Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2003 15:25:30 EDT
From: Writersrealmmm@aol.com
Subject: In Skater's Time 24

In Skater's Time
Chapter 24
You Only Live Once


For BRANDON & Jerry

LOVE NEVER DIES


Chapter 24
You Only Live Once

"You only live once, Z."

"What's that mean? We're in fucking jail, Paul."

"It means I won't live in fear. I'm going to stand up for myself,
especially when no one else is going to stand up for me."

"You ask for trouble, Paul. I mean you went after that kid like you were
possessed. Don't you think about your actions?"

Paul had slumped back into the orange formfitting chair that fit no form
most people had ever seen. He had turned pale and weariness was drawn into
his face with deep lines. His eyes flashed as Z watched him, and then, they
both watched Z's father approaching.

"Z, you call me from the hospital after you sneak out to see Paul and now
you call me from the jail."

"Dad, it's not what you think."

"Oh, this isn't jail? Well, do tell, son. Is it Oz and Paul's the wizard?"

My father was animated and the anger or displeasure was drawn into his
face. Z wanted to make it something it wasn't but how did he do that? He
wasn't even sure what it was.

"It's the police station, Dad."

"Why don't one of you tell me what's going on? I leave you off at the mall
and now this. I mean how much trouble can you get into at the mall?"

"Plenty when you're with me, sir," Paul said apologetically.

"I should have known it was you. For godsake, you're practically
crippled. You just got out of the hospital. What could you have done to
land you two here?"

"He ran into the guy that kicked him. One of them anyway."

"They got the guy?" My father asked with his attitude changing immediately
as he was pleased with this news.

"Well, actually, they got his boots, Pop," I said, wanting to break it to
him gently.

"His boots? His boots? What's that supposed to mean?"

"It's a long story, Dad."

"You fought the guy?" My father blurted out even more excited. "In your
condition?"

"He more pummeled him, Dad."

"So what are you doing here? I mean, can't you go home? How long do they
need to keep you?"

"There's a little problem, Dad."

"Why do you keep talking. I know he can talk. He talked when I came up. I
thought Paul was the one involved in this. Maybe he should be telling me
the details. Did you get him good?"

"I was involved in trying to pull him off the guy."

"I just went off, sir," Paul said, leaning forward, meekly folding his
hands between his knees as my father stood over him.

"You don't look all that good, son," My father said. "Did he hurt you?
Where you had your surgery?"

"Pop, the kid didn't get off a punch. That's him over there."

I pointed to the kid in the socks and he had somehow gotten skinnier and
even younger looking.

"Him?"

"Uh huh," I said.

"He's a kid."

"Uh huh."

Luckily the cop came back to keep me from having to make more excuses for
Paul. I was running out of them by this time. My father and the cop walked
down to the end of the hall and had a chat for several minutes, or at least
the cop was talking and then they walked back to where we sat.

"He doesn't look too good to me," My father was saying about Paul.

"Yeah, I've got my sergeant on it but that kids father is up front and I
can't risk them crossing paths at the moment. He's madder than a hornet but
I've talked to his son and he knows something he isn't saying. So I'm
keeping the old man away form him as long as I can. We're making him
nervous right now but I can't just let Paul go. He's committed a serious
crime."

"Crime. Kicking the ass of the guy who stomped him? What kind of law is
that?" My father asked astounded. "He should get a metal."

The cop looked at Paul and then me, immediately sensing that my father only
had half the story. I could actually see sympathy in the cop's eyes as he
went about trying to set the record straight, having given up on trying to
set either Paul or I straight.

"Well in the first place he more or less attached the boots the kid was
wearing and he can't do that. We're the cops and we make arrests. Vigilante
justice isn't highly regarded, even in El Cajon. I'm trying to get them to
cut the kid some slack because of his condition. I'm really pissing up a
rope here. It's Friday evening and no one wants to be bothered."

"You attacked his boots?" My father asked in disbelief, picking up on the
most ridiculous aspect of the event.

"Those were the boots," Paul insisted. "I won't ever forget them."

"You attacked his boots?"

"Don't get too far out there. They could be the boots. Paul described them
to your son. The diagram on the bottom of the boot is quite distinctive and
it matches the marks left on Paul's face. I can't condone what he did but
those boots look good to me. I've been looking at pictures of the marks
they left on his face and they match up. I'm no expert, you understand, but
he does know his boots and I understand how he might have gone off on the
kid in them. He was seriously damaged. A piece of his body had to be
removed because of the beating he took. I'm sure we have some kind of
wiggle room here. I just can't get anyone to work with me. It's the weekend
and the wheels of justice move slowly even during normal business hours."

"Well he can't stay here all weekend. He looks like death warmed
over. Can't you call someone. Won't the authorities be liabel if something
happens to him?"

"He's always pale, Pop."

"He's more than pale. He needs to lie down. I'm not a doctor but he needs
rest," My father explained.

"The likelihood of him being released to go home alone isn't very good. At
best I'd have to have him in someone's hands, and we're a long way from
there."

"Put him in my hands. He can stay at our house," My father said.

"Yeah!" I said, and my father stared at me with a hard look.

"We have an extra room," My father added. "I'll take the responsibility. He
can't stay here."

The cop leaned with his hand on the wall next to Paul's head and was
interested in the conversation. Most cops were pretty remote in my
experience but this guy seemed to care about Paul. He seemed concerned for
him.

The next thing I knew some big guy in a white T-shirt, and it hadn't seen
white in years, came rushing up to where the kid in the socks sat. The guy
had these big beefy arms complete with tattoos. He had the voice of a
difficult man and the attention of everyone in that space..

There were now two cops on either side of the guy as they tried to reason
with him. Another man in a suit was standing off to one side, looking very
much like a lawyer. The kid in the socks, his father, and the suit were all
escorted into a room down the other hallway. It was suddenly quiet. The cop
excused himself and joined the conference in the room.

It was more than a half an hour later that another suit showed up,
unescorted he came into the area, looked around as we sat waiting, and then
he disappeared into the room with all the men. It must have been a good
sized room, although two of the cops had come out and only one went back
in. The final suit to arrive then emerged from the room and came walking
toward us.

"I'm Assistant District Attorney Poor. You want to talk to me? I'm handling
your hate crime charge and you might want an attorney present to advise
you," he said to Paul.

"No, I don't need an attorney. Can they come?"

"Suit yourself. You might need an attorney, Paul. There's talk of an
assault charge against you. I'm not handling that because it would be a
conflict of interest, but someone thought enough of you to get me out here
to look at this thing before it gets out of control."

"Look at what?" Paul asked.

"Let's grab a room. I don't necessarily want anyone else hearing what I
have to say. I am bound by certain ethical considerations."

We followed Poor into a room across from where we sat. He opened up his
briefcase and sat at the desk as we sat in the chairs around it.

"You are?" He asked, looking directly at me once he got settled.

"Z. I was with him tonight."

"I'm Z's father."

"Yeah! Paul, I'm investigating your hate crime allegation. That's my
specialty. I've gotten the story on the assault and the boots and the boy
and his family. You couldn't have attacked someone with a nice background,
could you? Makes me sorry I wasn't there to help you."

"It wasn't him. It was the boots," Paul said.

"Yeah, the boots. Well, I'm here to report to you that not only was
attacking a fifteen year old kid a bad idea, but they weren't his
boots. And so you see my dilemma."

"What?" Paul gasped as Poor took time to watch his reaction.

"You see how you've complicated my job? If those are the boots and they are
connected with the crime against you, we're in good shape, but since you
took matters into your own hands, we're up against it."

"He was wearing the boots. Those were the boots the guy that kicked me in
the face had on."

"You see how dangerous jumping to conclusions can be. They're his brother's
boots. He... borrowed them for the evening."

"His brother!" Paul said.

"Okay, we can't talk to the brother. The father is an expert on the
law. Four assaults. Two domestic violence charges... both of those cases
were dropped. Two DWIs. He's been there done that and he knows the
system. He's got an attorney and while we're applying pressure, we might
never get a shot because of your temper. You may have given a get out of
jail free card to the guy that did that to you."

He tossed a picture of Paul's face onto the desk. His eye was swollen shut
and a brilliant pattern from the bottom of a boot was distinctive and in
living color.

"Those are the boots?"

"It's likely. We all like them. We like his brother. He's also got a list
of charges, mostly punk stuff, but he could become dangerous. If he did
this to you than he has become dangerous and I want him and now you're the
one that might go away for assault, while he walks free."

"I just snapped," Paul said, sounding weary. "I saw those boots coming at
my face. I snapped."

"You stick to that story, son. Maybe some kind of psychological mumbo jumbo
defense that'll confuse the hell out of a jury and maybe they'll sympathize
with the poor boy that got stomped by those boots, but I can't advise you
on that. What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't. I'm just tired of taking it. I'm not going to take it any more."

	"Paul, you can't go attacking people. It's illegal. You'll go to
jail. You won't like jail but lots of guys in jail'll like you."

"I get attacked every single day of my life. I'm tired of it and if I need
to go to jail to take up for myself, I will. I might have hit the wrong guy
but I hit him for the right reasons and I got the right boots. Those are
the boots. You don't forget seeing a boot coming right at your face. I
didn't forget them."

"You get attacked every day. Most people are going to find that one hard to
believe. You cut an imposing figure. I don't know many guys that would
attack someone that looks like you."

"I get attacked with words, jokes, conversations, from people who call me
names and equate me as some kind of pervert. I'm not living my life that
way. My sexuality isn't something for other people to make judgements about
or decide for me."

"Some people find it offensive," Mr. Poor said. "They have rights."

"I find it offensive to be called names and made to feel like I'm
subhuman. I find it offensive that with all the crap going on in this
fucked up world, they've got nothing better to do but worry about who I
might be in love with. So I suck cock and I fuck ass, and I'm not going to
apologize for that, and I'm going to stop doing it. I find it most
satisfying."

My father's eyes opened as big saucers and Poor's filled with a startled
look as he observed Paul. They both looked a little like the deer in the
headlights for just a minute, and my heart sunk.

"I'm not mad at you. I'm mad and tired of being made the punchline in a
joke. I'm a person and I figure I've got the same rights as every other
person, and no one cares or sees to it my rights are protected. It's
accepted that I can be insulted, assaulted, and worse if there are enough
of them and they catch me with my back turned. Well, it's no longer okay
with me and if I've got to go to jail to keep my dignity, I'm ready. Living
in the shadows and living a lie isn't going to happen to this boy. So you
better lock me up now because I'm not shutting up and I'm not done fighting
this shit."

"I believe you," Poor said as my father considered the outburst and any
hopes of him rescuing Paul from himself seemed doomed.

"I'm sorry. I don't see where any of you gives a damn about me. That's how
I see it. That's how I feel. I'd rather them beat me to death than live in
fear of them."

"Don't be sorry, son. Keep that passion. It might keep you out of jail this
time. If we can show that there is a direct relationship between the
assault on you and your attack on... those boots, well, stranger things
have happened. Some kind of post traumatic flashback, but I can't advise
you Paul. What I can do is ask this man to take custody of you so we can
get you out of here and in a bed before you drop. I can appreciate your
anger. I know being gay isn't easy, son, but physically attacking people
isn't going to get you where you want to go. You've got to do it through
legal means."

"The Black Panthers? The blacks didn't have a voice until they shot down
King and then they got pissed off and demanded their rights."

"That's a different issue and a different time," Poor said. "Look, I'm on
your side, not on this assault beef, but I'm on your side because of what
happened to you. I could care less if you're a blue one eyed Baptist. The
Black Panters. That's going back a ways. How'd you hear about them?"

"I read. I took a black history course up at school. I'm the new nigger the
way I see it. I ought to know what it means. What they had to do to get
their rights."

"That's a stretch," My father interrupted. "They were seriously
discriminated agianst.

"The only word that you can still call someone without any kind of
criticism is faggot. Well, I'm a gay man and that word is a personal insult
to me every time it's used, and it's used much like the word nigger was
used, to diminish a group of people. It's a verbal attack."

"Valid points but you're going down a lonely road, Paul," Poor said.

"I'm not aloud to speak up because if I speak up, I risk getting stomped
into the dirt but that doesn't change anything. I'm a man and I won't put
up with it. They'll have to keep stomping me until I'm dead."

The silence was palpable as my father and Mr. Poor looked at one another
with a look of frustration. Then my father shocked the hell out of me.

"Can't you put him in my custody. I'll take him home and keep an eye on
him. You know he's not going anywhere. He's not trying to avoid what he
did. I think it's a health consideration as much as anything else. He's
just starting to get up and around."

"Yes, let me make some calls. I'll arrange it. I'll have them take him out
the jail entrance so no one knows I'm letting him out of here. You can
drive around back and pick him up."

"Yes!" I said loudly, resisting the impulse to jam my fish into the air.

"And where do you stand on what he said," Mr. Poor asked me.

"I'm not mad at anyone. I don't want to hit anyone. But I believe what he
says is true, but I love him and so my opinion might not be objective," I
said, thinking about my words as I spoke when I usually just blurted
something out to fill the air up with sound.

Paul took my hand and smiled at me, looking a bit better than he'd looked
before. We were back on the same page and nothing else mattered.

"Well, now maybe you've gotten it out of your system for tonight. I can't
make you any promises. This kid is lawyered up and I'm limited. We're
pressuring them for the owner of the boots to come forward for a little
chit chat. I'm not sure they'll give him up. You go home and rest. You
aren't to leave the house. Is that understood, Paul. Do I have your word on
that?"

"Yes, sir," Paul said. "I'm not going anywhere. I'll stand up for what I
did. If I made a mistake I'm sorry, but those are the boots."

"Yeah, okay. You two go ahead and drive around to the back. I'll have one
of the police officers take him out to meet you. Thanks for giving me an
option. You don't know how many kids end up locked up because no one will
take them in."

"For better or worse my son loves him and he's usually a pretty good judge
of character. I'll stand by Paul on that basis."

"Good enough," Mr. Poor said, standing to shake my father's hand. "It's
good enough for me. I just want to go home and have drink."

Paul let go of my hand and I left. The skinny kid was back in the chair
alone when we left. We went back out the front entrance and no one paid
much attention to us. Five minutes after we parked at the rear of the
building Paul came out and I sat in the back seat so he could sit up front.

The lights were all on in the house when we got there, and I cringed
some. I didn't want to face my mother with yet another crisis. Certainly
she knew where I was and she'd be waiting for some explanation after
sitting at the table and drinking coffee while she waited.

"Mom this is Paul. Paul my mom," I said, not waiting for her to start
asking questions.

"Delighted to meet you," Paul said in his sweetest voice.

"Yes," My mother said, eyeing him with suspicion.

"They think they found the guys that hurt Paul," My father said, not going
into detail. "They thought it was best he not be home alone, so I've told
him he could stay here for a few days."

My father was leaving out a lot of important details and I started to see
him in a totally different light. My mother took it all in and sat in
silence, processing the information and our presence.

"Are you hungry?" My mother asked.

"Yes," I said, getting in front of the conversation.

"I'm not talking to you," she said, with more meaning in the words than
they meant. "You're always hungry. Would you like something to eat Paul. We
had a roast for dinner and I put up individual plates for the microwave. It
would only take a few minutes."

"Home cooking. Yes, ma'am," Paul said with a delighted sound in his voice.

He was saying all the right things and in five minutes there was a steaming
plate sitting in front of each of us. My father opted for some coffee and
they sat at the table with us as we ate. My mother's sour face didn't
change and the displeasure with me was still in every look she gave me, but
she seemed concerned about Paul's condition.

"I'll need to change the sheets in the guest room. The bedspread has been
on that bed since we've been here. I'll get a fresh quilt out for you," My
mother said, excusing herself from the table and heading into the house.

"She's getting past it?" I asked my father as he sat relaxing at one end of
the table.

"No, I don't think so. She is your mother and Paul is ailing. We aren't
angry at you Z. We're disappointed. We had such hopes that you'd have a
good life."

"I plan to, Dad. We plan to," I said, looking across the table at Paul.

He managed a smile while he was shoveling food into his mouth.

"You know what I mean. Those people aren't happy. They live sad lives, Z. I
don't know if you know what you are getting yourself into."

"Dad, I'm not getting myself into anything. This is who I am. I know it's
difficult to understand but it's not a choice I made. It is what I feel
inside. People are sad because they don't feel free to express
themselves. They've got to hide it for their own safety. We aren't sad,
we're threatened."

"Right on!" Paul said, managing to make his first mistake and getting a
suitable glare from my father so he knew he wasn't in this conversation.

"We live in a free country, Pop and we're free to keep our mouths shut or
else. That would make most people sad."

By now my father knew we were on opposite sides of the issue and there was
only one of us who had any room to move closer to the other. He didn't like
the idea but he had been moving in my direction simply because he was a
good and decent man who loved his son. His disappointment was giving way to
his nurturing nature and his desire to protect his son from a hostile
world. I knew I was winning my father over but I had no such thoughts about
my mother.

She too was a good person and she helped people in need, but that didn't
change the way she felt. My hope was that Paul's presence would help to
move her in my direction. I didn't like my mother being mad with me. It
wasn't something I had experience with before. No matter what I did she had
always found a way to be supportive before this. I hoped that time would
help but that didn't make the tension any less painful.

Paul was put in the guestroom right across the hall from my room.

"You're to stay in this room. Z is to stay in his room. You may meet
downstairs or at the table when we eat. If you are in his room during the
day, the door stays open at all time. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir. No problem. I just want to get some sleep. I won't cause you any
trouble."

"You already have but I love my son and I'll stand by him. Don't let him
get hurt, Paul."

"I'll do my best, sir," Paul said as my father closed the door.

"Did you hear what I said."

"Yes, sir," I said as he stood in my doorway. "Don't make me regret this,
Z."

"I won't, Pop. Thanks!"

My father shut my door and left me alone. I was exhausted and had no
trouble going to bed.

					    *****

Life is too short to miss out on love.  Love someone if you can.  You won't
be sorry.