Everlasting Love
Chapter 3
NOTE: This is a fictional biographic love story as Macy, Mitch and their companions make their way through different stages of their lives. All of the characters in this story are fictional and resemblance to any one person whether dead or alive is purely coincidental. If you liked this chapter, please send me some feed back; I have a rough mental outline for how this goes but some extra details or inspiration along the way are always welcome. If you are offended by intimate male on male emotional and physical relationships, you should be asking yourself why you are here in the first place. Finally, please consider a donation to Nifty to maintain this website.
Although I own a set, instead of some fancy bike shorts and matching bib, I was just wearing an old wrestling singlet under some black pocketed nylon gym shorts and a red and white Triton Swim Team hoodie sweatshirt when I rode my bike over to Robbie's. After talking with Robbie and fixing his brother's bike, I took the long way home over a local bike trail to ponder and wonder how to ask Mitch Humboldt out on a date without sounding like a flaming homosexual or a girl with a crush on a boy, though after all; I was a teenage boy with a crush on another teenage boy who supposedly had a crush on me.
This particular trail is an easy and favorite ride for me on my Specialized hybrid bike; it's paved and flat most of the way as it snakes through part of the county park space near my grandparents' house. Ahead I saw two bikes to the side of trail and I started to slow down to see what was up and sure enough, there were two older men barely visible from the trail groping each other, just like Rita, my grandmother had warned me. That sight just made me pedal faster to where the trail dumped back out onto Seminary Avenue and then the right turn onto Thornton Road; home would be just a few more blocks away.
"Hey Lance, how did it go with Robbie, get his bicycle fixed?" Cal asked me as I rolled up the driveway.
Lance, as in Lance Armstrong, became my grandfather's moniker for me when I was biking or Michael as in Michael Phelps, local Olympic swimming hero, when he had to drop me off or pick me up at the Towson Y for swimming practice or some other site for a swim meet.
"Fine, it was an easy fix and it was for Robbie's brother anyhow. What are you building now?" I asked, trying to connect the dots between the welder, an old four drawer beige lateral file cabinet and assorted pieces of small dimension angle iron.
"A smoker, want to help?" Cal asked, looking at the drawing he had sketched in great detail that was taped to the back of the cabinet and a bunch of parts laid out in some sort of systematic Cal order.
"Sure, just let me go change my clothes" I said before I rolled my bike into the garage and hung it up on the recently installed hooks at its designated spot, one of the things, among many, that I was learning my former Marine Corps and semi-retired mechanical engineer grandfather was very particular about: Everything belongs in its place when it's not in use. I'm not sure which Cal it was that demanded this sort of level of organization but I complied all the same.
Cal had already precisely laid out with a square and a black Sharpie pen where the holes would be along the bottom drawer of the old tan file cabinet and then holes on the back side opposite those on the drawer, "that bottom drawer will be the firebox, the holes will have these quarter-turn vent covers to control the air flow."
"Okay, I get that," I nodded, now standing in a pair of work boots, old jeans and an older comfortable flannel shirt, "you're just gonna tack weld that angle iron into the corners, right?"
"Exactly!" Cal said, handing me the welding gun, then pointing, "We're not trying to rebuild the Titanic here, just tack it high and low in each corner; do you remember how?"
Months ago, I learned some welding basics from Cal when he would take me to his machine and fabrication shop and I was definitely intrigued by it. I had run a few, well as many as I could practice beads on some scrap steel before but this time, it was for the money; this was going to be for something my grandfather wanted to be proud of. I walked in the garage and found the extra leather welding shirt and Cal handed me his heavy gloves and the visor helmet which was just small enough to fit my head.
Cal adjusted the ground cable as I flipped down the helmet and squeezed the trigger, making just a few quick spot welds high and low on either side of the clamped angle iron. I stopped after the first four brilliant flashes and lifted the visor, "Outstanding!" he bellowed in his gunnery sergeant voice reserved for when he wanted to heap praise on me, "keep going Macy, you got this."
I finished welding the rack into the fire box drawer as Cal set up the next drawers in a similar fashion, clamping each piece of angle iron into position after double and triple checking to make sure they were spot-on plumb. After the last weld I asked, "how do you know it's right to ask somebody out on a date? How did you know it was right to ask Grammy, I mean Rita to go out with you?"
"Mason, I don't know, there is no easy answer. Trust me, it's hard enough to figure out women, I don't know if I even want to tackle trying to figure out how to ask another man," he volunteered, "but I'd say there are some indisputable facts of life to be reckoned with no matter which team you play for."
"Such as?" I asked after the welding was finished and I sensed it was time to begin picking up the tools and equipment out on the concrete apron in front of the detached garage.
"I guess you like him, maybe you know him a little bit, right?" Cal asked.
"Kind of, he's best friends with Robbie Lawson who knows Karen," I replied, trying to minimize the degrees of separation for Cal, "I know him a little from school but we only have French 3 and gym class together, not exactly like we're buddy-buddy or anything."
"But neither of you are on the same teams, sports teams that is, right?" Cal continued through his list of questions.
"Exactly, he's the über high school jock, belongs on a box of Wheaties and I swim, big freakin' deal," I said with a bit of a sigh, "but, Robbie says he is into me."
"You got any reason to doubt Robbie's word?" Cal asked, challenging me; "is there any chance Robbie might be trying to set you up to look bad?"
"Honestly, I didn't even think of it from that angle; but" I said as we finished putting the tools and the smoker project away back into the garage just as Rita was returning home in the Subaru, "Robbie was being very defensive about his friend, like he wanted to be sure I would not share this piece about his friend's life with anybody else."
Cal opened the older refrigerator in the garage, grabbed a couple bottles of a local craft beer; Loose Cannon IPA, and popped the caps off with the bottle opener bolted to the steel leg of the workbench in arm's reach of the refrigerator, handed me one with another question, "how do you feel about that? Sounds like this guy is some sort of closet case but then again, you're in a sweet spot, you could almost go back in the closet if you wanted to; I mean nobody here knows you are gay, right."
We clinked beer bottles as Rita approached, "Just Karen and now Robbie; plus, I told Robbie I wasn't going to live a lie but I wasn't going to queer out either."
"Queer out?" my grandmother inquired now that she was in earshot.
"You know, act feminine, join the drama club, public displays of affection, that sort of thing, does that make sense?" I said shifting my eyes to Rita and watching her nod now that she understood what we were talking about
"Rita, our Macy likes a boy," Cal said to bring her into the conversation as we both took a long sip on our beers and while alternating eye contact with his wife and me. Cal continued, "I don't know what you are waiting for then; you carry yourself well, you don't act queer at least not around Rita and I. I don't think that's any sort of an act you're putting on; I like to think that's the real Macy; the genuine article. Macy, you just got to do what all the rest of us have done since man began walking upright: Put on your boots, give him a call, hope for the best and be ready for the worst. That's all I can really tell you to do."
"I figured a direct approach would be best and you confirmed that for me," I replied.
"Who is this boy, this young man?" Rita inquired; not knowing I was trying to be secretive about his identity
And before I remembered that my grandmother had only recently retired from teaching science at the local middle school, I let his name slip out, "Mitch Humboldt."
Cal looked at Rita then me, "Jim Humboldt's kid, really? The builder, up on Alston Lane?"
I nodded, "yep, that one; but please, please don't tell a soul, nobody is supposed to know."
"I remember him and Robbie, Robbie somebody...Robbie Lawson... always hanging out together when I taught at Towsontowne," Rita added after matching their names, "smart kids, good looking boys, never any trouble as I recall."
After nodding at Rita with an "I got this" glance, Cal laid out their expectations, "Listen, Macy, whatever happens with you and Mitch; and your grandmother and I hope it's a good thing; but, regardless of whatever happens; both of us know boys will be boys; we're not going to try to fight that battle."
Cal sternly continued, "but, we are going to expect you and Mitch or whoever is in your life while you are living under this roof to be responsible, to be respectful; and that's a two-way street Mason, it runs both ways. And Macy, you have to be just as responsible and respectful of his family and their wishes too, am I, are we clear beyond any reasonable doubt in your teenage mind?"
"Crystal clear, absolutely no doubt sir, I promise not to let either of you down," I affirmed.
"Good. And another thing, what did you and Karen decide about lifeguarding this summer at the club?" Cal asked, not so subtly changing the subject.
"We talked about it, I still have to get a CPR card; Karen's got one from when she was a baby sitter. I googled around and found a CPR class at the Lutherville firehouse next Saturday, just got to register on-line, it's free," I said, not really excited about the concept of sitting around a pool all summer to be a glorified baby sitter.
"Well, I wish you two would hurry up and decide; the Board of Directors is leaning towards contracting with one of the pool management companies if they don't have enough candidates to hire from," Cal reminded me as his second and final two year term on the club's board was winding down and he didn't want this over his head before they traveled back to Italy for Rita's sister's big 60th birthday bash
"I'll take the class," I said, kind of giving in to what seemed like making things easier for my grandfather.
Cal and Rita went towards the house to bring in the groceries from her car as I boosted myself up to sit on the workbench and sipped my beer. I reached for the handset of the phone on the garage wall, shaking like a leaf and began to punch in the ten digits on the first-generation touch pad. A few clicks followed by the ringing sound and then kind of a gruff, "Hello?"
"Um, Hi, Mr. Humboldt, is Mitch there? Yes sir, sure.... Hey, it's Macy, Mason Strickland from school...just kind of wondering what's going on with you....we got Fraley's final soon and I was thinking maybe we should study together for it."