Date: Mon, 06 Feb 2006 18:44:02 +0000
From: M Williams <kollegekid54321@hotmail.com>
Subject: Living with a Past - Chapter 12

- DISCLAIMER - The following story, novel, or chapter contains
homosexual themes and is not intended for anyone under the legal
viewing age - If depictions of homosexual activities disturb you
- Do Not Continue To Read This Story - Feedback appreciated
Copyright - 2005 - Max Williams (Kollegekid54321@hotmail.com

Chapter 12

     That was fucked up, Jason thought as he entered the school.
Swear to God if Richiazzi gets in ten feet of me I'll pound his
little, puny, skinny, hairless body into the wall -
     "What the fuck is up?"  A vivid voice came from behind
Jason.  Shit.  He turned around and found Meghan there, arms
crossed, face so contorted into a scowl that it was clear she was
more fighting back tears than being angry.  "What the fuck is up,
Jay", she repeated.  He knew enough not to play dumb, but it
wasn't like he could say anything until he knew what she was
getting at.
     "Hey bunny.  How're you doing", he started cautiously. She
said nothing but looked fractionally closer to crying, so he
timidly reached toward her.  She violently pulled away even
though he was two feet from touching her.
      "Don't you fucking touch me, asshole."  Her voice was
loud and tense and the few seconds that passed until she spoke
again were impossible to bear.  Jason had no idea what to do.
"What . . . the fuck . . . is up . . . with you," she said again,
slowly, angrily, agonizingly.  He decided to go for broke - the
truth was the truth.
     "This . . . is about Saturday night?"  She nodded dumbly,
not helping him at all.  "What . . . what do you want to know . .
. ?"  She was close to crying again.
      "Did," she gasped, "did . . . you . . . kiss anyone?"
Jason was dumbstruck.  "Anyone," she repeated, "because
everyone's laughing at me, and, and pointing, and, and saying you
made out with someone at the party and no one is telling me who
but they're all laughing and, and, and fuck you Jay for doing
this to me, and what the fuck did you do?" Her pleading face was
almost too much for him to bear; the corners of her eyes wet; her
bottom lip chewed to shreds; her blonde complexion splotched with
humiliating red as her face contorted in anguish from the eyes
outward.
     Jason felt a pang in his heart - he never really realized
before now, but he didn't love her.  And as he looked at her
tortured face, he saw exactly how much he really cared, and that
he enjoyed their time together hanging out, but as for a passion,
or a desire to save her, to rescue her, to make love to her and
worship her happiness . . . it wasn't in him.  It just wasn't
there.  Hmm, he thought, that explains the sex.
     With this realization in mind, he looked her deep in her
eyes, and suddenly, desperately, began to pray.  Please, God, let
her understand.  Oh God, please let her not torture herself like
this.  He looked into the crystal circles of blue pleading up at
him, and thought, futilely; please don't make a big deal out of
this.  And suddenly, she smiled.
       "Oh God, I'm sorry, "she said amicably, wiping her
eyes.  She was smiling at him now, pleasantly, as though they
were having a pleasant chat.  "Oh God, my eyes are going like
crazy!  Oh, I'm sorry Jay, I shouldn't have gotten so worked up;
I didn't mean to yell at you like that. It just . . . well, I
mean . . . I don't know; I guess it took me by surprise - I don't
remember why I was so mad.
Did you have a good time?"
     Jason was dumbstruck.  Meghan was mildly fixing her face
now, calmly checking her hair with a little mirror fro her purse
and clearly confused as to why she'd been so upset only a moment
before.  She wasn't the only one; Jason had no idea what had just
happened and neither did the two or three people that had been
surreptitiously watching their argument.
     "Meghan," he slowly asked.
     "Yeah?"
     "Do you still want to know about . . . what happened . . .
?"
     "Well sure.  Did you have fun?"  Jason was stymied again.
Why should she care if he'd had fun?  She was his girlfriend and
should still be pissed that apparently half the school knew he'd
macked with some guy when she didn't have a clue, and now she was
asking how it was?
     "Um, yeah, it was fine."
     "That's cool.  Do the Bellgraphs really have a hot tub that
looks over the lake?"
     "Um . . . not sure . . . I think so, but I never really made
it outside -"  Jason was interrupted by the first period bell.
He and Meghan looked around and realized that the hallway was
completely empty and that classes had already started.
     "Oh shit," she said.  She grabbed Jason's face and gave him
her customary peck on the lips, before turning to run down the
hall.  "Sorry I got so pissed babe - call me later, like usual?"
He numbly shook his head and she was off, dashing down the hall.
He was still standing there with his bags and his coat, amazed
that the first major transgression of the day was over.  And it
wasn't even all that bad. Fucking sweet.
     With a glimmer of hope, he climbed the stairs to his third
floor locker and calmly put his gear away, found his textbooks
and made his way to his Spanish class where he got reamed out for
being 15 minutes late.  Can't win `em all, he thought.

***********************************

     William finished throwing the piles of blackened wood in his
arms out the side window of his spacious bedroom. There was a
little lawn out there that was kept intact by the low brick wall
that ran around the length of his manse's small yard.  The grass
was dead, of course, and some snakelike trees had tangled
together along the border of his property, but there was a clear
open spot next to the house and it was here that William was
disposing of the rotted garbage and ruined furniture that filled
his home.  He breathed deeply and looked around the bedroom.
     The big bed was still centered against the back wall of the
room, but gone were the mildewed curtains and sheets and in their
place was a thoroughly dry mess of blankets and clothes.  But the
dresser was gone, the blackened chair frames were gone, the
shutters and the curtains had been gone for a while, the loose,
wet wallpaper had been torn off, and the sodden carpet had been
pealed up and the floorboards scrubbed.  The whole room was
considerably lighter, brighter, and getting drier by the day,
despite the trace amounts of mildew that remained in the corners.
Darkness stuck in the crevices and cracks of the house like tar,
William found, and he'd been doing his best to throw out
everything that was rotten, which was, well, everything. He
wanted the house to be livable so that he and Jeremy . . . well .
. . where, after all, would he and Jeremy be living?
     But there was another pressure inside William's heart, and
that was to find Jeremy.  He had the vague sense that cleaning
out the old house was all well and good, but only for so long and
in the mean time Jeremy was out there, somewhere.  William had
stumbled onto him one night, encouraged to walk around the lake
by some strange urge that had completely overtaken him; obviously
a product of the bizarre, inconstant magic at hand.  And until he
got another
strong magical urge, he wouldn't know where to go or what to do,
but there must still be something he could do in the meantime.
If only to help his own cause, and find the animal-flesh bound
book that the old Signor had used to put William to sleep, so
many years ago.  He remembered nothing about it, except that it
was a sketchbook of sorts, filled with the cramped, uneven black
writing of the old Signor. Nothing was labeled, nothing was
described, nothing was written in any language other than the
wizened man's native Italian, and nothing, nothing was meant for
anyone to use but the man that had written it, so perhaps it had
even been destroyed.  Had the Signor had children?  William shook
his head.  Had the Signor stayed in Buffalo?  William didn't
know.
     William was starting to get upset, and his spirits dampened
as he stood in the bay window and saw the stormtorn world outside
his house.  There was a thick kind of grey light in the air - the
type that comes when a thick storm cloud diffuses a strong sun -
and it chilled William despite the early hour.  He had to do
something - there was nothing to do at the house except clean
anyway, so he had to do something.  He blindly decided to go back
to the lake.
It was a bitch of a walk, but it was the only clue he had right
now, and who knew when another clue from the supernatural would
decide to influence him?
     In desperation, he grabbed the only coat he'd been able to
find in the deep cedar closets of the fourth floor storage rooms.
It was long, black, and archaic, but in good shape for its age
and not moth-eaten.  William didn't like wearing it, for even
during the few run-ins he'd had with modern people during his
nocturnal food-runs, he'd realized that styles had changed.  The
long black coat with the black piping, his button down collarless
shirt, his button pants they were all clean and dry now, but
archaic and as such, conspicuous.
     So, be inconspicuous, William told himself as he put on the
old coat.  Stay low - don't talk.  Stay low - don't talk.
William threw on the coat and descended his stairs. He'd picked
up all the stained glass and taken it out to the side yard as
well.  The hall floor was irreparable with his means, but he'd
managed to take two of the fallen ceiling beams and lay them over
the hole - the thick top of the wide marble table straddled the
beams and made a sort of makeshift floor.  It wasn't very stable,
but at the very least cut out the sight, and smell, of the
subterranean mausoleum.  William carefully circumvented the whole
mess, and then came to the front doors.  He'd only opened them a
few times since he'd been back, considering it more inconspicuous
and therefore prudent to leave by the back, but now drew the
heavy bolt, turned the thick, stiff brass knob, and opened the
massive walnut door to the morning air. He hit the night-lock
button off and shut the door again, made his away around the
rotted floorboards of his faulty porch, and took off down the
steps and through the parking lot that still perplexed him so, up
onto the hill, and walked along the old railroad tracks that
followed the curve of the water to every industrial operation in
Buffalo.  He knew he had three or four good hours of walking
before him, so he set a comfortable pace and plodded along,
intent to work his way from his home in the west side of Buffalo,
through the south of the city, and then into the northern suburbs
of Cape City, where Jeremy had twice leapt into Lake Erie, by mid-
afternoon.  He started humming a pleasant tune as he took in the
morning air.

***********************************

        Jason found it thoroughly bizarre that he'd been
through four classes so far and no one had mentioned anything.
Then again, he'd also done exactly as he'd meant to and kept his
head down and stayed inconspicuous.  He hadn't seen anyone from
the party, which was unusual, but it worked out for him.  He was
leaning against the hood of his car, parked on the shoulder of
Montgomery Ave halfway between Cape City and Capetown; right on
one of his favorite promontories where a bridge crossed the
medium sized Cape River that separated the two municipalities.
Chewing contentedly on a sandwich, the handsome young man's warm
brown eyes were flickering over the savage scenery of freezing
water and jagged rocks and the little white caps that flew up
where the two met.  He felt just as jagged as the rocks and his
stomach was churning like the water, making him unable to eat
much of the lunch his mother insisted on making.  Of course that
could also have been because he was allergic to the pimento loaf
she habitually packed for him because it was her favorite.
Realizing that, he flung the rest of the sandwich over the bridge
and watched it become a speck before it disappeared in the
rushing waters below.
       He suddenly felt very alone.  He suddenly felt very
childish for feeling alone, and suddenly very selfish for being
such a baby . . . but all the same, he felt alone. There was no
one he could turn to.  Maybe Sean, in a few weeks or something,
but there was no one else around. Jason's eyes were a little wet,
but he put it down to the massive spray that had just come from
the rocks below.  He got off the car and walked to the railing
and looked straight down into the clear, rushing stuff.  It was
beautiful.  It was just as beautiful as the way the grey, hazy
sky formed a solid wall of wet greyness with distant surface of
Lake Erie, which Cape River emptied into in the distance; the
horizon was lost.  Jason felt a sudden, incontrollable urge to go
there, to get out there, to be by the lake - he almost jumped
back into his car to go when he remembered the music course he
had to get back to school for.  Remembering school, he felt alone
again, and on feeling alone, that wild urge hinted at his gut
again, to go out to the lake.  Why was he always attracted to
water when he felt that way?  Jason gave the mysterious and hazy
distance one last look and then headed back to his car.  Why did
he have to have so many questions?

***********************************

      Mr. Broad sat behind his desk, polo shirt too tight,
pants too tight, thinning hair fluffed up in front and pasted
down in back, mustache fluffed, and glasses slightly dirty.  Next
to him sat Fredo Richiazzi, with his dirty clothes and uncombed
curly hair making him look like a wino. Fredo was furtively
sneaking glances at the incoming students, trying to hide his
book under the pile of music theory quizzes he was supposed to be
grading, but really just preparing himself again to read another
page's worth of Italian incantation when Jason came in.
     Mr. Broad was giving Fredo furtive looks and halfsmiles when
he could catch his eye, but most of them Fredo turned away from.
Mr. Broad did not, however, put up with falling behind schedule,
and found an excuse to tap Fredo's hand and return him to grading
quizzes many times.  Fredo meanwhile simply wanted to know if he
finally had the right page.  That last one hadn't been it - as
far as he could tell nothing had even happened to Jason.  Not
that he'd seen
him all day - not that anyone had, and it was getting to worry
both Sean and Dave when Fredo had eavesdropped on their
conversation at lunch.  But now Fredo had it - the chant that
vaguely (Fredo only knew fractured Italian from his mother)
sounded like the right one - the chant that would make someone
fall in love with you.  Or with the first person they saw.  Or
maybe not - Fredo couldn't decipher everything to figure out
exactly how it worked.  But if you put Jason, and me, and a
something-to-do-with-love spell in the same room, something
good's bound to happen, Fredo reasoned.  I just wish I knew what
the fuck I was doing.  I just wish I knew if this worked.
     Finally the bell rang, and the last girl took her place in
the bleachers.  Fredo's hopes took a nosedive until Mr. Broad
went to close the door and one last student ran in with an excuse
about traffic being bad - Jason.  Mr. Broad's eyes ran up and
down the boy's frame as he got seated and then the glammed up old
man said, "Well, I'm glad every body could make it here,
especially yours, Jason.  Now -"  And class began.
     Fredo still sat alongside Mr. Broad's desk in the
corner, vaguely out of view of most of the class on the semi
circular bleachers, but saw Jason's profile on the top in
the back on the end clearly, and with that in mind, gave Mr.
Broad a glance - he was fucking around at the piano and probably
would be for a good twenty minutes - and began reading the new
page.
     The familiar sensation of growing tension began immediately.
Fredo had a bad habit of silently mouthing the words of anything
he was reading, and did so now as the poor reader stumbled
through the difficult, yet familiar, foreign words and began
slowing more and more prominently as the ache in his head
mounted.  He looked up to and took a slight break, and the
handsome profile of Jason's brown - well, not so brown anymore,
in fact, kind of pale - face reminded Fredo of his efforts.
Fredo redoubled himself and the pressure mounted, mounted, more
and more as he neared the end of scribbled, cramped black
writing.  His eyes dilated as his vision and focus increased and
regained their eagleeye ability, and as Fredo stumbled over the
last word, his head was full of tension and aches that almost
stung, and he looked up at the side of Jason's head.
     Fredo, excited and happy, prepared himself for a second, and
then concentrated on the sexy sideburn of the man he'd wanted for
almost four years, this amazing, buff, sexual young man that had
been his best friend, and even made love to him - once - oh so
long ago.  Fredo prepared himself and thought, look at m-
     "Fredo, look at me," came another voice, interrupting
Fredo's concentration.  He started, looked away from Jason, who
had just turned his way, and crazily looked around until he
locked eyes with Mr. Broad.
      "I'm not keeping you here to drift off, Fredo, would
you like to help me explain these tendency tones - Fredo? Are you
alright?  Fredo?"  Fredo felt the world stop as the locked
expression with Mr. Broad got more and more intense for a moment,
and then the familiar slackening of the pressure in his head as
the tension forced his eyes open and the aches to disappear.
After a moment, Fredo was fine, and, blinking his watering eyes,
looked quizzically at Mr. Broad, who was watching him back.  A
quick glance at the rest of the class showed that no one else was
paying attention, or even aware anything had happened.  Jason was
staring straight ahead, looking very bored, and Mr. Broad was
telling Margaret Simpson to calm down; apparently just as
oblivious as everyone else.  Had it worked?  Had it gone
to . . . to Mr. Broad?!  What the fuck keep happening, Fredo
thought frantically.
     "Fredo?  Can you help me with this?"  Fredo sheepishly
looked around again, and quietly started to get up until he
became painfully aware that casting the second spell had made him
come again in his pants, apparently just as much as the first
time.  With a quick, small, nervous smile, he grabbed a music
book to hold in front of him, nervously nodded to Mr. Broad, to
the rest of the class, and finally got up to explain about the
voiceleading.
***********************************
     Standing at his locker after music, Jason decided he was
having a pretty good day.  Nothing much had happened; he hadn't
bumped into anyone from the party, or in fact anyone at all.  A
little pang accompanied that thought and he was briefly reminded
of his loneliness over lunch, and the appealing mystery of the
water, but he dissolved that with a quick swallow and went back
to moving his jumbled books around on the high shelf.  He was
hunting for his gym stuff for his next class, and he kept
dwelling on what a good day it had been mostly because there was
no avoiding Sean or Greg or some of the other guys once they were
all in the locker room, changing at the same set of lockers.
This is gonna be weird, Jason thought, that I'm getting naked
with a guy I kissed last Saturday.  Whatever, I've seen him
change a million times.
       He gave a half-hearted shove to an errant stack of
papers - fucking Spanish project - and tugged at his gym bag,
which was stuck in the narrow opening of his locker.
It came out with the unforgiving sound of nylon scratching metal,
and then Jason dropped it on the floor when his nerves were
jarred by sudden shouting from down the hall.
     "No, no, I - God - no, I wont," came the terrified
voice of Fredo, who suddenly burst into view.  His baggy old
shirt was askew, revealing the wife beater he habitually wore
under everything, this one black, and he held his right arm as
though it had just been twisted.  His voice was shrill with
exasperation, and as he looked horribly down the short little
hall to the music room, he whimpered a little. "Get away!"
      Mr. Broad strode into view, looking as ridiculous he
always did, except with a few hairs out of place and his baggy
face bright red.  "No, you come back here!  I need to speak with
you!"  Mr. Broad approached Fredo again, one hand clearly aiming
to grab him about the neck and the other considerably lower,
looking to grab something intimate enough that Jason suddenly
understood Fredo's intense revolt.  Fredo was shaking his head
and frantically trying to rifle through the pages of some book he
was carrying in the crook of his lame arm.  He kept stopping and
mouthing a few words, and then shaking his head and flipping to
another page.  Mr. Broad meanwhile was slowly creeping up on the
meek boy, clearly sizing up the best way to seize him.
     Jason felt something tug in his stomach, and felt utter
repulsion at the thought of going to Fredo's aid, but the young
man had learned long ago the value of good and truth, and slammed
his locker shut as he began to jog the length of the hallway to
where ten people or so had started to form a circle around the
bizarre scene.  Some of them were whispering to each other that
Fredo must've done something shitty to be in so much trouble, but
that theory was starting to falter as people realized that Mr.
Broad had specks of spit on his own chin, and the merest traces
of a deep purple bruise was starting to form at his right eye.
His eyes were wide and dilated, and his breathing, for all his
relative lack of movement, was getting more and more hoarse and
choked, as though the man couldn't breathe for his own fury.
What could he possibly have wanted so much?
     "Fredo - you're coming with me!  Oh, Fredo.  Oh Fredo!"
The crazy man had backed Fredo up against a wall now, and the boy
was alternating between reading more words and squeezing his eyes
shut, waiting for the impact.
      The impact was a gym bag that flew out of nowhere and
hit Mr. Broad square in the side of the face.  The man's eyes
grew as he stumbled and almost fell, his outstretched hands
redirected to keep him from hitting the terrazzo floor of the
hallway.  Fredo suddenly saw a blur of tan muscular man jump out
of nowhere and tackle Mr. Broad to the ground, and as Jason
tumbled with the stout older man, Fredo quickly read the rest of
the page.
      Jason was losing the fight.  Broad was seized with a
primal fury, and was kicking and thrashing in such a way that his
feet had twice connected with Jason's side. Hardened though he
was from his sports, Jason still lost his breath as he stumbled,
and in that moment Broad was able to grab him by the t-shirt,
which tore up the seam on the right side, and then grab his right
arm and twist it behind him, forcing Jason to double over.
Jason, breathing hard, was trying to force out words in his
captive position, but was only making a string of hoarse vowels
that left the mounting crowd confused and scared. "Hel . . . " he
finally forced out, trying vaguely to look
up at someone; anyone.  "Help me," he repeated, "help me! Help
me!"  He finally managed to force himself up for a split second
and looked Amy Wilcox right in the face.  She turned slightly
inward to her group of friends.  "You," he cried, pleading from
his eyes to hers, "help me!"  He fully expected her to do so by
running and getting another teacher, but instead he did something
that would've dumbfounded him, had he been in any position to
waste a moment being dumbfounded.
      Her round, honest face immediately tautened from the
scared, tense expression she'd just worn, to an ebullient,
determined one that Jason had seen now and again on her during
test time.  She walked purposefully forward and threw down her
plaid purse, and then stuck a fist right in the middle of the
flurry of struggling that was Jason and Mr. Broad.  It connected
with Broad's stomach and winded him for a second, his red face
turned maroon for a second as he lost his breath and fell to his
knees, and Jason twisted away from under him and stood, panting,
next to Amy.  Broad was only down for a moment, but Amy was
already on his back and efficiently twisting up one arm behind
his back, forcing him down like he'd just done to Jason.  Her
face was determined and thick veins stood out on her arms from
the effort, but clearly the stocky older man was managing to
overpower the medium sized girl, and Jason looked around the
crowd again.
     "Come on," he shouted at Brian Sutton and Jerry Grey,
"do something!"  They looked at him as he said it, and then
immediately strode forward and helped Amy hold Broad down. "Hey,"
Jason yelled, getting an idea, "will someone help me for a
second?"  He was still looking at the fight, and no one
responded.  He looked around the semi-circle of people, now thick
with bystanders, and tried to look at someone. Everyone dropped
their eyes and turned away; no one else wanted to get involved.
"Hey," Jason tried again, "someone help me with this."  No one
responded.  He moved forward to just grab someone, but winced as
his right side started on fire from the movement.  He looked down
and saw through the shreds of his shirt a large red mark and also
a little blood
on his side, from where Broad's wingtips had connected with his
taut obliques.  "Someone," he asked.
       An uneasy murmer started through the crowd and then
someone in the back yelled "FAG."  Jason started for a second,
thinking that was a fucking scummy thing to call Fredo . . .
until he realized that the speaker was talking about him.  "No
one's gonna help a fag, Colby . . ." came the thick, stupid voice
again.
      "A . . . a what . . ." said Jason softly; painfully.
"What?"  He spent a minute looking over the crowd again; some of
the guys were smirking, some of the girls were looking away, but
no one was making eye contact and no one was stepping forward.
The fight was basically over, there was nothing more to really
see.  Brian, Jerry, and Amy were holding down Mr. Broad, who was
wheezing into the floor and had apparently completely given up.
The three students were looking at Jason, as if waiting for the
next command.  Fredo was still against the wall, slid down to the
floor now and totally engrossed in his tears and in slowly
reading something.  And the crowd was slowly starting to calm
down as well; some laughs here and there, people sidling up and
softly murmuring as everyone gradually realized that the bell had
rung several minutes beforehand and everyone was wondering how
long they could milk the disruption.  And everyone else was
staring at Jason.
      His face was red, he was breathing hard, and his torn
short revealed the defined brown muscle that swelled and moved
with his deep gasping breaths.  He was holding his right side and
trying to stop the blood from the medium cut with the torn hem of
his shirt, but that didn't stop the outpouring of his confidence
as that three letter word was publicly applied to Jason, Jason
Colby, jock extraordinaire of Cape City High, and long time
considered a great fuck by all the prettier girls at school.
"What . . ." he repeated to himself, finding it hard to believe.
     "Ill help you."  The girl's voice was polite and familiar,
and Jason thanked Meghan more than she knew for coming unseen
through the middle of the crowd and showing up right when he
needed her the most.
     "Babe - I love you," he said, staggering forward and putting
his muscular arms around her.  She went to return his hug but
then he twisted away when she almost touched his bloody,
sensitive side.  She let him go with an inquisitive smile that
thoroughly puzzled him.  It was the second time that day that,
whether he meant to or not, he'd rebuffed her, and she'd just
taken it like a polite stranger.  What was going on?  He looked
at the struggling prone form of Mr. Broad again and wondered that
question aloud.
     "What," Meghan asked, politely leaning forward to hear.
     "What," Jason repeated, a little louder, "is going on
here?  Okay, you grab these shirts from my bag, tie his legs
together; Ill take this one and tie his hands."  They worked in
relative noise now, for the crowd of people was dispersing
slightly and everyone left had begun to tell the story to the new
arrivals, until it became such a din that teachers were coming
out to see what was going on, and one by one, each one of them
got the story and then immediately went to call the police and
interrupt the principal, who was soon too busy trying to ward off
the local news stations to talk to them.
     Jason, meanwhile, finished tying Broad's hand together and
then leaned down to hear what the flushed man was whispering so
violently to the ground.
       "I want it," Broad was wheezing in a jumble of hot
breath and stuttering, "so bad . . . Fredo you fucker you ass-
fucker you ass-fucking mother fucker I want it I need it
you don't know . . . you don't fucking know you . . . shit . . .
goddamnit . . . you fucking shitfuck assfuck I hate you fucker .
. . give it to me . . . give it to me . . . I need it, I fucking
need it . . . oh my ass . . . oh my ass wants it you fucker . . .
give it to my fucking ass . . . give it to me up the fucking ass
. . . oh God oh God . . . oh God yeah   . . . oh God . . .  oh
Fredo oh God . . ."  Jason
peered around and saw how involved the crowd was with their own
conversations; too much so to have heard any of the horny rants
issuing from Broad's mouth.  Jason sighed a prayer of relief and
took the last shirt from his gym bag. He leaned in close to Mr.
Broad's ear, unaware if the man was even perceiving the outside
world anymore.
     "Look you old fucker," Jason began softly, licking his lips
and looking around, "you're a lecher and a fag and you hurt my
friend, but I'm still gonna save you your dignity, and for that,
you're gonna owe me."  The hardened edge in Jason's voice
softened a very, very little bit.  "No one needs to know how bad
you're doing."  Jason took the rolled up shirt and put it in the
prostrate teacher's open mouth, muffling the perverted whispers.
He gave the man a sharp slap on the cheek and stood up just in
time to see Fredo, who seemed to be struggling with it, finish
reading something out of the book, and then look up.  They
would've made eye contact again for the second time that day if
it hadn't been for Meghan suddenly appearing out of nowhere at
Jason's side and saying his name, looking up at his eyes. Jason
leaned his stubbled face over to gently peck her on the lips, his
brown hair messed and hanging in locks over his forehead, when a
barely audible gasp pulled her attention from him.  It took Jason
a moment longer to register the noise as a choke of sadness, and
when he looked up at Fredo, standing six feet away against the
hallway wall, staring intensely at Meghan, he realized that Fredo
had tears in his eyes.
     Something happened to Fredo, he shuddered a little and his
wide eyes seemed to widen even more, if it was possible, and then
close again.  Meghan blinked and looked quizzically at Jason, and
then they both looked back at Fredo, who had his head down and
was slowly blinking.  He slowly looked up at Jason, and then at
Meghan, and then his sad face went a little red as he looked
horrified for a moment, but was then distracted by an incredible
growing wet spot on the front of his pants, and he started to
cry.  "You see what you made me do," he shouted angrily as he
flew up off the ground, and without thanks or explanation, bodily
forced his way through the crowd, using the book he'd been
reading to cover the front of his pants.