Date: Sun, 17 Jun 2012 18:57:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Tyler Adams <tyleradamsbooks@yahoo.com>
Subject: The Paths We Chose ch17

     Chapter 17

     Even though Eddie always seemed to be subtly testing the waters with
every guy he met, other than going to the GLBT club meetings we were
cautious about doing things in public that smacked of the truth of our
orientation. It's not that I'm all that concerned anymore with what anyone
might think or say if they were to find out -- I'm good with being gay
now. As long as Eddie's by my side, I could give a rat's tail about what
anyone else thinks about me -- about us. It's just that there's no point
in some macho jock with the IQ of a frog finding out. Those are the people
I'm seriously afraid of. They are such idiots. Even if Phil's way of
cleansing the world of gay people works about as well as nature's perfect
human specimen's way, at least Phil's way is non-violent.

     "That Dillon Westfield guy," Eddie told me at school one day, "can get
major air off the top of the pipe. He's pretty cool, but you should've been
there when he saw two guys getting a little friendly with each other. He
pretended like he was jamming his finger down his throat and gagging. It
was all I could do to keep from grabbing Phil and sticking my tongue down
throat just to watch what the guy would do. Let me tell you, ése, that
boy's got problems."
     I rolled my eyes and shook my head, thinking how funny it would have
been if my man would have done that. Then I noticed Phil in the background,
listening -- and turning three shade of purple -- so I shot Eddie a
stare to remind him that I didn't approve of him saying stuff like that
about Phil.

     Being grounded was a pretty boring... make that an extremely boring
two weeks. Mom made me remove the power cord from my computer so she could
hide it. I didn't even know she knew that you could take the power cord off
a computer. I tried to get dad to make her not do it, but he just shrugged
his shoulders as she shoved it and my cell phone in her handbag. Now I
can't even "borrow" them back when she's not home. We don't have a land
telephone line, so without my cell phone and computer, all I can do to kill
time is watch TV and daydream about being with Eddie. I can't believe how
much I miss being with him.

     "Let's go Christmas shopping tonight," I suggested to Eddie on the
last day of my sentence.
     Eddie kind of surprised me by the way he asked "It's been two weeks
already?" It kind of made me wonder if he hadn't even missed me. Later that
day he caught me alone and proved to me that he had.
     "I wan' to take you out to Sutton's for dinner, then we're gonna go
back to my place. My parents are going away for the night," he whispered to
me as he tickled my ear with his tongue.
     Oh my gosh. Sutton's! That's the place where dad says dessert costs
more than a whole meatloaf dinner at Hazel's. "Awesome," was all that came
out of my mouth though.

     Friday after dinner, we were killing some time in Shirley's Closet,
which my mom calls a "cutesy shop." I guess the clerk saw Eddie standing
against me and looking over my shoulder at the snow scene globe that I had
just shaken, because she smiled at us, and asked, "The two of you wouldn't
happen to be a couple would you? You look so cute together."
     I think even my toes must have turned red. I had no idea we were that
obvious. Eddie's squeeze and kiss on my cheek made my face feel even
hotter.
     "Just roll with it," he told me, taking my hand in his as we left. I
let him lead me next door to Driscol's Fine Jewelry. Spying him eyeing up a
pair of amber ear studs that matched the color of his eyes, I knew on the
spot what I was going get him for Christmas. He picked up a gold chain
necklace with a kind of an elongated heart pendant fastened right in the
chain and looked at it thoughtfully. I hoped that if he got it for me, it
would have our names engraved on it.
     A clock chimed the half hour, which seemed to prompt Eddie to hand the
necklace back to the jeweler, and whisper in my ear: "It's eight-thirty,
ése. My parents should be leaving the house by now to go to their
party."

     "I know where they keep the key to the liquor cabinet," Eddie
whispered, as he quietly opened the door to his house and pulled me
inside. We found his brother watching a movie in the home theater
downstairs, and his sisters watching TV in their bedroom. It was exactly
what we were hoping for. Sweet!
     Eddie poured a generous glass of cognac for each of us.
     "Oh my god, Alex, I missed lovin' on you so much.
     We were both dizzy with lust before we took even one sip of our
drinks.
     I wished I could have spent the entire night in Eddie's arms, but the
last thing I wanted was to get grounded again, so at eleven forty-five, we
headed for the car. To my way of thinking, we had had an awesome day
together. I don't think Eddie felt quite the same as me, because I knew he
wanted something from me that I was scared to give him.
     Eddie pulled into the driveway to my house at exactly eleven
fifty-eight. He was finally smiling again when he grabbed my arm as I was
about to open the car door.
     "Alex, I almost forgot. There's this club in Trenton that has an
alcohol free teen night once a month. They're having one on Friday the
29th. Want to go? We'll have to stay overnight at the hotel across the
street, because I can't drive after midnight on my Junior Drivers License."
     "Awesome!" I told him as I leaned over for a goodnight kiss.

     I got up early on Saturday morning to ask dad. Mom always slept in on
the weekend and I knew if I asked when she was up, she'd say no without
even listening to what I was asking.
     "You two are a little young to be going to a dance club."
     "But there's this place that's having an alcohol free, teen night on
the twenty-ninth of December, and... well, Eddie like asked if I could go
there with him. Can I?"
     "May I."
     "May you what?"
     "It's `may I go', not `can I go'... anyway, If you're sure that it's
only going to be teens, and no alcohol, then I don't see why you couldn't
take a couple of girls to a dance -- as long as you're in by midnight."
     "Dad, the club's in Trenton. We'd need to get a hotel for the
night... and... and we're not taking any girls."
     "Why do you have to go all the way to Trenton to dance? Isn't there
some place closer, like a school dance or something that you could go to?"
     "Dad, I can't dance with... you know, I couldn't dance with him at a
school dance -- I mean think about it."
     "Then why don't you just get over it, and dance with girls like every
other boy on the planet does!?! Why do you have to make life so difficult
for us, and for yourself, by getting messed up with all that gay crap?! I
don't know. I'll have to talk with your mother first."
     "Dad" I pleaded, "there's nothing to get over. Can't you just say yes,
and then cover for me this once. I promise there won't be any alcohol. You
can check it out on their website," I told him as I gave him a slip of
paper with the web address of the announcement on it. "It's a completely
safe place for teens -- It says so, right on the ad. That's why they have
it; so parents don't have to worry about their kids getting into trouble."
     "I said I'll think about it, Alex. I swear, sometimes I think your
mother must have dropped you on your head when you were a baby."

     Over the next two weeks before Winter Holiday, I had gotten to know
Dillon. He was such a comedian. He was always trying to make us crack
up. The time we cracked up the worst, though, was when he wasn't even
playing a joke.
     Eddie and I had just gone through the half pipe. Eddie had gotten air
for the first time -- and landed it. I was so amazed at how quickly he
was getting the hang of skateboarding. Well when he came out of the pipe, I
held up both my hands to meet Eddie's, and as we swung our arms in an arc
down to our sides, instead of bumping our chests together, like most guys
do, we kissed on the lips. It wasn't like a porno kiss or anything, it was
just a quick little one. You should have heard Dillon squawking.
     "Oh my gosh, Phil. Tell me that they didn't just kiss each other on
the lips. That is like, so not cool."
     Eddie and I both turned and watched as Dillon just stared at us for a
while, and then he started squawking to Phil again.
     "I can't believe they just did that. Oh my freakin' god, Phil, Eddie
and Alex are homos. I'm gonna puke!" His voice kept getting louder and
louder as he spoke.
     "Whoa. Chill, man. So they like each other. What's wrong with that?"
Phil asked.
     Dillon looked stunned when he heard Phil say that. So much so that
Phil must have felt the need to over-explain what he meant. He's good at
that. "I mean, think about it Dillon. They're just two guys who happen to,
you know... like they like each other in a different way than most guys
do."
     Dillon still looked at him like he couldn't believe Phil was okay with
two guys kissing each other on the lips. Then he went off again. It was so
hilarious.
     "That's what I just said -- they're homos. What part of that word
don't you understand?" I couldn't tell if Phil was going to crack up or if
he just didn't know what to say, but he had a sort of weird look on his
face. Dillon looked like he was gonna lose it.
     "Please, Phil, don't tell me you're one too? Man, this is freaking me
out. I am like so outta here. Please tell me you're straight, Phil."
     "Relax a little, okay?" Phil finally told him. "I'm not gay if that's
what you're worried about. But I do understand how they feel."
     I don't know if the look on Dillon's face was that of astonishment, or
of horror after Phil's words sunk into his head.
     "If... if you can understand how they feel, then you must at least be
bi, `cause them doin' that with each other, sure doesn't register on my
radar screen. I'm thinkin' that maybe you'd better stay the heck away from
me, Phil."
     Looking back to me and Eddie, who was now holding my hand, Dillon
turned to Phil again and then started to back up. He looked like he was
totally ready to jet. Eddie and I just stood there and listened. I knew,
from the things Phil had shared with me, where he stood on the subject, but
I had also been wondering just how far he'd go when it came to defending
gay people's rights. This seemed like the perfect opportunity.
     "Dillon," he said, rather calmly, "let me say something before you
go." Dillon stopped moving away, but he looked really nervous.
     "Having feelings for someone that you can't help having doesn't make a
person bad."
     "What do you mean?"
     "I mean, what made your tongue practically fall out of your mouth the
first time you saw Susan Shaffer?"
     "How should I know. But the fact that she's a girl may have had
something to do with it for crying out loud."
     "Right, but what if she wasn't?"
     "Wasn't what?"
     "A girl. What if she was a guy and you couldn't help it if you felt
like that for her anyway?"
     "Dude, you are making absolutely no sense. In the first place, she's
not a guy. And in the second place, if she was, I wouldn't have been
interested."
     "That's my point," Phil told him like he had just hit the lottery
jackpot. "What if you couldn't help it that you were interested in her even
if she was a guy?"
     "I'd probably shoot myself in the head."
     "That is so not funny, Dillon. Don't you know that's what happens to a
lot of gay kids when they figure out it's not going to go away?"
     Dillon thought that one through before answering. "I guess so, but
that stuff still makes me want to puke."
     "I'm kinda glad for that," Phil told him. "Can I be honest with you
without you getting mad?"
     Dillon just kind of looked at Phil warily. I honestly think he thought
Phil was gonna tell him he had the hots for him or something.
     "I don't think it really matters a whole lot who a person's attracted
to since God's Word says that Christians aren't supposed to be doing
certain stuff until they're married anyway."
     "You have a weird way of looking at things," Dillon told Phil
matter-of-factly.
     "Maybe that's because I have to. I'm not like you, Dillon. At times I
guess I kind of have a little trouble with my thought life even though I
believe God'll eventually change it. Since Alex and Eddie apparently aren't
trying to do things God's way, my dad told me I should try and find a
straight friend. That maybe having someone who wasn't likely to fall into
the same trap as me, could help me to avoid some of the things I don't
really want to do. As soon as dad told me that, I remembered seeing you at
school with your skateboard, and figured since you were new here, you might
want some friends.
     "It was so cool the way Susan passed us while we were talking that
first time. I figured that the Lord had led me to the right guy, when you
went gah-gah over her, `cause I had no idea how I was going to ask you
about that subject.
     "Anyway, things worked out, and we all think you're a totally cool
guy."
     Dillon looked back at Eddie and me. We were still holding hands. He
just shook his head, and then turned and slugged Phil on the arm.
     "Just don't get any ideas."
     "You don't have to worry about me if you're gonna cream my arm like
that. In fact, you can do that to me any time you see me staring at
them...or anyone, for that matter. I don't want to lose any friends, but I
don't want to mess up either."
     I whispered to Eddie, "I'd say he's already messed up if he doesn't
want this," just before I kissed him again.