred to stay at home
and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer DVDs till the wee hours
of the morning.

"Well, they were ok I guess," he told me.  He grinned in the
moonlight.  "But you're here this time, so you can keep me
company."

Thank God it was nighttime and he couldn't see me blush.

I don't remember exactly what else we said to each other on
the way there, but it struck me as surprising that I was so
comfortable with a guy I had only known for a week.  That in
itself was an accomplishment; the fact that he in turn
seemed to enjoy spending time with me as a friend made
everything even better.  I felt excited, albeit a tad
nervous, about the prospect of being able to hang out with a
guy I was definitely becoming infatuated with.  I just hoped
I wouldn't screw things up.

There was already quite a crowd by the time we arrived.  I
was immediately greeted by a bunch of friends and a cup of
some indecipherable concoction.  AJ smiled, grabbed another
cup, and we toasted to a good summer.  I hung around the
front porch with my friends, some of whom I had not seen
since the spring semester had ended.  In the meantime, AJ
had drifted off in doors, and it took me a while before I
realized his absence.  Curious, I excused myself from my
peers and ventured indoors in search of AJ.  Part of me
wanted to see if he what he was like when he was drunk,
though I doubted he'd be trashed so quickly.  The other half
remembered how he felt at the last event and wanted to make
sure he didn't feel lonely.

I found him in a corner with the same drink in hand,
chatting with Monica.  I felt a tiny twitch of jealousy at
how Monica was hogging his attention, but I shrugged it off.
AJ looked over her shoulder, saw me, and smiled.  I glowed
inside.  The corner could accommodate one more.  Monica,
though cool towards me, was decent enough.  I just assumed
that she'd warm up after a while.  After all, we had a whole
summer of me working under her and she and AJ seemed to get
along well enough.  I try to look for the best in people: at
least I like to think that I do.

I decided to go home soon after that: I didn't want to get
too drunk and be unable to walk home by myself.  For a
moment, I wonder if AJ was in the same shoes as me, walking
home alone.  Maybe he scored with a chick.  Like Monica.
That thought made me shudder.  I got home and went to bed,
thinking about AJ and knowing that I was just getting myself
into trouble.  I should have listened to myself.

I hope you all liked this.  I write pretty slowly, so I
don't know when the next chapter will be out.  I'd much
appreciate comments and feedback though:
projectilepolly@hotmail.com