Legal: Don't read this if it offends you, or there are laws in your area that prohibit reading/viewing homosexually explicit material. This story is mostly fiction, and the likeliness of a character to a real person is strictly coincidence.
Do not copy/reproduce without the author's permission.
The Lacrosse Player
Chap. V
Trevor slipped his hands around my waist as soon as the door slammed shut on the phone booth. I practically melted in his arms.
"No no...we can't be doing this now man...my mom is gonna start wondering when she picks up." I sputtered, between breaths.
"You're worried, eh?" He said, nuzzling into my neck.
I didn't say anything, and dialed my mom. The phone echoed with the all-too-familiar ringing sound, and my dad's voice sounded on the other end.
"Hello?" He asked.
"Hey dad, it's Evan." I replied, massaging Trev's arms around me.
"Oh son, you're returning your mother's call, eh? Hold on, I'll get her."
The line was dead for several seconds, and during those seconds, Trev turned my face away from the phone and slipped his tongue into my mouth, and we began a kiss that made me forget my mom's calling for my name on the receiver.
"Oh..hey mom." I said, after Trev and I had finished. He went back to nuzzling my neck and reaching around my waist with his arms.
"Honey, I think it's a great idea, you two going up to the beach house for the weekend. Did you want me to come over and sign any forms?"
"Yeah, tommorow, or sometime this week."
"Ok," she paused, "I'll do it when I go out for groceries in the morning."
"Thanks mom, that's great. We'll pick up the key on our way up there saturday morning." I replied, trying to contain the excitment.
I hung up the phone and rested into Trev's arms.
"Damn.." He whispered. "This should be fun..." He attempted to un-buckle my belt, but I stopped him short.
"Easy...we've got to contain that...Saturday comes soon."
"You're right." He replied, "Patience and self-control."
I slid the phone booth door open, and found a line of two or three students outside. They shot both of us confused looks, and we silently slid past, nodding at them.
As we entered the room again, Jack and Jacoby slid back into their chairs after scurrying across from the other side of the room.
"What's going on, fellas?" I queried.
"Just waiting for you two to get back." Jack said, pulling the cards out of their packaging.
We played cards for another hour, and eventually began to lose interest in the game. Finally, Jacoby spoke up, ending the fun. "Well, I've got homework to do, we should probably be getting settled back in our rooms."
"Homework?" I asked. "It's 10:00 at night."
"Yes...that means time is of the essence." He replied, sending me a witty grin.
Jack and Trev went back to their rooms, and as Trev left, he winked at me and pursed his lips to a kissing motion. I winked back, and the door slammed shut for the night.
"What homework do you have?" I asked, sitting down on my bed.
"I don't have any homework." He replied, taking a seat at his desk.
"Why'd you break up the party then? Did you and Jack break up?" I teased in a way that might extract some sort of information out of him.
"Funny you should ask." He said, very softly under his breath. "No," he spoke up louder, "I'm just feeling tired tonight. Its been a long weekend."
"I'd expect so..I hear that cabin can be quite the place."
"You have no idea." He replied. What the hell did he mean by that? "You know..the nonstop partying."
"Oh sure...girls stacked up everywhere, right?"
"Uh sure.." He replied, sorting through some English papers in a drawer. "Evan, you seem to be happier this weekend then you've been."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked, taking a seat by the window.
"I don't know..you've been more responsive and outgoing." He said.
I took a step out on a limb. "I don't know...I had some revelations."
"About what? Religion?" He asked.
"No, no...far from it." I repied.
"Well...like what?"
"It's stuff that you'll probably never understand." I looked out the window to the sun which was no longer there.
"Does it involve Trevor?" He asked, leaning closer to me.
"It might." I was getting nervous now. This was not the kind of conversation I wanted to have at this moment. There's no way he doesn't know...why would he ask that if he didn't?
"You want to talk about it later?"
I looked up at him. Suddenly, a feeling of the lifting of a tremendous weight overcame me, and I audibly let out a sigh of relief. "Yeah, that might be cool." I said.
"That's what I thought."
After we both went to bed, I stared up at the springs of Jacoby's bed, relaxing, my arms crossed across my chest grabbing my shoulders. I thought to myself- is Jacoby gay? What about Jack? Or, how about Jon and James? Those two spent too much time together. Who knows, maybe they are just close friends. Then again, maybe they aren't. Here I go- rambling to myself. I felt like there was a jittery feeling slowly running through my body.
Since this morning the constructive, formal, traditional world I grew up in and for the most part, still lived in, seemed to fall apart before me. Trevor had pretty much decided the rest of his and my life this morning. If he hadn't have done that, who knows how long it would've been until I'd have come out. Maybe, I never would've, and then I'd have gotten married and had kids, and been unhappy the rest of my life.
It was strange to me that that kind of life would seem so beautiful to any other person, (or the other 90% of the population), and now, to me, that is the life of a failed gay person- one who didn't have the courage to come out in the first place.
His actions this morning saved me from that life, and I'd be in debt to him for a long time.
Slowly, I faded off to sleep, listening to the soft breeze that sailed through the open window.
Jacoby's alarm slowly increased in volume as the 6:30 minute drew closer. I awoke, finding Jacoby's muscled leg hanging off his bed. I yanked on it, and he sat straight up, hitting his head on the angled ceiling.
"Dammit!" He yelled. "I take it that's your 'good morning', he said to me, jumping down from his bed.
"You should expect it always is." I replied, sitting up and rubbing his shoulder as a sincere 'good morning'.
"You're a pal, man." He walked over to his drawer. "Another week of this school shit is upon us."
"What are you doing next weekend?" I asked, pulling a shirt out of my closet.
"You're thinking about that already? He asked, helping me button my collar. "I don't know yet..it's a ways away. You sound like you might have a plan, though."
"Trev and I are going to my parent's beach house in Maine." I replied.
"Oh yeah?" He asked, leaning on his hip.
"Oh yeah. Should be a lot of fun...you and Jack inspired us." I replied.
We soon headed downstairs for breakfast, and then off to class. The academy's class rooms weren't set up like other Jesuit schools. The classes had more of a public school feeling to them, but just more structured.
I hadn't seen Trev that morning until I arrived at my second class of the day, English IV. The class was set up in a triangle shape, with two desks in the back, and 4 in the next, and so on. Both of us sat in the very back.
As I sat down, he came in and gave me a wink, and when he sat down, purposely shoved his knee into my leg, and ran it all the way up my leg as he turned around in his desk.
As he sat down, Mr. Conlan stepped into the room. "Alright, settle down. We've got some things to talk about." Everyone slowly quieted. "Ok, on Friday we left off talking about authors and their impacts on modern society." He looked around. "Anybody remember? Who were some of the authors?"
Somebody in the front spoke up, "Ernest Hemingway."
Another student, "Ray Bradbury."
Mr. Conlan was writing these down on the board. "Very good, very good."
Trev raised his hand. "Oscar Wilde."
"Wasn't he gay?" Someone in front of us asked Mr. Conlan.
"What does that matter?" Mr. Conlan asked.
"Well...wouldn't it be unethical to discuss a gay author at this school?" The student asked.
Mr. Conlan sighed and put his hands on his desk. "The day when the world decides the quality and impact of literature because of the author's sexuality is the day where we fall into oblivion, and become a product of Ray Bradbury's imagination."
"Wait..you're saying that if the discussion and reading of a gay author's book was illegal here, we'd be in a world like Fahrenheit 451?" The student persisted.
"Of course..it'd just be like banning a book, and I know, Mr. Stevens, how much of a proponet of keeping books sacred you are. That was evident in last week's banned books discussion." Mr. Conlan pointed his finger at the student. "So just learn to appreciate everybody's works."
I sat and let a small smile cross my face. 'I guess it's always good to have a few liberals hanging around.' I thought.
The rest of the day flew by uneventfully, and eventually everybody ended up either at sports practices or back at the dorms. School let out at 3:30, and I spent the next two hours at tennis practice, running through drills and prepping for tommorow's meet. After we were finished, I cleaned up and walked to the playing fields, where Trev's lacrosse practice was just finishing. As the team broke from their huddle in the middle of the field to the lockers, Trev saw me sitting on the bleachers. As he ran in, he gave me a signal to wait, and winked at me. As I sat in the breeze, he walked up to me and sat in the bleacher bench below me.
"How was practice?" He asked, putting his hand on the inside of my leg and running it up my shorts.
I grabbed his arm just before he reached into my boxers. "Come on man, there's people around." I said, laughing. He slowly pulled his hand out, digging his nails into my thigh. I bit my tounge. "Practice was hot." I said. "Lots of drills and exercises."
"Preparing for tommorow I see." He sighed and looked to the ocean. "We don't have another game until next Tuesday. That's a long wait."
"You really do like playing, don't you?"
"Oh yeah." He replied. "It's definitely a release....you know...of the stuff that I can't get off my mind..stuff I can't tell other people." He paused. "I can't wait for this weekend..."
"Neither can I. My mom came and signed the papers today." I told him.
"Good, good. What about my parents?" He asked.
"They called it in, and had my mom cosign it." I replied.
"Perfect..."
The rest of the night passed uneventfully. Trev and I couldn't find time to be alone anywhere, and had homework to do anyway. Before we went to bed, he reassured me that we would be going to my meet tommorow. As I was about to close my door for the night, he walked over to me and poked his head in to make sure Jacoby was asleep.
"I love you." He whispered.
I let out a grin. "I love you too."
The next day flew by quickly, and my last class was physical education (nobody dared to call it 'gym'). I was late for class, as I had gotten into a conversation with my Latin teacher after the bell rang last class. I walked into the locker rooms as most everyone was walking out to the gym floor. The only other person in the stacks of lockers was Bryce Dalasky, a lacrosse player and good friend of mine.
"Laurent, what's goin on man?" He asked, shaking my hand.
"You know...just heading off to this P.E. shit." I said. He laughed, and went back to putting his school clothes back on. As I walked to my locker and started fiddling with the lock, I felt the presence of someone standing at the entrance of the locker stack. It was Mr. McManus, standing with his arms at his sides, his hands in fists. "Hey, Mr. M, how are you." I asked, pulling out my gym shorts.
"That's Mr. McManus to you, queer."
I stopped all movement and turned towards him.
"What the hell did you just say?" I took a step at him.
"I called you a queer. A fag. A pansy. Don't try to deny it, I see you with that Corczynski kid. Evan, I can't stand fags." He looked straight at me, and his eyes burned with visible hate.
"What the hell is your problem?!" I yelled as he brought his arm back. "What right do you have to question anything? You're a goddamn janitor."
He took a swing at me, and I dove back. His weight followed his wayward arm, and he stumbled. Before he could attempt to swing again, Bryce had jumped out from down the hall, and hit Mr. McManus along the side with all his body weight. He fell to the ground and hit his head hard on the concrete wall.
"Evan, you okay?!" Bryce stepped on Mr. McManus as he attempted to get back up and ran over to me. I had fallen to the ground, and Bryce brought his arm around me and helped me back up to my feet.
"Yeah man, I'm fine."
"What the hell was that about?" He asked, brushing me off.
"I don't know, he just came at me."
"What was he saying? Why was he calling you all that stuff?"
"I don't know. I don't know."
"Well...it doesn't matter. We've got to get to the office." We both ran through the halls and to the main office, where we burst through the principal's door. "Mr. Yarmouth...small problem here." Bryce told the principal as we came in.
"What is it, boys?" He asked.
"Mr. McManus..he just tried to hit Evan."
"Our Mr. McManus?" He asked, eyes growing wide.
"The one and only." I said.
He walked to the locker rooms with us, and we found Mr. McManus in the bathroom, cleaning up the blood on the side of his head that hit the wall.
"Don't say a damn thing." He said, just as Mr. Yarmouth was going to speak. "I can't work in a school full of faggots. Everytime I turn around, another one pops up."
I was slightly confused by this comment...who the hell was he talking about?
"I want you out of this building now." Mr. Yarmouth said, convinced that what we had described to him actually had happened.
"My pleasure." He said, storming off. He grabbed several things from his office and left, hopefully for good.
Mr. Yarmouth beckoned us back to his office.
"Who's going to replace him as coach?" I asked.
"Well...it's funny that this sort of thing would happen right now...since Mr. McManus has not turned out a winning team ever since he's been here, we decided several weeks ago to replace him. Mr. Mitch Teske is coming in on Thursday to be interviewed for the job. Just don't worry about this, guys. We'll have a new maintainence man in here by Friday." Just as we were about to leave, he halted me. "Evan..I'm going to have to file a police report, saying you were threatened and an attempted assault occured. The police are going to want some info from you, I imagine."
"Okay...catch me after the match tonight." I replied.
After we left his office, I walked with Bryce to his next class. "That was a hell of an afternoon." He said, patting me on the back of the head. I never liked Mr. McManus anyway." Just as he was about to open the door to the chemistry lab, he paused. "Why did he call you a faggot?"
I stared at him for several seconds. "I don't know...the guy is nuts."
He looked back at me and nodded. "Ok..ok. See you around man."
I went back to gym, and sat in the locker room, wishing Saturday started at the last bell. I knew that someone was going to see the intimacy between Trev and I soon enough. If you looked hard enough, it was hard to miss. I guess the names Mr. McManus called me didn't upset me a lot...there was a lot of hate in the world..I knew it all too well...like I've said- I've sat through it before- subliminally taking the comments that weren't even directed at me.
How were people going to take this? You've got to have a good reason to fire a staff member...and while we had a good reason, I really didn't want anybody to find out he was calling me a 'fag'.
As the class played basketball in the gym, I stepped outside on the ocean side of the school. Jon was sitting outside on the cement patio outside the gym door.
"Hey Jon, not playing today?" I asked as I sat down next to him.
"Naw, I don't really feel like it. I see you and Dalasky managed to dispatch McManus." He chuckled.
"Yeah..damn bastard. Apparently 'fags have been popping up all over', and according to him, I'm one of them."
"He did the same thing to Jaime (James) and I."
"What do you mean, he hit you?"
"Threatened to. He saw us at the pool a couple nights ago and figured we must be gay." He leaned back.
"Well we're not going to have to worry about it anymore."
"He guessed right though..."
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"You know exactly what I mean." He replied. I was speechless. I tried to search for words, but nothing came out. "And it's not difficult for me to see you and Trev."
I looked straight at his eyes. "I can't deny that. It would hurt me to." We sat in silence for several seconds.
"Evan..don't tell anybody...the last thing I need right now is for people to know."
"Same here." I replied.
"Sounds like a plan." He said, As the last bell rang.
"Why did you tell me this, today?" I asked him.
"I couldn't hold it anymore...what just happened in there clinched it." He said as he sat up, and we both headed inside. "Tuesday afternoon." He whispered in tune.
"Just beginning to see..now I'm on my way." I sung back. He smiled, and headed to his locker.
To be continued
How's the story going? Comments, opinions and suggestions needed. eastcoastkid_11@ hotmail.com