Mile High Part 2-3
"Let me tell him." Steve quietly separated from the group and, glancing around the gymnasium full of other students intently watching them, walked quickly over to the lanky dark-haired boy standing with his shapely date.
"I hope everything will be OK." Kelvin glanced up at his boyfriend's face and back to the potential confrontation. He really didn't want to ruin the evening for his teammate. Chad had been trying to get the girl he was with to go out with him for months and had been overjoyed when she'd finally agreed to his clumsy advances. "I didn't want to hurt one of my friends."
"We're not to blame for Chad's dad." Chris squeezed his boyfriend's hand a little tighter as they shifted their gaze around the room, taking in all the uncomfortable eyes directed their way. "I'm just glad Mike's dad was there. Otherwise, I don't kno...."
Kel quickly averted his eyes from the mixture of curious and hostile stares directed their way, to watch as Steve waved his arms around as he explained the prior confrontation to the tall, skinny runner and his date. He saw a cloud of anger cross Chad's face before the other boy dropped his eyes and his shoulders began to shake.
"Fuck," Kel breathed out quickly. He felt his own shoulders slump in defeat. They'd just made an enemy on their own team of friends, well, former friends anyway. "We shouldn't have done this."
"Don't worry." Chris tried to be as reassuring as possible but wasn't too sure of the results. "We'll figure out some way of making it up to him. Chad will be OK, he'll...." Chris trailed off as they watched their teammate's face draw back up in a huge grin and the laughter drifted across the room toward where they stood, drawing the attention of everyone in the Gym. "What the hell...I thought he'd be pissed!"
"Chad?" Michael slowly slipped behind his two friends and put his arms around the two in his best conspiratorial way. "Nah,...You remember last year when.... No, y'all weren't there." Mike pulled the two closer before continuing in an exaggerated whisper. "Last year, when I was stupid, he got blitzed with the rest of us at one of our get togethers and somehow ended up as naked as the day he was born. The only thing else I remember was he got pissed because we were laughing and started walking home like that. Until my dad picked him up, that is. Anyway, his dad refused to come pick him up from the station and let him stay in the jail for two nights. It was pretty tough on the kid, he was fourteen after all, and my dad said the county guys were pissed at having to baby-sit Chad all weekend."
"OK" Kel screwed up his face in an answering smile to the one they were now receiving. "So?"
"So, I don't think he minds his dad being in jail." Mike smirked under his breath, "I wonder if we should warn his date?"
"Warn his date?" Chris breathed out in relief as the three slowly began to drift toward the center of the floor, glad that one more possible confrontation was a nonstarter. "About what?"
"That monster he has hidden." Mike left his voice light and dripping with his own self mirth. "You know. ...The one in his pants."
"Jeeze, Mike!" Chris coughed suddenly. He should have seen that one coming a mile away and felt the tension of the moment drain out of him. "I thought you had a date already!"
"Yeah, I do." Mike stopped and waved at the tall, heavily muscled - thick would have been a good description - black haired boy he'd been with earlier. "Sean? I'd like you to meet Kelvin and Christopher. You guys, this is Sean. He lives a couple of counties over. I met him at a junior Rodeo. He's a bullfighter."
"Glad to meet you..." All three quickly exchanged hands, the rest of the room momentarily forgotten as they reveled in Mike's find. The girls would be disappointed that they'd failed in the `date search' but Michael hadn't. "Bullfighter? Like down in Mexico?"
"No." Sean blushed shyly, looking at Mike's smiling face. It was strange, he felt, looking at the other two boys, how they could be themselves at this school. If his own dad ever found out what he was doing with Mike, he had no doubt that his bones would be bleaching out in the scrub desert somewhere. "I'm there to protect the bullriders," he breathed out at the uncomprehending looks he got from the others. "OK, I'm a rodeo clown. ...Well, I want to be one."
"Then you've saved Mike's ass a few times?" Kel smiled back with a renewed mischievous twinkle that had been missing in the face of their last trial.
"Mike! You rode bulls?" Chris felt his eyes grow a little wider at this new information about their teammate.
"No he didn't...." Sean quickly spoke up, cutting off any response from his sometime friend. He felt his shyness slipping away among these guys he began seeing as friends. It was so weird but here at a school dance of all places, he didn't feel alone any more. He was thankful that Mike had talked him into going that night and amazed that he'd accepted. "...he never rode any, but he did fly off quite a few."
"Ha ha ha, enough of that." Mike grinned at the snickering around him, glad for the change of mood, even if it was at his expense. "Well, we're here. Now what?"
"Let's take the bull by the horns?" Sean looked around at the other students nervously before walking away to the DJ's table. "Can't be any worse than the last time."
"What `last time'?" Kelvin glanced from the new boy's retreating back, to Mike's sudden grimace at some buried memory.
"Two years ago a bull hooked Sean really bad." Mike fought back the sudden emotion that threatened his voice, shuddering slightly instead. "The padding covering one of the horns came off...and...well.... Let's just say that instead of a six pack' like you've got, Sean has a nine pack' now. It really opened him up."
"Ouch!" Chris let his breath out explosively. It was one thing to say Mike's friend had guts without wanting to actually see them. Mike's new friend did have something right though; Chris noticed some slow country song beginning to play in the background as he led Kel onto the dancefloor. It was time to take the bull by the horns. The others would just have to deal with them dancing together as best they could. "Fuckit, let's dance."
"You can't do this!" James Stuart quietly ignored the outraged voice from the group he now stared down with his hard blue eyes. That these people still thought they could attack his youngest child and not suffer for it amazed him. "It's a free country! We can say what we want!"
"And that's what I'm doing!" James savagely turned toward the speaker, all semblance of serenity forgotten. "Eric, you're fired! Pick up your last check on Monday!"
"You can't...." The red faced man looked back, eyes wide in shock.
"I just did!" Kelvin's dad let his eyes scan for another target to lock onto. "This is a right-to-work state. I can hire or fire whoever I want. I don't need a reason!" He let his gaze return to his last target. Eric had been the seventh to feel his wrath. "Oh, and tell that coward of a brother of yours, that he can explain to Haliburton why they just lost a multimillion dollar contract with me!"
"You...you...." Eric's face appeared even redder to James, if that were possible. "Fuck you and your family! You want to protect that queer thing you raised? Fine! As far as I'm concerned they should all be rounded up and killed! Hitler's only mistake was he didn't finish the job!"
"That will be quite enough!" The cold voice from the elderly man standing alongside and holding James' arm cut through the silence hanging in the remaining crowd. Most of the others were looking on in trepidation and self-reevaluation at their member's last words. They'd come to protest for what they thought they knew to be right but now they felt their ground become shaky.
"My father let me go to risk my life as a boy." Mr. Goldman stepped around his godson and drew his short frame closer to the other man. "I grew up killing Nazis, protecting your rights to be stupid!" The old man pulled even closer and dropped his icy voice to a scarcely audible level, forcing his opponent to step back. "I grew up killing Nazis but that doesn't mean I'll stop now. If you or anyone with you causes trouble for my godson or his family...You will be lucky if you are ever found." Mr. Goldman silently stepped away from the sweating man opposite him. He knew his threats were mostly bluff but he was also owed a few favors from some people and a few he suspected had underworld connections and some he knew were Mosad and he knew with a certainty that those favors would be called on in a heartbeat. It was good to be one of the highest powered defense attorneys in the state. He would lose no sleep at all over that. "Now you all go home!"
"What did you say to him?" James watched as the rest of the protesters silently dispersed, followed by a shaken Eric. He'd been amazed to see the blood drain from the man's face totally.
"Nothing." The older man turned to lead them all toward James' Suburban, quietly idling across the lot. He was pleased to see his black Town Car sitting next to it, his driver/bodyguard he'd requested standing next to it. "You take Charles and go to your house with your beautiful wife. I'll wait and bring your boys home to you."
"God. I feel like a fuckin' trained seal." Kel whispered under his breath while glancing away from Chris to look at the crowd that continued to stare back at them. The crowd of students had thinned slightly but noticeably. He only hoped that the kids who couldn't handle being in the same hall with them wouldn't be waiting to exact their revenge outside.
At least most of the overtly hostile grimaces were no longer there. At most they were now just receiving the stares of the curious and the disgusted. He found himself grateful for the slight cover that Steve and Jenny, Joel and Sharon, and even, after some reluctance, Chad Andrews and his date were giving them. He could only hope that as the evening wore on, more and more of the others would follow Chad's lead and join them on the dance floor. It did look like some of them were getting restless just standing there but none wanted to break ranks and be the first outside Kel's circle of friends to join them.
"Well, I've got'a couple a balls you can try to balance on your nose?" Chris grinned nervously at his closely held boyfriend. His grin quietly slipped away at the harsh look he received back.
"I'm serious." Kelvin whispered back, pulling away as they stepped off the dance space to occupy what he was beginning to think of as `their' side of the Gym. "I was hoping everyone would get over it by now."
"Look...," Chris renewed his forced smile at his short love. Kel was the most fearless person he'd ever known in the air but this situation was firmly planted on the ground, "...we knew this wasn't gon'a be easy. Just give it some time, it's still early." He glanced around himself quickly. "Look at the bright side...."
"What bright side?" Kel grimaced to himself. Why couldn't these people just enjoy being with their own dates? Why would it make any difference to the others who each was with for the night?
"We got this far." Chris gently squeezed Kel's shoulder before he continued, "And we're still alive."
"Well, that's something anyway....." Kelvin smiled then, pushing his funk away.
"Hey! Com'on guys...." Chris looked up at the female voice as Sharon quickly slipped around Joel to face the two. "Don't stop now. You didn't do all this for nothing, did you?"
"I don't know," Kelvin responded. "Maybe we should just leave so everybody else can dance. I don't see the point...."
"That's a pretty stupid thing to say." Joel cleared his throat as the others looked at him with mild shock. He was surprised that he'd spoken up as well. Except when on stage, he was probably one of the quietest boys in the world as far as the other students were concerned. "You're here to dance with the person you love... Just like me." He pulled his open-mouthed girlfriend back into his arms, blushing slightly. "I've got'a idea. Y'all know how to line dance?"
"Ah, no." Chris felt himself blushing then as everybody in their group, including Kel, nodded in assent. "I never had a chance to before."
"Well then, it's time you learned," Joel smiled back, reassuring the tall boy. "Just follow mine, Kelvin's, and Sharon's lead. It's easy."
Two minutes later, Chris wasn't too sure of Joel's pronouncement as he gamely stumbled along, surrounded by his friends. He quietly thought that, with him in the line, he'd seen more organized riots.
Three minutes into this newfound way to embarrass himself, it no longer mattered as he watched a few other couples slip onto the wings of their `line', apparently feeling that this style of dance was safe to join. The victory he felt was slim at most, but the ice in the room had definitely cracked.
"Y'all did it!" Mike gushed, approaching the bleachers where the others sat quietly, watching the other students dancing and mingling around them. At least they weren't the pariahs they'd started out the evening as. "We won!".
"Did what?" Kel glanced away from his boyfriend to stare back at Mike's confused look. "Look, Chris and I just came here to be together. Stop acting like we won something. We just want everybody to treat us like normal. That's all."
"Look, that didn't come out right." Mike sighed quietly, sitting down between Sean and the others. He silently took Sean's hand into his own and seemed to study the pronounced veins that wound their way up the strong hands and under the cuff of the boy's western-cut shirt. "I just wish you two would finally relax and stop acting like...I don't know.... Just relax and have fun."
"OK, Doctor O'Rourke." Kel smiled back to soften his earlier remarks. Mike was probably right. The worst was behind them. Besides, they couldn't always be walking on eggshells. "We'll try."
"Doctor?" Mike snorted derisively. "The old man says I'm a born lawyer but I'm gon'a follow my dad into the DPS."
"Cool!" Chris quickly jumped into the conversation, pitching his voice into an exaggerated whisper. "Then maybe you can fix my tickets for me."
"I said I wanted to be a state trooper, not a judge." Mike glared back evilly, savoring the opening the tall blond boy had given him. "You forget, I've seen you drive...and believe me, I'd have to be a judge to fix all that!"
"My driving is not that bad!" Christopher huffed playfully. He knew he should have kept his mouth shut before he opened it as he looked at the expressions on the others' faces, including Kel's.
"We never said it was bad..." Kel smiled as his own mischievous streak reasserted itself unmercifully. "...we just wish you hadn't taken lessons from those `Rat Patrol' tapes your dad bought."
"I do not...." Chris began, then looked around at the uncomprehending looks they were receiving. "Never mind! Y'all'd have to see em first."
"Whatever." Mike shrugged uncommitted as to where to go next. "You guys know what I want to do, what about you... I can guess peewee here wants to fly fighters like his dad did?"
"I'd love to." Kel let the not so cool jibe about his short stature slide as he thought quietly about Mike's question. One of his dreams had always been to follow in his father's footsteps, it was the primary reason he'd pushed so hard to have his dad teach him everything he knew about flying. But... "That'll never happen now, they don't want our kind flying for our country."
"That sucks, Kel." Steve leaned forward from where he and Jenny had been quietly listening to the exchange. That he would be entering his country's service in the Coast Guard suddenly weighed a little heavier just then. The whole thing struck him as absurd. "With that shit you can do, you're the best pilot I've ever seen."
"How would you know, Steven?" Kel quickly shook off the disturbing turn his thoughts had taken. What was a chance to fly a F-15 or even a F-22 Raptor compared to having Christopher by his side? Besides, he smirked at himself, he was a stick and rudder man, not a glorified computer operator. "I thought you had your eyes closed the whole time you were with me."
"Yeah, right!" Steve grimaced back at the dizzy memory of his birthday terror-flight. "So what you gon'a do when you grow up?"
"I don't know, daddy," Kel grinned back. He couldn't keep himself from digging at his team captain's tone of voice. "I thought I'd go to college and learn how to design the toys the straight boys'll fly."
"Just as long as you remember the `stick' thingy goes in front of the seat and not in the middle!" Steve smirked back at his, by sudden turns serious then mocking, short gay friend. He turned quickly to the tall half of the inseparable couple, before Kel could respond. "And what about you, Chris?"
"I have no idea." Chris forced a smile but shifted uncomfortably. His parents' carefully saved college fund for him had been confiscated by the state along with everything else his mom had ever owned after she was arrested. There would be no way his dad could pay for it himself, though God knew he'd try his hardest. So Chris had quietly despaired at even planning that far ahead. Work would come first. "I guess I'll go to college eventually, maybe." Chris silently cursed Steve for bringing him down but continued to smile his verbal revenge. "But what I really want, daddy, is to be a cowboy or a fireman!"
"What's wrong with being a fireman?" Mike smiled, cutting off Steven's reply. He figured Steve deserved whatever he got for that fatherly tone of voice around his teammates who were only a year or two younger. "My old friend in Houston just became a volunteer where he lives and he's a little younger than you two are."
Mike sighed quietly. His conversations with Mrs. Nevins had left him wondering just what had happened to his old friend to leave him a loner but she'd been overjoyed at his suggestion that they take her son Philip with them on spring break. "You know that invitation to come with me and Steve down to South Padre is still open?"
"Sorry...." Chris smiled wistfully back. "I'll be working all week for Bob. Besides, I need the money and don't have any extra to take a trip with anyway. The track meet next weekend is gon'a kill my next paycheck."
"And I'm going to take my dad's Mustang out for a spin or two..." Kel smirked at the reaction the others gave him as they understood what he meant by `spin'. He did, however, find himself in turns proud and frustrated at his boyfriend's fiercely independent streak. Christopher had never and would never ask or accept monetary help from anyone outside his family. Kelvin's dad had only made the mistake of asking Chris if he needed college money just once. He had no doubt that James would find a way to help Charles put his son through school but Chris' attitude complicated matters, "...once my dad teaches me how to do it."
"OK." Michael just shrugged. He figured that they'd only come as a couple anyway. It wasn't that they were clingy or didn't trust the other, in fact it was just the opposite, but the two boys wouldn't pass up the promise of some uninterrupted time together. "I'll leave the invitation open if you can both get away.... Let's get back out there.... Almost last dance time."
"Are you all right, sir?" The driver sat quietly behind the wheel of the black Town Car; his eyes never left the parking lot however. He had noticed his boss fidget with the file in his hand though.
"No." Mr. Goldman looked up at the man sitting next to him. "I was a fool tonight, let my anger get the better of me.... I only hope I didn't make things any worse."
"Let me worry about that. It's what you pay me for." The driver silently flexed his fingers. He hadn't liked watching his boss face down that crowd earlier but he'd followed his orders. "Looks like the party's breaking up."
"Yes, it does." Mr. Goldman whispered, intently watching the town's next generation spilling into the parking lot where their cars or rides home were waiting for them. "Will you look at that!"
The old man's eyes were drawn immediately to the boys he'd come to think of as his own grandchildren. He sighed with relief. They were grinning as many of their classmates shook hands and quite a few of the girls hugged them. "God, there may be hope for the world yet!" He smiled inwardly, his whisper almost inaudible. "And a child shall lead.... let's go pick them up."
"Yes, sir."
Charles Bauchamp sat quietly on the front steps of the Stuart house, waiting for their sons' arrival. He wanted to think for a while and let James and his wife have a private moment as well. He would have never thought that, when Christopher came to live with him, he'd find his world so changed. He pushed the burning anger at himself back down into the recesses of his mind where it belonged. That he'd come so close to severing his son from him that night so long ago still filled him with shame.
His son was his son! Nothing else mattered! That Chris had faced all his recent trials and come out the same loving, confident young man he was before? Charles felt he would always be drawn to the bullet scar his only child now wore, but they'd both had to face their deepest fears and survived. His son was his son! Charles felt a welling sense of pride growing up within him, pushing his guilt further down and covering it over completely. He found himself wallowing in this latest and welcome feeling.
Christopher was a proud and worthy bearer of his family's name, no matter what the rest of the world said, and Charles found his own pride in his boy shatter everything else he'd felt in the past! His son was his son ...and his son was a man...and lord help anyone who thought otherwise!
Now if he could only get the proud, hardheaded idiot to accept one of the offers for help with college if he needs it!
End Part 2-3
Well, this is as good a spot to end this chapter as any. My thanks to Ed for his assistance with the story.
Thanks. Willy B. (haztech@msn.com)