Date: Sat, 7 Oct 2000 12:36:12 -0700
From: Dabeagle <dabeagle@nycap.rr.com>
Subject: New York New York 2 (High School)

I hope y'all like this one, as usual comments are welcome!


Morning came in its usual wondrous colors, making the drop of dew clinging to
the needles of the tree outside my window sparkle like gems in the new day. I
stood behind the thin curtains that separated me from the day, those gauzy
curtains allowing me to see out but making the reverse a bit challenging, as had
become my custom. I waited for my love to open his window, my New York love. I
watched as the drapes were withdrawn from the window across the street, like
large eyelids revealing the soul of some huge slumbering beast, and he was
revealed to me. He turned from the window and laid back on his bed for a moment,
then sat to put socks on. I find that people act much different when they
believe themselves to be alone, you see more of the true person. He was all
fluid motion, all the grace and beauty I had come to identify with him. If he
only knew how good he really is. He glanced out the window, peace on his face.
Then the door opened...



The alarm was going to die.
It was only a matter of time before I just broke the damn thing. I groaned a
little as I forced myself across the room and silenced the devil machine. I
pulled boxers from the drawer and padded to the bathroom for a shower.
Afterward I felt close to human again, although my feeling towards that vile
mechanization hadn't changed! I pulled on a white undershirt and a short sleeved
white button up, and creme colored khaki's. I pulled my sneakers from their
resting place under the bed and grabbed socks. I then opened my drapes to reveal
a morning that shouldn't have been wasted on a school day. Dew clung to the cars
and shrubbery all about. The tree in front of my house had droplets everywhere,
and the pine across the street looked like had been dusted with diamonds. I laid
back on my bed for a moment looking at the blue azure in the sky, and then sat
up and pulled on my socks, glancing out the window from time to time and feeling
at peace with the day. Then he entered without so much as a knock.
"Adam are you...Oh, you're up. Do you want a lift to school?" Bernie asked.
"I don't know where you were brought up, Bernie, but we usually knock here
before walking in on someone's private space."
His face stiffened and he slammed the door shut. I could hear his retreating
steps down the stairs and the ensuing bitching he made to my mother. Great, a
new lecture on being respectful to him after he was disrespectful to me. I
steeled myself and then descended the stairs for breakfast.
I entered the kitchen and found just my mother sitting at the table looking
worn. I kissed her cheek and gathered a bowl of cereal together. She sat quietly
smoking, which actually seemed to make things worse. I sat quietly eating cereal
with my appetite waning. She smoked in silence, crushed out the butt and
inserted a new cigarette in her mouth and lit it beginning the cycle again. I
couldn't take it anymore.
"Mom, I'm sorry I got pissed at Bernie. But he should know better!" I said
quickly.
She sat unhearing and nonplussed by my statement. Then suddenly she grabbed the
candle from the table ensconced in its small glass container and threw it across
the room, missing my head and shattering against the stove.
"Why can't you just be a man?" She intoned, "Why can't you just stand up and be
a real man? You little motherfucker, are you trying to ruin everything for me?
Just like your father!" Her voice reached a shattering crescendo, and then
silence.
I sat stock still, shocked into stillness. Then got up quickly and grabbed my
backpack on my way out the door.
I stepped out my front door and sat heavily on the steps. This was how things
were going lately. My mother had turned into a basket case, Bernie was just
weird, Randy kept looking at me funny. In fact, he looked at me like he knows
something I don't. About my mother or something equally deep.
Anyway, he and Nick have been spending a lot of time together, and that has cut
into my time with Randy `cause I don't trust myself around Nick anymore. In the
past few weeks that I have known him I have become a focal point of desire and
frustration. I have admitted to myself that I'm gay, at least in a roundabout
way. I mean, I can appreciate a pretty girl, even lust a bit. But in the end I'd
much rather date her boyfriend, nine times out of ten. Well I do have SOME
standards.
But all I think about is his face, his laugh, his walk. Nothing else fits, my
mind is ruled by thoughts of Nick. And that's the problem. See, Randy looks
awesome, but he's like this untouchable. I don't think I could even if he wanted
to cause he's like my brother, and, well, Eww. Nick, though, that's different.
All I do is dream about his lips and what it might feel like to be kissed, how
it must feel to be held in those arms, and how unfair it is that I can't even
tell him. I guess in the past month I have realized that being his friend isn't
enough, and I have pushed him away. In fact, I have not answered the phone when
the caller ID says it's his number, and the sick part? I don't even know where
he lives. Do you have any idea how much worse this would be if I could look at
where he slept? Touch those sheets, inhale from his most private and inner
sanctum? These thoughts have kept me up nights, literally and figuratively. I
sometimes get up and write on the computer about my feelings just to get them
out in the open somewhere.
I got up and started down the street to walk the three blocks to the bus stop.
As I headed for the street corner I was joined by Nick's car rolling up beside
me.
"Hey, you want a lift?" came the soft southern breeze from the open window. I
turned to see him and was once again struck by the gentle features and quiet
power that seemed to envelope him, as I was each time I saw him.
"Sure, thanks." I said, automatically opening the passenger door and wondering
why I was doing this to myself. I sat quickly, all the while my mind turning
about my thoughts for this fellow next to me. I had never thought about someone
in those terms, really. I mean Randy was attractive as hell, but he was
attractive to everyone I think. Just one of those lucky people blessed with such
good looks that the only people that weren't attracted were the insanely
jealous. But this guy, well, I was continually noticing small things, like his
smile. And eyes like deep wells that I think I could drown in happily. I was
daydreaming a bit that Nick had stopped for me when he turned right and headed
up to Randy's place, and I suddenly realized that he must have been coming up
for Randy and just happened to see me and thought to stop. Well, doesn't that
just blow the wind from your sails?
We pulled up and Randy came trotting down the walk exuding coolness. I opened
the door to allow him in, and I was about to hop in the back seat when he placed
a hand on my shoulder to hold me in place while he climbed in the back himself.
I sat down somewhat reluctantly in the front seat, a now familiar tension in my
body. Randy and Nick supplied the bullshitting while I didn't trust my tongue to
keep these strange emotions under control. I looked out the window at the
passing scenery, houses built seemingly so close to the next that a giant had
butted one house against the other. I thought about where Nick might live, what
his room would look like, what he'd look like in gym shorts...What? Gym Shorts?
I turned and looked right at Nick, who was looking at me with a look
of...expectation. Uh oh, while my mind was wandering a question had been asked and
he was waiting for an answer.
"Helloo, earth to Adam, please respond!" Randy needled me from the backseat.
"Ah, I am sorry, my mind was..."
"In someone's pants, no doubt." Randy finished. I blushed mightily.
"What was the question?" I asked.
"No question," Randy chirped happily, "I just stated the fact that you like to
hump water buffalo. That's all, just nod your head in agreement." I turned
quickly and slapped him square on the forehead.
"You weren't supposed to tell!" I hissed in mock anger as he rolled back in his
seat howling.
"I was asking if you guys wanted to come hang at my house on Saturday." Nick
stated.
My mind froze.
"Maybe, I kinda promised mom I'd help around the house, so we'll see how much
she dumps on me." I said.
"I'll come over and help you , then we can meet at Nick's around noon. Cool?"
Randy asked Nick.
What the hell? I had just been roped in without so much as a `What do you
think?'
Aww, shit.


"Mr. Castle, are you with us this morning?"
I started, shaken from my thoughts by an instructor that wanted my attention. Go
figure.
"I'm sorry, what was the question?" I asked quietly.
"The question has to do with the Conference of Vienna and it's ramifications
across Europe, do you think you can enlighten us?" Mr. Bater asked. We all
called him Master Bater behind his back, and he also had a habit of falling
asleep in class. Fortunately, history is a favorite of mine, so the question was
easy enough.
"The Conference of Vienna was an effort to step back in time to a more feudal
system of Government, in effect a power play by those that were losing power."
Bater raised an eyebrow. "Very good, Mr. Castle."
Class continued and I faded into the background again. So what was going on? I
had the feeling I was being set up here, but why? Was I just being paranoid? I
mean, no one knew about my little lusting after Randy, and certainly no one knew
about Nick. Ah, Nick, that sweet boy. So beautiful and he looks soft to the
touch as well. I sighed.
I trudged to my locker at the end of class with my emotions slowly unraveling,
fear eating around the very edges of my soul it felt like. I smiled, am I
melodramatic or what? The question remained about what exactly I should do,
however.
And this is how my days are going, and now my plan of just avoiding the whole
thing has backfired, since Randy decided to open his big mouth. And what was my
mother talking about this morning? What had she meant about my father, and why
was she being so damned weird? I decided to walk home that day, even though it's
a few miles, I just didn't feel like I could stand the bus with it's screaming
and idiot posturing today.
I grabbed my book bag and walked out the back door, turning up towards the
north. Following the numbered streets. As I reached the third corner the
football team went by doing their running drills. One dropped from the back of
the pack and returned to me walking on the sidewalk.
"Dude, why are you walking?" Randy said.
O Jesus, could this day get any worse? My mind bent just then, I think I felt it
tearing away from it's underpinnings in reality and rushing through cold air
headlong towards madness. I looked into Randy's eyes and opened my mouth, but no
sound issued forth.
"Proctor! Get your candy ass over here!" came the voice of Coach Canfield. It
seemed to be the shot of reality to bring me back a bit.
"Just felt like walking, Rand. That's all," I whispered and tried to continue
on. Randy placed a restraining hand on my arm.
"Hang on, I'll go with you. Walk back with me so I can get my stuff."
"PROCTOR! Goddamnit, get your ass over here! What the hell do you think this is
social hour?"
"Coach Canfield, kiss my ass. I quit," Randy replied and turned with an arm
around my shoulders and walked me back to school.
"You can't talk to me like that! Get over here! PROCTORRRR!"


We caught the late bus home, and I kept my silence. We walked to my house with
Randy trying his best to allow me to speak when I was ready. We walked in
together to find my mother dressed but obviously still in the same state.
"So you came back." She paused. "You had better get a few things straight, you
little faggot. I will not have filth and perversion in my house, do you hear me?
Bernard filled me in on your defending that other fag at school, that political
brat, and you WILL NOT act that way in this house!" She took a deep breath
before continuing.
"Your father was shit. I am sure you got this from him. Do you know how he died?
I'll fucking tell you, Adam, he died handcuffed to a bed in Greenwich Village
with a man FUCKING HIM. He was bent over getting BUGGERED while his family was
home waiting for him to come back from a business trip. Put that in your fucking
family history, buddy boy." She crushed out her cigarette and promptly lit
another.
"Are you two fucking now?" She gestured to Randy, "or are you still having a
fight with your precious Nick? You know, Bernard sees this shit all day, more
than you think. He knows you have the hots for this kid, you fucking piece of
TRASH!"
Each word was like a physical blow, and I felt my mind bending again.
"You want to know what else, buddy boy? I found that shit on your computer, all
that crap you write about that kid, how you can't trust yourself around him.
Maybe I should call his parents and warn them to keep their son safe from you."
She ended with a mutter.
Randy spun me on my heels and propelled me back out the door and forced me up
the hill to his house. Not that I was resisting, at least not that I remember.
He sat me on his bed and that was when I became conscious of the tears that were
streaking down my cheeks and of the growing wet spot on my shirt where my tears
had found a resting place. Randy reappeared with his mother who dabbed at my
cheeks and made all the appropriate coos for the scene before retreating back
downstairs. An argument ensued, but it must have been on the phone because no
one was yelling back at Mrs. Proctor.
Randy sat next to me and placed an arm around me and then drew me in to rest, my
head on his chest tucked under his chin. I drew a long hitching breath and then
started to cry as never before, tears of loss, frustration, rage, and pain. I
cried until I no longer was conscious.
I woke in Randy's bed about nine thirty. I sat up slowly, feeling empty and
cold. The dimly lit room revealed Randy and Nick on the floor playing at doing
their homework.
"So what's wrong with Adam? C'mon Randy, you already know how I feel; it's not
fair to hold back. I want to be there for him too." Nick said quietly. " I love
him."
"I know, but that's not my call, dude. I told you that. If he wants you to know,
he'll tell you."
"But I don't understand why he's pushing me away. Have I done something?"
"Not that he's said to me, but we don't see each other as much as we used to,
and that has to change. I mean, we used to hang all the time, and this really
scares me cause I had no idea it was coming..."
"What was coming?"
"I can't," Randy said quietly. "It's not my place, Nick. Please understand, it's
his private affairs and it just wouldn't be right."
"Ok. I guess I understand. But if I can help, you know."
"Yeah, I know, man. Thanks."
"Yeah, so I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Yeah, dude, I guess so."
I saw Nick's form rise and throw his pack on his back, and then he walked next
to me. I faked sleep and felt his gentle touch push the hair from my brow. I
drew in a sudden breath and reached for his hand. He tried to draw back, but I
held his hand to my forehead, and then to the tears that were escaping my eyes
once again. I drew his hand to my lips and whispered the words, I set them free
to his ears.
"I love you too, Nick"
His breath stopped. He sat next to me and breathed slowly. Randy stood behind
him with his arms wrapped around him. I motioned him to me, and he approached
and sat on the other side. I held their hands and felt complete for a moment, at
peace. And I slept.


And there it is. All comments are welcome at dabeagle@nycap.rr.com
or visit the homepage: www.homestead.com/dabeagle/dabeagle.html

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