In Skater's Time Chapter 24 You Only Live Once
For BRANDON & Jerry
LOVE NEVER DIES
Chapter 24 You Only Live Once
"You only live once, Z."
"What's that mean? We're in fucking jail, Paul."
"It means I won't live in fear. I'm going to stand up for myself, especially when no one else is going to stand up for me."
"You ask for trouble, Paul. I mean you went after that kid like you were possessed. Don't you think about your actions?"
Paul had slumped back into the orange formfitting chair that fit no form most people had ever seen. He had turned pale and weariness was drawn into his face with deep lines. His eyes flashed as Z watched him, and then, they both watched Z's father approaching.
"Z, you call me from the hospital after you sneak out to see Paul and now you call me from the jail."
"Dad, it's not what you think."
"Oh, this isn't jail? Well, do tell, son. Is it Oz and Paul's the wizard?"
My father was animated and the anger or displeasure was drawn into his face. Z wanted to make it something it wasn't but how did he do that? He wasn't even sure what it was.
"It's the police station, Dad."
"Why don't one of you tell me what's going on? I leave you off at the mall and now this. I mean how much trouble can you get into at the mall?"
"Plenty when you're with me, sir," Paul said apologetically.
"I should have known it was you. For godsake, you're practically crippled. You just got out of the hospital. What could you have done to land you two here?"
"He ran into the guy that kicked him. One of them anyway."
"They got the guy?" My father asked with his attitude changing immediately as he was pleased with this news.
"Well, actually, they got his boots, Pop," I said, wanting to break it to him gently.
"His boots? His boots? What's that supposed to mean?"
"It's a long story, Dad."
"You fought the guy?" My father blurted out even more excited. "In your condition?"
"He more pummeled him, Dad."
"So what are you doing here? I mean, can't you go home? How long do they need to keep you?"
"There's a little problem, Dad."
"Why do you keep talking. I know he can talk. He talked when I came up. I thought Paul was the one involved in this. Maybe he should be telling me the details. Did you get him good?"
"I was involved in trying to pull him off the guy."
"I just went off, sir," Paul said, leaning forward, meekly folding his hands between his knees as my father stood over him.
"You don't look all that good, son," My father said. "Did he hurt you? Where you had your surgery?"
"Pop, the kid didn't get off a punch. That's him over there."
I pointed to the kid in the socks and he had somehow gotten skinnier and even younger looking.
"Him?"
"Uh huh," I said.
"He's a kid."
"Uh huh."
Luckily the cop came back to keep me from having to make more excuses for Paul. I was running out of them by this time. My father and the cop walked down to the end of the hall and had a chat for several minutes, or at least the cop was talking and then they walked back to where we sat.
"He doesn't look too good to me," My father was saying about Paul.
"Yeah, I've got my sergeant on it but that kids father is up front and I can't risk them crossing paths at the moment. He's madder than a hornet but I've talked to his son and he knows something he isn't saying. So I'm keeping the old man away form him as long as I can. We're making him nervous right now but I can't just let Paul go. He's committed a serious crime."
"Crime. Kicking the ass of the guy who stomped him? What kind of law is that?" My father asked astounded. "He should get a metal."
The cop looked at Paul and then me, immediately sensing that my father only had half the story. I could actually see sympathy in the cop's eyes as he went about trying to set the record straight, having given up on trying to set either Paul or I straight.
"Well in the first place he more or less attached the boots the kid was wearing and he can't do that. We're the cops and we make arrests. Vigilante justice isn't highly regarded, even in El Cajon. I'm trying to get them to cut the kid some slack because of his condition. I'm really pissing up a rope here. It's Friday evening and no one wants to be bothered."
"You attacked his boots?" My father asked in disbelief, picking up on the most ridiculous aspect of the event.
"Those were the boots," Paul insisted. "I won't ever forget them."
"You attacked his boots?"
"Don't get too far out there. They could be the boots. Paul described them to your son. The diagram on the bottom of the boot is quite distinctive and it matches the marks left on Paul's face. I can't condone what he did but those boots look good to me. I've been looking at pictures of the marks they left on his face and they match up. I'm no expert, you understand, but he does know his boots and I understand how he might have gone off on the kid in them. He was seriously damaged. A piece of his body had to be removed because of the beating he took. I'm sure we have some kind of wiggle room here. I just can't get anyone to work with me. It's the weekend and the wheels of justice move slowly even during normal business hours."
"Well he can't stay here all weekend. He looks like death warmed over. Can't you call someone. Won't the authorities be liabel if something happens to him?"
"He's always pale, Pop."
"He's more than pale. He needs to lie down. I'm not a doctor but he needs rest," My father explained.
"The likelihood of him being released to go home alone isn't very good. At best I'd have to have him in someone's hands, and we're a long way from there."
"Put him in my hands. He can stay at our house," My father said.
"Yeah!" I said, and my father stared at me with a hard look.
"We have an extra room," My father added. "I'll take the responsibility. He can't stay here."
The cop leaned with his hand on the wall next to Paul's head and was interested in the conversation. Most cops were pretty remote in my experience but this guy seemed to care about Paul. He seemed concerned for him.
The next thing I knew some big guy in a white T-shirt, and it hadn't seen white in years, came rushing up to where the kid in the socks sat. The guy had these big beefy arms complete with tattoos. He had the voice of a difficult man and the attention of everyone in that space..
There were now two cops on either side of the guy as they tried to reason with him. Another man in a suit was standing off to one side, looking very much like a lawyer. The kid in the socks, his father, and the suit were all escorted into a room down the other hallway. It was suddenly quiet. The cop excused himself and joined the conference in the room.
It was more than a half an hour later that another suit showed up, unescorted he came into the area, looked around as we sat waiting, and then he disappeared into the room with all the men. It must have been a good sized room, although two of the cops had come out and only one went back in. The final suit to arrive then emerged from the room and came walking toward us.
"I'm Assistant District Attorney Poor. You want to talk to me? I'm handling your hate crime charge and you might want an attorney present to advise you," he said to Paul.
"No, I don't need an attorney. Can they come?"
"Suit yourself. You might need an attorney, Paul. There's talk of an assault charge against you. I'm not handling that because it would be a conflict of interest, but someone thought enough of you to get me out here to look at this thing before it gets out of control."
"Look at what?" Paul asked.
"Let's grab a room. I don't necessarily want anyone else hearing what I have to say. I am bound by certain ethical considerations."
We followed Poor into a room across from where we sat. He opened up his briefcase and sat at the desk as we sat in the chairs around it.
"You are?" He asked, looking directly at me once he got settled.
"Z. I was with him tonight."
"I'm Z's father."
"Yeah! Paul, I'm investigating your hate crime allegation. That's my specialty. I've gotten the story on the assault and the boots and the boy and his family. You couldn't have attacked someone with a nice background, could you? Makes me sorry I wasn't there to help you."
"It wasn't him. It was the boots," Paul said.
"Yeah, the boots. Well, I'm here to report to you that not only was attacking a fifteen year old kid a bad idea, but they weren't his boots. And so you see my dilemma."
"What?" Paul gasped as Poor took time to watch his reaction.
"You see how you've complicated my job? If those are the boots and they are connected with the crime against you, we're in good shape, but since you took matters into your own hands, we're up against it."
"He was wearing the boots. Those were the boots the guy that kicked me in the face had on."
"You see how dangerous jumping to conclusions can be. They're his brother's boots. He... borrowed them for the evening."
"His brother!" Paul said.
"Okay, we can't talk to the brother. The father is an expert on the law. Four assaults. Two domestic violence charges... both of those cases were dropped. Two DWIs. He's been there done that and he knows the system. He's got an attorney and while we're applying pressure, we might never get a shot because of your temper. You may have given a get out of jail free card to the guy that did that to you."
He tossed a picture of Paul's face onto the desk. His eye was swollen shut and a brilliant pattern from the bottom of a boot was distinctive and in living color.
"Those are the boots?"
"It's likely. We all like them. We like his brother. He's also got a list of charges, mostly punk stuff, but he could become dangerous. If he did this to you than he has become dangerous and I want him and now you're the one that might go away for assault, while he walks free."
"I just snapped," Paul said, sounding weary. "I saw those boots coming at my face. I snapped."
"You stick to that story, son. Maybe some kind of psychological mumbo jumbo defense that'll confuse the hell out of a jury and maybe they'll sympathize with the poor boy that got stomped by those boots, but I can't advise you on that. What were you thinking?"
"I wasn't. I'm just tired of taking it. I'm not going to take it any more."
"Paul, you can't go attacking people. It's illegal. You'll go to jail. You won't like jail but lots of guys in jail'll like you."
"I get attacked every single day of my life. I'm tired of it and if I need to go to jail to take up for myself, I will. I might have hit the wrong guy but I hit him for the right reasons and I got the right boots. Those are the boots. You don't forget seeing a boot coming right at your face. I didn't forget them."
"You get attacked every day. Most people are going to find that one hard to believe. You cut an imposing figure. I don't know many guys that would attack someone that looks like you."
"I get attacked with words, jokes, conversations, from people who call me names and equate me as some kind of pervert. I'm not living my life that way. My sexuality isn't something for other people to make judgements about or decide for me."
"Some people find it offensive," Mr. Poor said. "They have rights."
"I find it offensive to be called names and made to feel like I'm subhuman. I find it offensive that with all the crap going on in this fucked up world, they've got nothing better to do but worry about who I might be in love with. So I suck cock and I fuck ass, and I'm not going to apologize for that, and I'm going to stop doing it. I find it most satisfying."
My father's eyes opened as big saucers and Poor's filled with a startled look as he observed Paul. They both looked a little like the deer in the headlights for just a minute, and my heart sunk.
"I'm not mad at you. I'm mad and tired of being made the punchline in a joke. I'm a person and I figure I've got the same rights as every other person, and no one cares or sees to it my rights are protected. It's accepted that I can be insulted, assaulted, and worse if there are enough of them and they catch me with my back turned. Well, it's no longer okay with me and if I've got to go to jail to keep my dignity, I'm ready. Living in the shadows and living a lie isn't going to happen to this boy. So you better lock me up now because I'm not shutting up and I'm not done fighting this shit."
"I believe you," Poor said as my father considered the outburst and any hopes of him rescuing Paul from himself seemed doomed.
"I'm sorry. I don't see where any of you gives a damn about me. That's how I see it. That's how I feel. I'd rather them beat me to death than live in fear of them."
"Don't be sorry, son. Keep that passion. It might keep you out of jail this time. If we can show that there is a direct relationship between the assault on you and your attack on... those boots, well, stranger things have happened. Some kind of post traumatic flashback, but I can't advise you Paul. What I can do is ask this man to take custody of you so we can get you out of here and in a bed before you drop. I can appreciate your anger. I know being gay isn't easy, son, but physically attacking people isn't going to get you where you want to go. You've got to do it through legal means."
"The Black Panthers? The blacks didn't have a voice until they shot down King and then they got pissed off and demanded their rights."
"That's a different issue and a different time," Poor said. "Look, I'm on your side, not on this assault beef, but I'm on your side because of what happened to you. I could care less if you're a blue one eyed Baptist. The Black Panters. That's going back a ways. How'd you hear about them?"
"I read. I took a black history course up at school. I'm the new nigger the way I see it. I ought to know what it means. What they had to do to get their rights."
"That's a stretch," My father interrupted. "They were seriously discriminated agianst.
"The only word that you can still call someone without any kind of criticism is faggot. Well, I'm a gay man and that word is a personal insult to me every time it's used, and it's used much like the word nigger was used, to diminish a group of people. It's a verbal attack."
"Valid points but you're going down a lonely road, Paul," Poor said.
"I'm not aloud to speak up because if I speak up, I risk getting stomped into the dirt but that doesn't change anything. I'm a man and I won't put up with it. They'll have to keep stomping me until I'm dead."
The silence was palpable as my father and Mr. Poor looked at one another with a look of frustration. Then my father shocked the hell out of me.
"Can't you put him in my custody. I'll take him home and keep an eye on him. You know he's not going anywhere. He's not trying to avoid what he did. I think it's a health consideration as much as anything else. He's just starting to get up and around."
"Yes, let me make some calls. I'll arrange it. I'll have them take him out the jail entrance so no one knows I'm letting him out of here. You can drive around back and pick him up."
"Yes!" I said loudly, resisting the impulse to jam my fish into the air.
"And where do you stand on what he said," Mr. Poor asked me.
"I'm not mad at anyone. I don't want to hit anyone. But I believe what he says is true, but I love him and so my opinion might not be objective," I said, thinking about my words as I spoke when I usually just blurted something out to fill the air up with sound.
Paul took my hand and smiled at me, looking a bit better than he'd looked before. We were back on the same page and nothing else mattered.
"Well, now maybe you've gotten it out of your system for tonight. I can't make you any promises. This kid is lawyered up and I'm limited. We're pressuring them for the owner of the boots to come forward for a little chit chat. I'm not sure they'll give him up. You go home and rest. You aren't to leave the house. Is that understood, Paul. Do I have your word on that?"
"Yes, sir," Paul said. "I'm not going anywhere. I'll stand up for what I did. If I made a mistake I'm sorry, but those are the boots."
"Yeah, okay. You two go ahead and drive around to the back. I'll have one of the police officers take him out to meet you. Thanks for giving me an option. You don't know how many kids end up locked up because no one will take them in."
"For better or worse my son loves him and he's usually a pretty good judge of character. I'll stand by Paul on that basis."
"Good enough," Mr. Poor said, standing to shake my father's hand. "It's good enough for me. I just want to go home and have drink."
Paul let go of my hand and I left. The skinny kid was back in the chair alone when we left. We went back out the front entrance and no one paid much attention to us. Five minutes after we parked at the rear of the building Paul came out and I sat in the back seat so he could sit up front.
The lights were all on in the house when we got there, and I cringed some. I didn't want to face my mother with yet another crisis. Certainly she knew where I was and she'd be waiting for some explanation after sitting at the table and drinking coffee while she waited.
"Mom this is Paul. Paul my mom," I said, not waiting for her to start asking questions.
"Delighted to meet you," Paul said in his sweetest voice.
"Yes," My mother said, eyeing him with suspicion.
"They think they found the guys that hurt Paul," My father said, not going into detail. "They thought it was best he not be home alone, so I've told him he could stay here for a few days."
My father was leaving out a lot of important details and I started to see him in a totally different light. My mother took it all in and sat in silence, processing the information and our presence.
"Are you hungry?" My mother asked.
"Yes," I said, getting in front of the conversation.
"I'm not talking to you," she said, with more meaning in the words than they meant. "You're always hungry. Would you like something to eat Paul. We had a roast for dinner and I put up individual plates for the microwave. It would only take a few minutes."
"Home cooking. Yes, ma'am," Paul said with a delighted sound in his voice.
He was saying all the right things and in five minutes there was a steaming plate sitting in front of each of us. My father opted for some coffee and they sat at the table with us as we ate. My mother's sour face didn't change and the displeasure with me was still in every look she gave me, but she seemed concerned about Paul's condition.
"I'll need to change the sheets in the guest room. The bedspread has been on that bed since we've been here. I'll get a fresh quilt out for you," My mother said, excusing herself from the table and heading into the house.
"She's getting past it?" I asked my father as he sat relaxing at one end of the table.
"No, I don't think so. She is your mother and Paul is ailing. We aren't angry at you Z. We're disappointed. We had such hopes that you'd have a good life."
"I plan to, Dad. We plan to," I said, looking across the table at Paul.
He managed a smile while he was shoveling food into his mouth.
"You know what I mean. Those people aren't happy. They live sad lives, Z. I don't know if you know what you are getting yourself into."
"Dad, I'm not getting myself into anything. This is who I am. I know it's difficult to understand but it's not a choice I made. It is what I feel inside. People are sad because they don't feel free to express themselves. They've got to hide it for their own safety. We aren't sad, we're threatened."
"Right on!" Paul said, managing to make his first mistake and getting a suitable glare from my father so he knew he wasn't in this conversation.
"We live in a free country, Pop and we're free to keep our mouths shut or else. That would make most people sad."
By now my father knew we were on opposite sides of the issue and there was only one of us who had any room to move closer to the other. He didn't like the idea but he had been moving in my direction simply because he was a good and decent man who loved his son. His disappointment was giving way to his nurturing nature and his desire to protect his son from a hostile world. I knew I was winning my father over but I had no such thoughts about my mother.
She too was a good person and she helped people in need, but that didn't change the way she felt. My hope was that Paul's presence would help to move her in my direction. I didn't like my mother being mad with me. It wasn't something I had experience with before. No matter what I did she had always found a way to be supportive before this. I hoped that time would help but that didn't make the tension any less painful.
Paul was put in the guestroom right across the hall from my room.
"You're to stay in this room. Z is to stay in his room. You may meet downstairs or at the table when we eat. If you are in his room during the day, the door stays open at all time. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir. No problem. I just want to get some sleep. I won't cause you any trouble."
"You already have but I love my son and I'll stand by him. Don't let him get hurt, Paul."
"I'll do my best, sir," Paul said as my father closed the door.
"Did you hear what I said."
"Yes, sir," I said as he stood in my doorway. "Don't make me regret this, Z."
"I won't, Pop. Thanks!"
My father shut my door and left me alone. I was exhausted and had no trouble going to bed.
Life is too short to miss out on love. Love someone if you can. You won't be sorry.