The Gift of True Light

[ChrisGibson]

PART ONE

Russell Lewis was late for school that morning, and if second period had been anyone but Mr. Cordino, Russell would not have gone to class at all..
They were talking about the Franco-Prussian War, which meant Mr. Cordino was lecturing, and everyone else was half asleep. Ralph Balusik and Jason Lorry eyed him, Russell ignored them. They were all in blazers, white shirts, their fathers’ tie. Russell’s shirt was from the Salvation Army, two sizes too big, his corduroy jacket with the elbow patches swinging over his shoulder, and his red hair pushed back. Ralph, he did not understand. Jason, had been in the cool group of kids, half Indian, black haired with a bit of a five o’clock shadow. He’d been soft voiced and kind, but had found learned that calling Russel a queer meant no one would call him one, and to Russell, who didn’t know what he was, and found all of sex a mystery and had hoped Jason the handsome Anglo Indian would be a friend, this felt like treachery. His grey green eyes smirked at Russell, and Russell made his own expression flat, like he didn’t give a shit. He wished that was true.
“Hey, Russell, nice to see you decided to come to class,” Jeremy Bentham hissed.
Russell flipped him a disinterested bird.
“Is there something you want to share with all of us, Jeremy?” Mr. Cordino asked.
Jeff Cordino, a friend of Russell’s family, was no more than twenty-five. His voice shook a little, and sounded fuzzy, and it shook more when his kids talked through his lectures. He was a good man, but nervous man, and Russell suspected he wouldn’t always be a teacher.
Jeremy cleared his throat, but in time to turn a wry mug to whoever might see his embarrassment and said, “No, Mr.Cordino.”
“Good. Now, Russell, can you tell us some of the results of the Franco-Prussian War?”
Russell was at first put off. There were sniggers about the room. There shouldn’t have been. They all should have known better. And Russell opened his mouth and began to elaborate. His mind was not with his mouth. It was roving over the twenty or more boys in blazers in the white cinderblock room painted with those five windows over the radiator that looked down on Lincoln Street.
“Very good, Russell,” Mr. Cordino beamed. Russell wondered how he did that. He knew it was his teacher’s way of saving him, to show he had a brain. Russell wondered how much saving it really did.
He felt a wet spritz and turned to his left.
Rick Balusik was spitting between his teeth, another jet of saliva landed on Russell’s palm.
“Lewis,” Jason Lorry, behind Russell, leaned into his ear. “Can you tell me what Cordino’s dick taste like? Does it taste like an Italian sausage? Do you put Ragu on it and slurp it off?”
Russell Lewis hated high school.


Russell had discovered the second story bathroom his Freshmen year. Naturally, everyone discovered it Freshmen year, but Russell discovered it in a different manner. This restroom was to Our Lady of Mercy High School what the agora was to ancient Athens. All manner os trade, legal and illicit went on in the second story lavatory. Here, copied papers were passed on and paid for, the undesired parts of lunch were exchanged. Marijuana, test answers, and condoms were sold, cigarettes smoked. Between classes, during lunch hour, the Breckenridge boys of the water polo team straightened their ties and touched up their hair, the Blacks and Mexicans of Westhaven tried to be as ghetto as deeply middle class minorities whose parents could afford to send them to Catholic school in Geshichte Falls, Michigan wished they really were. Boys with acne stuffed chewing tobacco under their lips and drooled into the toilets.
But during classes, and even during lunch hours, the lavatory was a place of quiet. It was a long room of unusual cleanness that smelled only faintly of disinfectant and was filled with eastern light. Russell walked down it, the line of urinals to his left, the line of red painted doorless stalls to his right to the line of windows. The windows looked over the gravel roof of the gymnasium, and swimming pool that had been added to the old school and beyond that to the last houses of Geshichte Falls, and then to the desolate fields that Route 103 shot through. He would look out of the window, let the wind hit his face, stare up into the sun until he was blinded by this light. When he had had enough, then Russell would go out into the false fluorescent light of the narrow halls of Our Lady of Mercy. Often the world seemed like a good place, and Russell was sure that it was. But often the goodness seemed hard to find, and if Russell thought about most of the adults he’d known or the way his parents had been until recently, then he thought that it was easier to live a bad life than a good one. Easier to walk in false light.
No, he had not come because of worship, Russell came to the chapel because he felt an affinity with it. Large and beautiful and largely empty, he got the feeling that the chapel had been lonely. No one ever came inside. And Russell had to admit that this was him as well. Yes, he had to admit. He was lonely too.
But no. That didn’t seem like the right word, and the more Russell thought about it, lonely was the inappropriate word for God’s house, painted with his saints and angels, the shadows filled with the smell of incense. Once, Thom had shown Russell some photos of a trip he and his friends had made to Mexico one summer during college. Several shots had been of an Axtec Temple, empty, abandoned of worshippers, a pile of stones, and it had the same effect as this place. This chapel was not lonely. It was waiting.
And I’m waiting, too.
Though for what, Russell could not say.
So one day during the times when Russell was eating and waiting, Gilead Story came in and sat down across from Russell. He nodded at Russell, Russell nodded at him and both went on to eat their lunches. It took about three days for Russell to be the one to break the sacred silence.
“I thought you had the lunch period after me,” Russell said.
“I did,” he said. “But it got changed.”
“Well, do you mind my being here?”
“No,” said Gilead. “Not at all.”
It was the most Gilead and Russell had ever said to each other. It as all that was necessary. Russell hardly ever spoke, and when he did he still felt as if he was talking too much. Between some people there was always that need to talk as if the moments of silence were gaps that needed urgently to be filled. With Gilead in the chapel between history and gym it was not like this. The silence was good, the words few and far between.
“You’re going to be a senior next year?” Russell said one day, and Gilead told him, after swallowing a bit of tuna fish sandwich, “Yes. I will.”
“Most people,” Russell began, taking a swig from his juice box, “get excited when they talk about their senior year.”
“Well,” Gilead said, “I’m not most people.” Then, sensing that there was going to be conversation, Gilead got up and crossed the chapel and sat in Russell’s pew.
“When I started high school, my mother told me how much fun it would be. She told me how it was the best time of her life.”
“Mine too. And my Dad.”
“Exactly. Well,” Gilead made a gesture about the chapel with what was left of his sandwich, “Three years later here I am and it hasn’t been fun yet. It’s all these awful tired people talking about how much they hate being here and they all hate each other and then they’ll go right from high school hating life to college where they’ll hate life some more, and into a career and then they’ll be—we’ll be—our parents. As bad as high school is, what comes after doesn’t seem a hell of a lot better.
“I mean think about it. Everyday my mom comes home. I love her—well, actually,” Gilead noted with a tilt of his head, “I’m sort of indifferent to her, but I lean more on the love side than anything else. Anyway, when she comes home she just talks about how much she hates life and how bad work is, and then—”
“She sits in front of a television all night talking back to the sitcoms, goes to sleep and does it all over again the next day,” Russell guessed.
“I guess white people and black people are dull in the same way,” Gilead reflected, then said, “I see you’ve been there, and frankly, if that’s what’s next, I’m actually a little terrified.”
“Gilead?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“It’s what you do best, Lewis.”
“Do you think our parents are stupid? I mean, they tell you that wisdom comes with age, and then all kids talk about their parents being stupid. But I look around and most of our teachers—there are the good ones and all—bt most of them, and the priests and my relatives... it seems they don’t know any better than me. It seems like most of them are doing it wrong. Like... they really are stupid.”
“Well, I’ve never met your parents,” Gilead said. “Sometimes I wonder if I’ve ever met mine. But, I’ve met a lot of dumb old people, and then there’s you. You’re like a Socrates.”
“I am not!”
“I don’t throw out compliments,” Gilead told Russell. “I think if you’re already wise, you’ll get wiser, but if you’re young and stupid—unless something major happens to you—you’re probably gonna stay stupid. Or get dumber.”
Gilead finished his sandwich and wiped his fingers off on the napkin he wadded into the paper bag which, in turn, he also wadded. He reached into his pocket for some gum, and handed a stick to Russell while he stuck one in his mouth.
“Aw, Gil,” Russell drew his feet under him and sat back in the pew. “Do you think we’re the only ones?”
Russell wasn’t sure what he meant by this, but Gilead seemed to know.
“No,” Gilead shook his head. “I used to think that I was alone and everyone else was in this big company, this big secret. Everyone else had friends and was never lonely and it was just me. And then I realized it was everyone. Just because we’re different, Russell. Just because we go through a lot of stuff quicker and let less people in it seems like we’re all alone against the rest of them. But just look out in the halls—they’re all lonely, they’re all lost, they all think it’s useless. Why do you think everyone’s so mean or so phony or so needy? Why do you think that one boy killed himself last year?”
“You think it’s all useless?” Chills went up Russell’s back, especially as he looked around the chapel at the painted saints staring out of the shadows,
“I said most of us think it’s useless,” said Gilead. “That’s what I said.”
“But you don’t think it’s useless?”
“What’s IT?”
“Life,” said Russell, at last.
“Life?” Gilead answered. “No. The way most of us live it—my parents, your parents, the people we go to school with, our teachers? Yeah.”

 

[ChrisGibson]

PART TWO

“I’m wearing my girlfriend’s underwear!” Jack Keegan announced.
It was not true to say that Russell and Gilead were outcast or friendless. When they were exiles, it was self imposed. Between Russell and Gilead was a crew of mostly sophomores, like Jeremy Bentham, Andy Toms, Ari Appledore, Adam Hower and Michael Pendamn. Jack Keegan was the one nobody really liked and no one could shake. This day, Russell and Gilead were unable to shake him. So they tolerated him in the chapel.
They were near the end of lunch and Jack Keegan was saying, “Russell, we’ve got gym class! We’ve got gym class!”
Russell was paying no attention to Jack Keegan. He was looking from the statue of Saint Joseph, to the Statue of Mary, both of Jesus’s parents standing thin and serene over an unborn galaxy of unlit votives when Russell started to laugh.
“What, Lewis!” Gilead demanded.
“Wouldn’t it—” Russell started and stopped himself with his own laughing. “Wouldn’t it—” Russell pointed to Mary and kept laughing.
“What, Lewis?”
And then Russell told him, and Gilead laughed too.

The next day Father Wallshing came into the chapel to find the Blesed Virgin calmly smiling from under the visor of a cheap ten gallon cowboy hat. A bandanna was about her throat and her hands calmly offered benediction and a cigarette.
Beneath unlit votives, the miracle was boldly displayed by red letters painted in cardboard:

OUR LADY OF THE SACRED MARLBORO

News of the apparition flew about the school before day’s end, secret as it was supposed to have been. In truth, few people actually saw Our Lady of the Sacred Marlboro, but the mere story of it floated about the school, and the boys of Our Lady of Mercy were in awe of whoever the hell had dared to desecrate the Virgin.
Nick Ballantine commented, “How many more statues have to die!”
Dean Mercer was demanding the head of whoever or whomever had done this, threatening them with immediate suspension. It was widely believed that in his past life, Patrick Mercer had been Henry the Eighth, and he was, in his current incarnation as dean of a Catholic boy’s high school, a frustrated potenate.
Russell was in the middle of a geography quiz when Todd Secrest came to the door. He was sophomore class president, probable future valedictorian, incredibly attractive, and goddamnit, even unfailingly kind. Today he was serving as office aid to the Dean.
“Mr. Cordino?”
Russell’s teacher acknowledged Todd.
“The Dean wants to see Russell Lewis.”
Jeff shared a glance with his pupil then said, “When he is finished with his quiz it will be my pleasure.”
Russell was certain that “the jig was up” and after answering that Mahatma Gandhi’s making salt had been such a great deal because the British Empire had passed a law that Indians could only buy salt from the Empire, he stood up and made his way toward Todd who smiled apologetically. The two boys went down the hall, downstairs, past the statue of Our Lady of Fatima bestowing blessing on a mother of pearl cloud to the three Fatima children on the landing, and into the velvet mouth of the main offices.
“I wouldn’t worry too much,” Todd said with a heartening smile, and for a second Russell was sorry that they weren’t friends. The two of them had never had a class together, there had never been a need for them to be friends or even meet each other until now.
When Russell stepped into Dean Mercer’s office and saw Gilead, impeccably dressed in beige and tan, sitting there, he knew the jig was up.
“I’ve been informed that you all are responsible for the prank pulled on the third floor.”
“Prank?” Gilead looked as vapid as a Black person can manage.
“You know exactly what I mean,” the dean’s voice was chiding. “Russell, is it true that you all made a mockery of the statue of the Blessed Virgin on the third floor?”
“Who told you we did?” Russell asked.
“So you admit it?”
“I think you mistake my friend,” this from Gilead, “He didn’t admit a thing. He asked you who said this to you.”
“I’m sorry boys,” the Dean sat back and drummed his fingertips on his desk. “I can’t tell you that.”
“Well then neither will I tell you from whence the Son of Man gains his power,” answered Gilead.
“What?”
“Nothing,” Gilead smiled ruefully,” I should have known biblical references would be lost on you.”
They were not really afraid of anything happening to them, so the boys only played with Mercer for a few minutes before confessing to the stunt.
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to call your parents,” Dean Mercer said in a sympathetic voice that neither Russell nor Gilead bought. “I know you probably don’t want them to know,” the Dean went on, “but this can’t be avoided. Gilead, let me call your mother. Your home phone number—” he said, reaching for the directory.
Gilead rattled it off.
Not quite trusting the boy, Dean Mercer looked it up anyway.
“No, Gilead,” he said, like a game how host telling a player he’d lost, “I’m afraid that’s not it.”
“You’ve got our home phone number,” Gilead told Dean Mercer. “But my mother works for a living. I just gave you where she works.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

Don't know how I missed the first part of this yesterday! Great story so far. I like the two main characters Russell and Gilead! I hope they don't get into too much trouble. I look forward to the next part!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, I have posted a lot, so it's very possible to miss something. The trouble may have only begun, though. More tomorrow night.

 

[ChrisGibson]

PART THREE

“This—” Mrs. Story declared, “is some bullshit!”
“Mrs. Story, this isn’t necessary,” Dean Mercer said in a voice intended to sooth.
“I’ll tell you what isn’t necessary,” said Mrs. Story, “Calling me from work for this bullshit. That isn’t necessary.”
She reached into her purse for a cigarette, remembered where she was, and settled on a stick of gum instead, which she handed to her son. On Gilead’s right were Thom and Patti Lewis. Thom covered his mouth to hide the fact that he was laughing, Patricia ducking her head into her shoulder and pulled strands of her gold brown hair over her face to hide her mirth.
It wasn’t working.
Russell’s parents didn’t know what was funnier, the Blessed Virgin’s latest incarnation or Mrs. Story.
“Russell, haven’t you learned anything about tampering with Virgins?” his dad demanded through a chuckle.
Russell, for his part, was relieved.
“I don’t think any of you understands the seriousness of this situation,” Dean Mercer went on while Patti threw back her head, caught Thom’s hand and roared out a laugh that sounded like, “Marlboro!”
“And may I say—” the Dean continued valiantly. “that I understand where these boys get their lack of respect from.”
The parents were silent. Mrs. Story cut her eyes at Dean Mercer and warned him: “You’re almost out of place.”
The Lewises finally broke into gales of outright laughter, and Thom, reaching into his side pocket, brandished a pack of Marlboro Reds and said, “At last, I do have something in common with the Mother of God!” while Patti took the cigarette from her husband, and Rochelle Story took out one too.
Now Dean Mercer was outraged.
“This,” he proclaimed. “Will result in immediate suspension for your boys.”
And there was an immediate suspension of all laughter in the Dean’s office.

“Good news,” Mr. Cordino told him after class on Russell’s first day back, “your last score was one hundred, and I decided that while you were gone I’d just triple your scores for the quizzes you missed.”
“I ought to get suspended more often.”
“Don’t you even think about it, Russ,” Jeff Cordino smacked the boy lightly on the top of his head.

“So, Russell, honey,” Jason Lorry said, batting his eyelids and flipping his wrist, “how’s it feel to come back?”
“Yeah, I heard the Dean nailed you and Gilead’s asses to wall,.” Ralph Balusik said triumphantly as he stuffed the last of the bagel he was cramming into his mouth between classes.
“I heard,” Rick began, then he stopped, still chewing. Mouthful, he continued, “I heard—”
“Next time,” Gilead’s voice cut across the hall, surprising them all, “you should remove Jason’s dick before speaking.” Then Gilead turned his back and headed toward his Latin class.
“I was just gonna say—”
“Save it. Ralph,” Russell closed his locker. “I gotta go to class too.”

There were a few boys who openly jeered at Russell, but Gilead pointed out that these were all assholes, and Russell was rather pleased at learning what his little stunt had done for the popularity he’d always though he never cared about.
The bathroom was full between second and third period, the smell of an illicit cigarette or two hit his nostrils as Russell went up to the urinal. Beside him, Chuck Murray was engaged in his favorite activity—bothering other people. Currently this activity manifested itself in shaking Jeremy Bentham while he tried to take a piss.
Things had more or less hushed wth Russell’s entrance when Gilead came in, wild eyed and roared, “WHERE THE HELL IS HE?”
Well then faces blenched and things really got quiet.
“Hey, Gilead!” and there were a few “What’s up, man?”s that Gilead ignored, pushing through people around him, now searching the bathroom stalls until he lunged into the last doorless stall, and everyone heard a pitiful yelp followed by, “Gilead, man! What the—!”
When Russell, amid the other’s came to investigate after washing his hands, they saw Gilead. in his immaculate three piece holding Jack Keegan aloft, the white boy’s scrawny throat against the wall, his legs with the trousers falling off dangling over the toilet.
“You—little—shit.” Gilead pronounced every syllable with care. “Did you or did you not go to Dean Mercer and tell him that we’d done it?”
“What prank—r? Ow!”
This, when Gilead slammed him into the tiles again.
“Gilead, brother,” started Chuck Murray.
“Now should I start over again?” Gilead asked politely.
“I, I…” Jack Keegan winced in anticipation of more pain, “I might have.”
“Oh?” Slam-slam.
“I did!”
SLAM.
“Gilead!” Now Andy Thoms came forward. He was a curly haired ruddy amateur magician everyone had a deal of respect for, and along with Ari Appledore and Adam Hower, he made up Keegan’s group of reluctant friends. They didn’t like him, but they’d grown up together, and their parents were all good friends.
“Gilead, please let him go.”
Gielad liked Andy, so he shrugged, said, “Okay,” and immediately Keegan crashed—painfully—to the toilet bowl.
“I’m too scared to shit now,” Keegan complained.
“Well, I can scare the shirt back out of you?” Gilead offered making for Keegan with such a sweep of the hand that the boy screamed.
“Take him,” Gilead said to Andy, turning from the stall and Jack Keegan.
In exasperation, Andy nodded and told Keegan to pull his pants up.
“Sorry, Gil.” Andy apologized, then added, “And sorry, Russell.”
He, Adam and Ari surrounded the boy and took him away while he murmured, “I didn’t get to wash my hands.”
“Oh, by the way, Kern,” Gilead said at they were leaving the bathroom, “I never forget. It’s on.”
Then Russell did something he’d never done, he deliberately called attention to humself. “Hey, Keegan?”
The boy turned to Russell.
“That counts for me too.”
Keegan’s eyes bulged, and his friends led him out of the lavatory.
Russell was on his way to the bathroom when Bobby Raez said, “Russell, what are you doing on Friday night?”
“Uh…?” Russell had longed to have some excuse all of the few times someone had asked that. He could not decide if he detested parties or feared them.
“You and Gliead?” Bobby continued. “I’ve been trying to get Gilead to leave his hole and he never does. How bout the two of you come with us Friday night?”
Russell heard someone say, “A’right,” in a strangled voice and realized it had been him.
If the color could have drained from Gilead Story’s face it would have. Now he had to go out too.
After Bobby and his friends had left, Russell turned to Gilead.
“Well now I suppose we’re officially popular. We’re partying with Bobby Raez.”
“What made you say yes?” Gilead sounded just a little perturbed.
“I wasn’t able to phrase no,” Russell said, amazed. “I wasn’t.”
“I’m afraid I’ll make a fool of myself,” Gilead confessed to his new friend. “I’ve been a nerd for so long—”
“You?”
“Yes!” Gilead hissed. “And I’m not sure that partying is my forte.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

I am glad the boys parents saw the funny side to their prank. It sounds like trouble is just beginning with the other boys. Great writing and I look forward to more!

 

[ChrisGibson]

They thought it was funny until the suspension hit everyone in the face! I loved that whole scene the parents feeling oh- so- fuck- it. But you may e right, the real trouble may only be about to begin.

 

[ChrisGibson]

PART FOUR

Russell woke that morning. He opened his bedroom door and walked out into the hallway of the second floor of Our of Mercy. The Blessed Virgin, all white and plaster, was riding a ceramic cow, and she had just lassoed Jason Lorry. Behind her came Dean Mercer dressed as Henry the Eighth, followed by Jeff Cordino in black hose and cape, a and feather hanging from his hat. The cow tipped over as Mary hopped off of it and, like a little Russian doll the cow opened to open to open to reveal smaller and smaller cows until a little wind up car, like the ones he’d found in Happy Meals as a child, only with Ralph Balusik’s head in it instead of Hamburgler’s, was all that was left. Russell stepped forward now, picked up the little wind up car and said, “Screw in a lightbulb, bitch.” As he twisted the key on the back of the car, it spurted off going faster and faster, growing larger and larger until it was D.L. Lorris’s station wagon, and Aaron Loft was hanging out of the back of it. Mrs. Story came down the hall smoking a cigarette and saying, “This bullshit, this is just bullshit!” Suddenly Russell had to piss. We whipped out his stiff dick and peed and peed on the floor. It was an aching piss, like he was opening up.
And then he woke up.
The sky was the sort of six a.m. grey that comes in March, and Russell was afraid he’d wet his bed. Then he touched the place in the bed and felt between his legs where it was more like mucus than anything else, but wholly different. He knew what it was. He’d heard about it, and known it should have happened long ago, that he really was what some called “a late bloomer”. Quietly, Russell went to wash off and change his shorts not knowing how to describe how he felt. Relieved, happy? Both. He’d started to wonder if he’d ever grow up, and at least this meant now he would.

Jeff Cordino was over that night with Anna Castile. They had the same black hair, red lisp, pale olive skin, quiet voices fuzzy as peaches. Russell thought once again how the two of them were well matched., They were all sitting aroundn the antique heavily polished table in the faux Tudor with the large front lawn in the Breckinridge District.
Russell was making his last preparations for the party and when he heard the car honk outside. His bowels turned to ice water then, thank God, to ice. He trumped downstairs, turned around, said, “I’m leaving,” and in thick, bell bottomed corduroys, a Bert&Ernie sweater nevcr again seen this side of Sesame Street since 1975, the barf colored scarf wrapped twice about his neck and a green parka, Russell opened the huge oaken door of his house, hailed the crowded station wagon and then, steadily, sauntered to the party mobile.
“Damn!” Aaron marveled. “Breckinridge. So this is how the white folks live!”
“Shut up, fool!” D.L. knocked Aaron upside his head. “What’s up, Russell?”
“Not much, D.L.”
“Cool.” D.L. pronounced.
“Where’s Gilead?”
“Present and accounted for,” Russell heard to his immediate right, and turned to behold Gilead Story’s spectacles.
“Um, now that’s my kind of house,” Aaron started as they drove up the avenue. “Um hum, that’s my house. I know some white girl who lives over here.”
“Shut up, Aaron.” Now it was Chuck Murray’s turn to say it calmly, negligently. Then he went on, “Them white bitches right around here? They’ll put out for some good nigga dick. There was that one bitch goes to Rosary. I had her legs twisted all the way over her ears and she kept going, ‘Harder, Chuckee, Harder! Deeper!’ Shit all that was left was the top of my head hanging out of her pussy, and my foot hanging out her mouth, and I said, ‘I can’t get no deeper, bitch!’”
“Why you lying?” D.L. demanded in a voice low with amazement. “You lie!”
Chuck gave a laugh and said, “I swear I’m serious, from the tip of my dick, I swear it, Nigga.”
Afater a while, when they had turned off of Breckinridge, onto Morrison and hit Main, Chuck leaned to Gilead and Russell and said, “It’s not all the way true. But she did suck my dick. White folks love that shit.”
Strogue Mominee, who was driving, was the only person not talking. He was a big, ugly Arab with a crew cut who had become an honorary Negro. He was Bobby Raez’s roommate, and they were driving back to River Lodge where Bobby and he lived. They took Kirkland and headed all the way out of town to Route 22. They drove through the labyrinth of champagne shingled apartment blocks until they got to the right building, and began piling out. Gilead and Russell were the last to head up the stairs to the second story apartment, and when they entered, D.L. demanded, “Where’s the party, Nigga?”
The house was utterly quiet. Gilead saw, to his disgust Jason Lorry and Ralph Balusik among the other attendants who were all sitting around doing nothing. Ralph looked up with a raised eyebrow like he was about to say something, and Jason looked up at Russell and smacked his gum, eyeing him until Russell looked away.
“You know what it is,” Gilead steered Russell away. “They talk about Jason and so he talks about you because he thinks that will steer attention away from him.”
“Talk about him?”
Jason, insolent, gum smacking, dusky skinned was one of the most beautiful guys Russell had ever seen, and he hated that he knew that, that when they had those miserable ass basketball games in gym class with shirts on shirts off teams, he cringed at his white bony chest being exposed and Jason just smacked his gum and looked fantastic.
Bobby Raez leaned in the window of the kitchen that looked onto the living room. The phone was in the crook of his shoulder and he was saying:
“Yeah, un hunh. Yeah. Oh, you all are having a party? No, Shawn. What? Whatever. Yeah, love you too, Sis.”
Bobby hung up. The first thing he said was, “Russell and Gilead, welcome.”
The second he said was, “Time to pack up.”
“What?” D.L. started.
“Party at my sister’s place.”
“Well, shit. All right, then!” Chuck approved, and Bobby set to organizing how everyone would travel. It was three carloads of people. Bobby insisted on Russell and Gilead traveling with him and D.L. and Chuck, Treshon and Aaron, who occupied in their circle roughly the same position Jack Keegan occupied in his own.
They all went in Mominee’s rumbled old van. Aaron tried to relegate Gilead and Russell to the back of the van where he informed them, “A lot of nut had been busted,” and now it was Gilead’s turn to say, “Shut up, Aaron.”
“So what inspired you all to finally leave your holes?” Bobby demanded.
It was agreed that Bobby was Black, but he was a walnut color with round cheeks, curly off-black hair, and the touch of a Spanish accent.
Russell turned to Gilead, and seeing that no answer was forthcoming from the other young man said, “Well, I guess cause I got invited and... I don’t know.”
“Well,” Bobby, driving, shrugged, and seemed to find something funny in the answer. “How you all like my crib?”
“You’re crib? Mominee looked at him askance from the passenger’s seat. Bobby ignored it.
“It’s straight,” and Russell was surprised to hear this slang out of Gilead’s mouth.
“You all live there by yourselves?” Russell sounded extremely Caucasian in his own ears.
“I left home. Couldn’t take my moms. Most parents try to pretend they want you to be happy. My stepfather, he didn’t give a fuck, didn’t even pretend. My older sister left to get married. Then the other one, the one we’re going to see. left to live with my sister before she went on and did’er own shit. And I left to be Strogue’s roommate.”
“I got thrown out of my home,” Strogue volunteered his personal history.
:”I’d throw yo ass out too, boy,” D.L. chided. “Damn fool gettin’ caught fuckin’ on the edge of his mama’s bed not just once, but three times. Was it three times?”
“Um hum,” Strogue admitted, and sank in his seat while D.L. went on.
“And—gettin caught messing with drugs. She should have sent your ass to the detention center.”
“I always wondered who threw who out,” said Bobby, interjecting an almost non-sequitor. “My mother or my father.”
“Once my mother threw my father out,” Russell offered. “But he came back. He didn’t take her seriously until she started throwing lamps—”
“And that’s why I like the bitch!” Gilead insisted.
“—at his head,” finished Russell.
“For real?” Bobby was amazed.
“Did she really throw your father out of the house like that?” Chuck demanded.
“Scouts honor,” Russell lifted two fingers, then added, “If I’d ever been a Scout.”
“Where are we going?” said Gilead, who realized they were not only on Route 103, but had long since left town.
“To his sister’s house, Gilead, didn’t you hear?”
“Shut up, fool,” D.L. knocked Aaron upside his head. “He meant where does Bobby’s sister live.”
“Yes,” Gilead said.
“Russell was glad Gilead had asked because he was curious himself.
“She lives in Barrelon,” Bobby said.
That took both Russell and Gilead for a start. And Rusell and Gilead both wore exquisite poker faces at the news that the were being whisked away some fifty miles southeast of home.
And there were red tail lights rocketing ahead of them and yellow-white headlights bulleting against them. Beyond silos, under the orange industrial stars of factories were the towns built off the road.
Barrelon was a college town and, as they entered, Russell could see the wide, silent football field of the university. Here were the apartments and dormitories of people who lived the experience he considered only to be an extension of high school and the next limb shooting out into that ridiculous bullshit his unhappy elders referred to as “the real world”.
The dorms were under and over all the hills. The hills were overgrown with what Russell assumed was, during the day, rich greenery. Between those hills were the houses of Barrelon’s citizenry, which was mainly university staff and university students. At one such house, a white bungalow on a small hill amidst other bungalows on small hills, past a bar on the corner, was where the van stopped.
“You sure that’s it, man?” Strogue said.
“I know where my own sister lives.”
The bungalow was jumping with noise and preppy white boys in smooth, fitted tee shirts tucked primly into their blue jeans were coming in and out with beer kegs and whatever.
“Well, here’s the party.”
As Bobby shut off the car, his hand made a grand gesture to the picture outside of their window.
“I didn’t know we were gon be partyin’ with a bunch of white folks,” Aaron started., then, turning to Russell said, “No offence meant.”
“None taken,” Russell replied, and eyed Gilead, who shrugged.
“Shit,” said Treshon, “it’s them white folsk that got all the shit you want to party with. I heard this one dude talkin’ about how you take this pill and it makes your hear colors and see crazy shit.”
“Acid?” D.L. raised an eyebrow as they got out of the van, and Russell carefully unfolded his legs from under himself, and waited for them to regain feeling, “You can’t get me to fuck with no acid. That’s for white folks.”
“’Scuse me, man.” this from one white boy with a crew cut carrying in a case of beer as he bumped into Gilead, going up the brick stairway.
The house got louder and louder as they approached, and Russell was more and more frightened, though he felt his legs moving in glib negligence of how his heart felt.
“Let’s the two of us stick together,” Gilead either suggested or commanded. It didn’t matter. Russell was more than happy to oblige his friend.
Once in the house they were lost to all but each other. Russell was steered by Gilead’s hand in his back as they maneuvered about the milling crowds. For a while they attempted to stay with Bobby and the group until Bobby and the group were lost to them, and then suddenly they heard, “Bobby, what fuck are you doing here!”
Gilead and Russell turned around, into what was probably usually a living room.
“You said there was a party.”
There descended for a brief moment a quiet, and before Bobby appeared a girl—a woman—who made Bobby Raez seem like a child.
“I said, Roberto Gabriel Raez—” this icy voiced woman must have been the sister, “that my roommates were having a party. Not, ‘I’m having a party so bring all your little—” she slapped Aaron on the back of his head, “knot headed friends here.”
“He’s in high school?” whined one white girl incredulously as she climbed off of D.L.’s lap.
Bobby, sounding hurt said, “If you want us to go—”
“No,” said Bobby’s sister. “You drove all this way. I’m not gon have you turn all the way back around. But don’t mess with any crazy shit floating around here.”

 

[CharmedFan28]

Great part! I am liking where this story is going and am curious to know what will happen at this party. I look forward to more whenever you post it!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Tomorrow night I will post a little bit of this and a little bit of Rossford, so.... double happiness?

 

[CharmedFan28]

Tomorrow night I will post a little bit of this and a little bit of Rossford, so.... double happiness?

Great!

 

[ChrisGibson]

PART FIVE

“So yawl are sophomores in high school?” said one boy who they thought was named Eric. Gilead was sure he was mixed.
“I’m a junior,” Gilead said. “Russell is a sophomore up in Geshichte Falls.”
“Oh, I got a friend from up there,” the white girl, Jenean, said. She had pale hair and glasses and a cigarette hanging between her lips. Russell couldn’t tell if she and Eric were friends or friends and then some. “She went to this high school called Rosary.”
“Yeah, that’s our sister school,” Gilead told them. “We go to Our Lady of Mercy.”
“That’s straight,” Eric said. “I went to Catholic school. I don’t know what made me wanna come to Barrelon.”
“Me,” Jenean said plainly, and Eric broke into a grin and said, “Girl, you crazy! And the friend you’re talking about, Jenean? That’s Anigel. These guys came with Anigel’s brother.”
“Who?” started Russell.
“Bobby,” then Eric said. He pointed to Bobby’s sister. “Her name is Anigel. Like angel.”
“She’s no angel,” Jenean laughed.
“Is she always so mean?” Russell asked in as small a voice as he could use in this loud place.
“Always mean?” Jenean said. “Shit, she’s never mean. She’s like cool as fuck!”
“You all have classes with her?” Russell asked.
“Aw, Anigel’s not in college.” This from Eric. “She’s works at the curio store a few blocks away. And she writes poetry and shit. She just lives with Greg and Patty. They go to school here. She and Shawn live here. The four of them, but only two in school—”
“Dude,” they heard, “some of the good shit—”
They turned around to see a big, ungainly white dude sitting around the dining room table with some other folks in black. He took out a glass vial, emptied out some white stuff, then, in an instant, snorted it up his nose.
“Holy shit, we’ve gotta go,” Jenean declared, and Eric, nodding told Russell and Gilead, “Yawl need to get your friends and get the hell out. It’s getting serious here, and the police’ll wanna crack down on this shit.”
“They’ll come?” Gilead said.
“They always do,” Eric said.
Russell was still in shock and he was nodding rapidly as he looked at the folks snorting and began to smell something burning. Gilead was pulling him about the house, looking for D.L. or Bobby or Strogue or anyone when Russell asked him what the burning smell was.
“Bud,” Gilead pronounced, and when he was sure that Russell did not know this term he said, “Weed.”
Gilead was dragging Russell by the wrist, looking desperately for someone they’d come with when he saw Ralph Balusik—whom he would have gladly left to be arrested— standing by a pantry doorway, grinning idiotically while, now and again, he peaked inside.
“Ralph!” Gilead started.
“Shush!” Ralph warned, “I’m keeping guard.”
“Over?” Gilead said.
“Jason,” Ralph hissed and pointed into the pantry.
Russell heard it before Gilead looked into the darkness. Russell’s eyes adjusted to Jason, in the back of the pantry, his trousers down around his ankles, his white boxers around his knees, fucking some girl, her legs rising to encompass his waist, falling, rising up again as he drove himself steadily into her and she cried out in light pants. Russell could not stop looking. There was fierce concentration and loveliness on Jason’s handsome face, a light trickle of sweat. The girl’s hands were pushing frantically through his black curls. Her pale hands were pulling up his shirt, reaching down to caress his ass. Russell saw his ass.
His dick was hard.
Russell felt himself breathing harder and was embarrassed to realize Ralph was right beside him, watching.
Jason’s grey-green eyes turned to them, while he was fucking, looked fiercely on Russell while the girl moaned, and Russell felt all of himself turn red, felt the erection wither. Where was Gilead?
“Ey, Lewis, you like?” Jason’s voice was cruel as if he had caught Russell and not the other way around. “Watch this, Lewis.”
Jason, put his hand to the girl’s face so that she was turned away from him, and then suddenly he pushed her down into the floor and started to jackhammering her so she cried out frantically.
“You like?” Jason hissed. “You like? You like?” And Russell didn’t know who Jason Lorry was talking to. “You like it, Lewis? How’s it feel, Russell Lewis? Take it, Russ! Take it, Russ. Take my cock! Take my fucking cock, Russ! Take it! Take…Oh, God! Jeeeesusss—” and then he shouted, gasped, and Russell saw Jason’s eyes widen, his face lose control. Russell felt Gilead’s hand tug at his wrist and pull him away. Everything was dizzy to Russell. All he knew was Gilead’s voice asking if anyone had seen Bobby., describing him as best he could. Finally Gilead ended upstairs. Down the hall and into the bedroom that someone had directed him to. Gilead, too exasperated for respect, walked into the bedroom and Russell got one quick glimpse of Bobby Raez’s round, yellow, shiny ass jouncing up and down and all around and all they heard were the delirious screams of some faceless girl under him.
“Well,” said Gilead, heading down the stairs with Russell in tow, both of them at a much slower pace, “I could certainly use a cigarette about now.”
Someone off in a corner was screaming his head off in the middle of a drug trip, and the air was white and pungent with marijuana.
“I’ve got to get my head clear,” Russell said, his voice a half step off of desperate, and he marched ahead of Gilead to be outside, on the little back porch that looked out onto a small yard and was wrapped in wisteria. Gilead soon joined him, and they both sat on the porch, in the cool early March darkness, too blown away to even ask the question, “What’s next?”
“This,” Russell decided. “is beyond my depth.”
“You’re right about that.”
The boys nearly jumped out of their socks and turned around to see, in a short black dress, taking a drag that reddened her cigarette tip, one of the most beautiful girls either one of them had ever run across Her skin was the color of a walnut. She regarded them with dark, hooded, but not unfriendly almond eyes. Her hair was about as black as her dress and down to her back. This was none other than Bobby’s sister they now both realized, and because they’d seen her first as a curio object, then as the enraged woman they’d seen earlier, it was easier to separate her from their schoolmate who was pumping someone upstairs.
What was her name? Anigel... Raez sat herself down between the two of them. She was tall. Too.
“Cigarette?” she offered. Gilead, despite what he’d said a few minutes ago, rejected it with a shake of the head and a thank you, but something in Russell, in the air, in this night, in the strangeness of this day made him accept and he let Anigel light his cigarette. He knew better than to suck on it. He let the smoke sit in his mouth that first time. It was actually a little thrilling to smoke. So this was the mystery his mother and father, Aunt Jackie, and half of his elders had been initiated into for so long ago, this gentle intake, this rolling around of the smoke in one’s mouth, gently exhaling, watching the smoke tendril.
He watched the smoke tendril into the dark night from Anigel Raez’s mouth.
“So are you friends of my brother?” she asked.
“Sort of,” Gilead said. “I’ve known Bobby for about three years.”
“That’s funny,” Anigel mused, crushing out her cigarette. “The two of you don’t look like the kind of people Bobby’d hang around with. I mean, you look like the kind of people he should hang around with, but... It’s Strogue and all them he’s with all the time. You know?”
“Even Ralph Balusik?” Gilead said amazed.
“Ralph?” Anigel twisted her face and laughed. “He’s not that bad. He’s not good either. He’s not really Bobby’s friend. You might say he’s a relation.”
“Wha?” Russell was startled by this new piece of information.
“Our sister, Caroline,” Anigel explained. “She’s married to Ralph’s older brother.”
“The world get’s smaller and smaller everyday,” Gilead commented.
“So you do know,” Anigel made a vague gesture with her cigarette at the noisy house behind them, “all of them?”
“We know D.,L. more than anyone else,” said Russell. “Actually, Gilead knows all of them. I’ve been keeping a sort of low profile in the school—”
“Bullshit—” inserted Gilead.
“Yeah,” Anigel agreed with Gilead, chuckling, “How can you keep a low profile looking like,” she lifted some of his vomit colored scarf, “this?”
“Well,” Russell amended. “I just don’t speak to other people.
“So what happened—”Anigel interrupted herself. “Wait a minute, guys. What are your names?”
“Gilead Story.”
“Russell Lewis.”
“Anigel Raez,” Anigel Raez offered her hand. “I’m pleased to meet you all. Now tell me, Russell, what happened.”
And when he told Anigel about our Lady of the Sacred Marlboro she almost bust a gut.
“I mean,” he went on logically, “for the Mexicans there’s Our Lady of Guadalupe, for the Poles Our Lady of…. Well, a lot of shit. For Black people, Our Lady of Africa---”
“So for smokers, Our Lady of Sacred Marlboro?” Anigel guessed, slapping her knee.
Russell rolling the smoke around in ihs mouth, exhaled and said, “You got it.
“Well shit,” Anigel commented, “That means I’ve got three Virgins to honor!”
“Does you sister have children?” Gilead asked.
“One. Why—oh, yeah. She’ll have four!”
“Only if she smokes,” said Gilead.
“Smoking,” Anigel commented, lighting a new cigarette off the old stub, “is a nasty habit.” She turned ot Russell. “Want another?”
The boy looked at her, shrugged, held his hand out. Anigel laughed.
“So, Gilead Story,” said Anigel, “while Russell was hiding out, you were running around being popular?”
“Not exactly,” Gilead answered. “You see, for the bulk of my Freshmen year I wasn’t Black.”
“Wasn’t?” Anigel started, then understood and nodding, chuckling, ashing, she nodded and let him go on.
“If you speak proper English and act like you have average intelligence, then for some reason you’re not quite ethnic enough. Forget if they see you reading a book. It was a while before people came around to accepting me as a Negro.”
“How courteous of them,” Anigel answered, remembering similar days. “For me it was the whole being mixed with half of America—part this, part that. Bobby never got the flack though. I hope when you started school Bobby wasn’t one of the assholes.”
“Bobby was always decent,” said Gilead. “But he fit right in whereas I... well, I never fit in anywhere exactly, let alone in our little ghetto.”
“Was that hard?” Russell asked suddenly aware of a whole different ostracization he’d never known.
“I don’t know, you tell me?” Gilead said, not unharshly. “You don’t fit in any better than me. It wasn’t that I was strange for a Black person. I was just strange.”
“My friends,” Anigel said, lighting yet another cigarette, “I think we are all strange. I was the strangest girl at Rosary when I graduated. The only avowed atheist. I was still a virgin, I was Black, but I didn’t care who knew that I liked to date white boys—who are, by the way no good and that’s why I’m still a virgin—as well as anything else. You know what it all got me?”
“Grief?” Gilead guessed.
“Well that too,” Anigel allowed, “but also—Prom Queen. I still got the tiara too!”
“Shit man!” they heard from inside the house.
“POLICE!” They heard a roar, then a dull screaming which increased.
“Shit!” Anigel swore, spitting her cigarette out and grabbing the boys’ hands. “We gotta hustle. They skittered across the yard. Halfway Anigel kicked off her heels, ran to the gate, opened it and pushed the boys out into the alley, her hand fumbling to close the gate behind them as the bungalow went into a general uproar.
“Let’s move!” Anigel commanded, tiptoeing on the gravel before the boys, as she cried, “Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!” in rhythm to the pain the gravel dealt her feet before Russell and Gilead hoisted Bobby’s sister up and carried her down the alley three houses to the corner of Hurst Street.

 

[CharmedFan28]

Interesting part! It sounds like Russell might be in trouble with the other guys if they find out he is gay. I hope the police don't catch Russell or Gilead. Great writing and I look forward to more!

 

[ChrisGibson]

Question for the night: what makes you think Russell is gay?

 

[CharmedFan28]

Question for the night: what makes you think Russell is gay?

Well I thought he was checking out Jason and I assumed from that. Maybe he isn't I just thought he might be.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, I asked because you did something funny, but something I wanted you and every reader to do, and I'm going to explain it, because it was on purpose. This is not a new story. I wrote it along time well before I had much in the way of sexual consciousness, and when I came back to it again, I saw all sorts of things. Russell doesn't really have much of a sexual conscience as of yet. He's only just had his first wet dream, and he is doing something pretty natural for any guy no matter what his sexual orientation may eventually be, which is watching someone else have sex, the first time he'd even seen sex. Jason notices this, and though it is Jason who is pretending the girl he is having sex with is Russell, because Jason is more popular, he gets to make Russell the gay one. He has totally queerbated and dazed Russell, and Russell is falling for it. But you have too. Further thoughts?

 

[CharmedFan28]

Well, I asked because you did something funny, but something I wanted you and every reader to do, and I'm going to explain it, because it was on purpose. This is not a new story. I wrote it along time well before I had much in the way of sexual consciousness, and when I came back to it again, I saw all sorts of things. Russell doesn't really have much of a sexual conscience as of yet. He's only just had his first wet dream, and he is doing something pretty natural for any guy no matter what his sexual orientation may eventually be, which is watching someone else have sex, the first time he'd even seen sex. Jason notices this, and though it is Jason who is pretending the girl he is having sex with is Russell, because Jason is more popular, he gets to make Russell the gay one. He has totally queerbated and dazed Russell, and Russell is falling for it. But you have too. Further thoughts?

I think you are right, I assumed Russell was gay because of Jason's outburst. I guess I will have to wait and see if I am right or wrong.

 

[ChrisGibson]

Well, time will tell, and when it comes to it, I'm also going to ask you what the gift of true light is. But, before I go to bed, because it is 2:30 in the morning in America, I will leave with a though on Keith McDonald which is easier to put here than in the Rossford section. He was based on an actual religious person. Later on I learned that there were many, many religious gay porn stars, many involved in the ministry. There was one for Corbin Fisher who ended up losing his mind, pulling a gun out on people in Tennessee and then committing suicide and another, a Catholic, who I think was bound for the priesthood or already in it, and he also took his life. The Catholic Church is not known for policing its priests and freely lets pedofiles and abusers go from parish to parish. The Church also turns a blind eye to homosexuality used in its service, so I don't think Keith would be kicked out, but I think he could lose his mind.

 

[CharmedFan28]

Well, time will tell, and when it comes to it, I'm also going to ask you what the gift of true light is. But, before I go to bed, because it is 2:30 in the morning in America, I will leave with a though on Keith McDonald which is easier to put here than in the Rossford section. He was based on an actual religious person. Later on I learned that there were many, many religious gay porn stars, many involved in the ministry. There was one for Corbin Fisher who ended up losing his mind, pulling a gun out on people in Tennessee and then committing suicide and another, a Catholic, who I think was bound for the priesthood or already in it, and he also took his life. The Catholic Church is not known for policing its priests and freely lets pedofiles and abusers go from parish to parish. The Church also turns a blind eye to homosexuality used in its service, so I don't think Keith would be kicked out, but I think he could lose his mind.

I am not sure what the gift of true light is. Maybe finding out who the real person is under the first impressions you get from them. I hope Keith doesn't loose his mind.

 

[ChrisGibson]

CONCLUSION


They learned all about Barrelon by midnight. It was mostly a quiet town of hills and houses, bungalows. Anigel showed them dormitories, showed them Harshman Hall where the English department was.
“It looks more like a hospital,” Russell commented.
“Doesn’t it though?” Anigel agreed.
“A lone car passed down the hill they were walking up, Rafferty Street. Here was the curio store Anigel worked in. There was an area of the college town that reminded Russell of Soho, or what he thought Soho should look like, filled with little shops and lofts and restaurants with miniature courtyards that were closed up and dyed blue white by the moon at this time of night.
“We should probably bail out Bobby,” said Gilead.
“With what?” Anigel demanded. “My toenail? I don’t have a thing to bail my baby brother outta jail. He better call Mama. Right now what we’ve got to do is figure out how to get you back home.”
“Good point,” Gilead agreed.
“Now,” said Anigel. “Just how do we go about doing that? If I had wheels, then it wouldn’t be an issue.”
“What about Eric and Jenean?” Russell suggested.
“Eric and Je—oh! How do you know them?” Anigel started, then, “Oh, yeah, they were at the party. I don’t know if they could help, but they’re the only people I know, really. Did they leave the party before the arrest?”
‘Yeah,” said Gilead. “Quite a while before.”

They had to retrace their way down Rafferty to Cash Hall, which was in a little valley at the base of several of the city hills. It was actually three large stone buildings that made a courtyard, facing the corner of Rafferty and Bywight, a coed dorm where both Eric and Jenean lived.
“I knew the police would come,” Jenean murmured, shaking her head and lighting a cigarette. “It’s a good thing you guys were in the back when you were.”
“But speaking of back,” Jenean had tapped on Eric’s door as soon as Anigel and the boys had come up to her second floor room. Neither one of them had ever gone to bed. Eric was speaking now, “how are they gon get back? Wait a minute, what about Jeff?”
“Jeff who?” Anigel started.
“Her man,” Eric replied before Jenean could say anything.
“He said he’d come through at about two in the morning.”
“He’s going to Geshichte Falls?” Gilead was incredulous.
“He’s going through Geshichte Falls. Probably,” said Jenean. “It’s little coincidences like these that are gonna stop Anigel from being an atheist.”
Anigel crossed one leg over the other and admitted, “It becomes a harder and harder faith to maintain.”
They sat around playing cards. They were waiting for someone, and that entailed staying in one place. So they went from Rummy to Spades to modified Tonk, modified Anigel said, because everyone would have to be Black and there’d have to be liquor for an all out Tonk party.
Jeff arrived at about three a.m. while Russell was yawning his head off. His visit was short, as it had to be, and he was more than willing to take Russell and Gilead back home.
“To stay on schedule, I can pass through town, I mean, do you know Salem Street, where the bus station is?”
“Yeah,” both Gilead and Russell answered.
Gilead said, “That’s more than good enough.”
It was Gilead who was first to shake everyone’s hands.
“It’s been good getting to know all of you.”
“Don’t yawl be strangers,” Eric commanded.
“If I don’t see you again...” Russell started to say to Anigel, but she shushed him.
“Russell Lewis,” she said, “one thing I’ve learned is that it’s just not that easy to never see people again. The world isn’t that big, let alone the state.”

Jeff Mc.Guire was twenty, tall and lanky, with faded blue jeans and a receding hairline.
“If you—ever plan to motor west—travel my way—take the highway that’s the best--get your kicks—on route—sixty-six!” he sang.
“I love jazz, and blues too. Well, I like the blues alright, but I really do love jazz, especially that old stuff. Well it winds—” he turned it up, “from Chicago to L.A.—more than two—thousand miles—all the way—get your kicks—on route—sixty-six!”
Like Anigel, he had decided college was not for him, at least, not right now. Jeff told them how he’d grown up in Saint Gregory, the town on the northwest border of Geshichte Falls, and done “all sorts of crazy shit”. He was never able to get along with his father. Then something has possessed him to join the National Guard.
“They beat all the bullshit out of you,” Jeff said. Every two weeks I still go up to Kalamazoo to do my national duty. Right now I’m going up to Grand Rapids.”
“How did you meet Jenean?” Gilead asked.
Russell was all for letting Gilead do the talking, as he rolled over in the cab and closed his eyes.
“She used to work at the Kroger in town, and I’d always come over and see her. She was the only cashier I’d have. Kind of romantic in a retail sort of way.”
Gilead laughed. Russell chuckled sleepily. Suddenly he realized that it was somewhere past four in the morning, and he’d never called his parents. The worry shook him awake for a few minutes, then, because his body knew as well as the rest of him that worrying could not make it possible for him to call his parents, he fell asleep, vowing to come up with a highly edited version of this night by the time he got back to Breckinridge.

Gilead was shaking him awake, and they were piling out of Jeff’s truck on Salem Street before the bus station.
“Thanks, Jeff, we’ll take it from here,” Gilead was saying, and Russell thanked Jeff too. The truck roared a whistle at them, and then roared down Salem. After that Salem was basically quiet, for it couldn’t have been anymore than six a.m. on a Saturday morning in Geshichte Falls, Michigan. The sky was white with dawn, and the street was bleak, waiting for the gift of true light. The first of the morning buses was roaring into town, and Russell asked Gilead if he had change.
“Change for the both of us,” Gilead handed Russell three quarters. “Never leave home without it. I take the number seven and you take the...?”
“Fifteen goes through Breckinridge.”
“Alright then oh, there’s the Number Seven now!” and Gilead set off across the lot to where the Seven was pulling up. “I’ll catch you on Monday, or in Church on Sunday. I’ll be asleep all day today!” Gilead cried, then, as the bus doors opened for him. Gilead Story hopped on the Number Seven and it swallowed him as it tilted and rumbled east, in the opposite direction of Jeff’s truck.
Alone, and freshly awake, Russell rewrapped his scarf about his neck and strode toward the Number Fifteen. He walked on, put his seventy-five cents into the meter and nodded good morning to the driver. He scooted into the first horizontal seat of the empty Breckinridge Outbound, pulling his knees to his chest. As the bus rumbled on out of the lot, and turned west down Salem, the marvel of these last twenty-four hours, of the strange changes that had occurred in his world in the last week struck him, and as the bus turned from Salem, to Overton to Monroe, to rumble down Royal Street, past the dark glassy eyes of Aunt Jackie’s apartment building, the newly rising sun reflected yellow and read on all its windows and danced in golden ribbons before Russell’s eyes. His faced heated. He closed his eyes and he could see what he had dreamed of, what had not left his eyes, Jason, in the dark, fucking that girl, Jason’s his grey green eyes looking at him, Jason, who hated him, nearly naked, the body Russell hated to be beautiful, flexing and unflexing in the dark, pumping up and down, groaning, “You like it, Lewis? How’s it feel, Russell Lewis? Take it, Russ! Take it, Russ. Take my cock! Take my fucking cock, Russ! Take it! Take…Oh, God!...”
It made him hot. The light through the trees danced over his face. He was stiff with thinking of someone who had only felt contempt for him. He was… confused. More confused than he had been in a long time because the boy he had hoped would be his friend, who had shown only contempt for him had called out his name. Russell was so ashamed and so confused, and thinking of Jason, left in that closet, having sex in front of him, calling a girl by his name, he thought that maybe he was ashamed and confused too.


Monday morning Russell was closing up his locker and slinging his bag over his shoulder before inserting himself in the stream of adolescent male traffic for lunch when he and Gilead bumped into Jason Lorry and Ralph Balusik.
“There you guys are!” Ralph said.
“Huh?” Russell began.
Ralph looked… unsure? And then he leaned in and whispered, “How’d you guys get away from the party?”
There was only one party. It had been whispered about through the school because twelve students from the sophomore class had been arrested and expelled for being there.
“Grace,” it was all Russell could say. “We heard that the parties in that house always got busted over there.”
Gilead added, “That’s what we were coming to tell you all. When we found you.”
He looked to Jason.
Jason went red, and turned away.
“Found us?” Rick began. Then his eyes widened, and he said, “Oh, yeah.”
Then Ralph said, “You were coming to get us?”
“Why would we want you to get arrested?” was all Gilead said.
“Right,” Rick said, his brow furrowed, a small frown on his face.
Jason was still looking at the ground, fiddling with the straps of his bookbag and Russell, more uncomfortable with silence, jumped in with:
“Me and Gilead were sitting on the back porch with Bobby’s sister—”
“Anigel?” Ralph said.
“Yeah,” Russell said. “She heard the cops and had us run. She even gave us—gave me—cigarettes.”
“You smoke?” Ralph looked at his classmate with a combination of surprise and respect, and now Jason looked up as well.
Russell shrugged, trying to look nonchalant and said, “Sometimes... When I feel like it.”
“Yeah,” said Ralph. “Well... it’s a good thing you and Gilead got away. Did Anigel take you home?”
“No,” Gilead said.
“We hitchhiked,” Russell elaborated. “We took a semi home.”
“What?” Jason started, his green eyes lighting up.
Ralph said, “You’re shitting me!”
“No.”
“You are!”
The traffic in the halls had died down. Russell smiled widely, coolly and murmured, “Naw, man. We’re not.”
“Well. Well, shit,” Ralph decided. “Well, it’s good you all got away, right Jay.”
“Yeah,” Jason said, his voice soft, though he was still looking more to the floor than to Gilead or Russell.
“Say,” Gilead began, “What about you all? How did you get away?”
Jason laughed, and it was almost as if he had been dying for someone to ask.
“We locked ourselves in the pantry and hid under coats until everything was over. I was so scared!” his eyes were wide.
“I was too,” Rick volunteered.
Russell wondered what had happened to the girl. Was she with them in the pantry, or had they gotten rid of her, or had she gotten rid of them and gone on about her college business? What had passed between Rick and Jason, hiding away in a closet where only a few minutes ago he had been having proxy sex with Russell? Russell knew that to ask that would shatter whatever peace the four of them were having.
“DL and all them… they got hauled away. Bobby too,” Rick continued. “We had to wait all night till Ani got back. Then she called my brother and he came back and got us.”
“I felt like such a punk,” Jason said, “riding in the backseat of his car back home.”
Suddenly Jason’s eyes went dark. His voice that soft tone it had been when Russell had first met him, he said, “I feel like a punk most of the time, though, so…” he shrugged.
“We all do, you know,” Gilead said.
“Huh?” Jason said.
“Feel like punks.”
“I’m not really, a punk, Russ,” Rick said suddenly.
Now it was Russell who said, “Huh?”
“All that shit I said?” Ralph said quickly, “All the stuff I say? I’m... I’m not a punk.”
All for of them stood face to face saying nothing, and then it was Gilead who said, “We could really be less shitty to each other. You know?”
“Yeah,” Jason said softly, jamming his hands in his pockets and staring ahead. He was nodding his head seriously and looking a little sad, “we could.”