Miracle

Second chapter of Miracle. Send me feedback. me@th380y.net Go to my website. th380y.net

This has been copyrighted by TH380Y in 2001. You cannot duplicate this in any way without out first asking permission of the author.

Miracle By: th380y Part Two: Brag

We walked down, through my room into the kitchen. Andrew was in love with every room in the house. We at in the room, which was just off the kitchen with more floor-to-ceiling windows. The dining room table itself was a large slab of granite. The chairs were that of a strange and twisted medieval day. "My mom and I decorated it," I explained at the dinner table. "I did most of the actual structures, like where skylights and large windows go. The house wasn't like this when we got it. Just my room. The kitchen was a piece of modern art still. But the window made it look more of one. Together, my mom and I spent at least a half a million dollars to make the house into what it is today." Andrew's eyes popped out of his head. "Half a million?" "Mom won the lottery five years ago, when it had gotten up to 250 million dollars. Of course, she had to share with two other people. But the amount of money we all got was well worth it. Then, a year ago, she won the lottery again. We haven't received the money yet. The IRS and The California State Lottery are looking to see if she somehow knew what the numbers would be. The thing is, we've been playing the lottery for most of our lives. Well I, of course, not legally. I pick the numbers too. We buy three tickets a day." "Wow," Andrew sat back to think. "What do your parents do for work Andrew?" Mom asked. "My dad is therapist and my mom is a Freudian analyst." He said proudly. Psychology has always interested me. Which is why I have been in most of the psychology classes. "That's really cool." "Yeah, my parents always act like they are conscious about spending money, and they are, but they don't need to be." Andrew went on, "Matt, you saw my computer, you know what I mean." "Totally," His tower was new, and big. Like a mini-mainframe from IBM. And Andrew's screen? It was biggest LCD I had ever seen. I wanted to change the subject. I didn't like talking about money very much. The fact that we had a lot of made me think that other people thought we were conceited. But I could tell that Andrew's parents had just as much as we did. The father was wearing a Tommy Bahama shirt (expensive Hawaiian shirts, pure silk) and I saw eight or nine in Andrew's dresser. "Mom used to be a teacher at AA." I told Andrew. "Didn't you mom?" "For five years." Mom smiled. "Really?" Andrew was less interested in this. I needed to find a better topic. "Yeah, I taught History, P.E. and Driver's Ed." I finished my food and stood up. "Terrific, as usual, mother. Can I take your plate?"

As I cleared the table and washed the dishes my mom talked with Andrew. I didn't know what about as they went into the den and I started to clean the pots and pans. Once I was finished I joined them. They were playing pool. Mom and Andrew were laughing about something that was said earlier. "I guess you want Andrew back." She smiled at me. "Yep," A simple reply. "Alright." She hung up her stick. "He was winning anyway." Andrew and I walked back up to my room. "Your mom is really cool." He said. "Yeah." I smiled inwardly. "You two seem like best friends rather than Mother and Son." He commented. We stepped into my room and closed the door. Vertical Horizon was still playing. I decided to switch CD's. "What do you want to listen to?" I asked Andrew. "Umm, I don't know." He looked around to see where my CD's may be. "What CD's do you have?" "Name something." "Alright . . . Nine Inch Nails." "Downward Spiral, Broken or The Fragile?" "Err . . . The Fragile" I walked over to the built-in stereo system and pressed eject. I threw Vertical Horizon into its case and set in The Fragile, CD Left. The album "The Fragile" has two CD's in it, "Left and "Right, for those of you who don't know. I turned from the console to address Andrew. "So, what do you want to do?" "I don't know." He looked like he was expecting something. "How about you?" It was 8:00 pm now and there was almost no light left in the sky. Now would be a perfect time to watch a movie. Or TV. "Well, there are movies, TV, video games: PS2, Nintendo 64, SNES, computer, internet, computer games." I added playfully, "The bed." "Hmmm . . ." Andrew touched a finger to the bed, as if wondering whether he should or not and blushed wildly. "Let's play video games." "Alright, Nintendo 64?" I asked Andrew. "Sure. Do you have Perfect Dark?" He looked at the rack of games on the top shelf. "Yep." Andrew repositioned himself on the bed so that he could play games better. I sat down on the floor with my head in his lap. I turned the system on and started the game. We played head-to-head with power weapons, rocket launchers, military assault rifles and rail guns. He was better than I thought he would be. Andrew actually won our little tournament. I was the one that suggested we stop playing. My ego was bruised when we tallied up the score. His twenty-six to my seven-teen. After that we watched some TV. Reruns of Saturday Night Live. The night where Antonio Banderaz (not the real one) had a band and he kept getting hot. He would announce, "It's so hot, I think I must . . . undo a button!" And then a band member would say, "No, don't do it! It's too sexy! It's to sexy!" And then Antonio Banderaz would say, "I know. But I must." This was my favorite episode of SNL. At the end of Saturday Night Live I announced I was going to take a shower and went into the bathroom.

After dressing I came back into my room. I noticed my book was missing from the bookshelf. This was not a book written by me, given to me or a book that mentions me. In fact, it is not a full book. It is only half of a book. One half was the original Moby Dick, with annotations, but the other held my stash of marijuana and two glass pipes. Andrew was going through it, looking at the first pipe I had ever gotten. When he saw me enter the room, he immediately stood up and started to apologize. "I was just looking." He put the pipe back in the book and closed it. "I wasn't going to swipe anything. I'm sorry." He handed the book to me. I took it, but wasn't angry. I was more interested in why he was looking at it so intently when I first saw him. I opened the book and noticed a bag was open. I could taste the smell. I looked back at him and he was now focusing on the bag. "Do you smoke?" I asked him. "Yeah." He replied. "Would you like to smoke some with me?" "Right now?" He looked amazed. "Here? In your room?" I giggled a little bit at him. I would never smoke in my room. "No," I told him, "Up on the roof. You don't think I only use it to barbecue and catch a tan?" Andrew blushed. "Pipe or bong?" I asked Andrew. "Bong, definatly bong." "I only have glass. I'm sorry if you like plastic." "Plastic sucks." "You are really going to fit in to this school." I told him, "Go on ahead, I need to get the bong out and fill it." Andrew went up the stairs and I rummaged in my closet for the four footer. It's nice to make a good first impression. This bong had been cleaned a few days ago, so I only had to add cold water. I walked back into my room and grabbed the book on my way up the stairs. "Here it is," I announced, as I held out the bong, "My baby." He stared at it like it was the second coming. A twisted tower of changeable color. Red to purple. Yellow to green. Green to blue. The bowl on the slide was deep enough to be counted as two. "Whoa!" Andrew gasped. "How big is it? Where did you get it? It's beautiful!" "It's a four footer. I got it on Telegraph, in Berkeley. It is beautiful." I put the bong down in a clear space. I wasn't worried about cops because they hardly ever drive down this street. It is a dead end street. From the bag (which held almost an ounce) I pulled out a fat little nug and place it in the bowl. "Would you like the honor?" I asked him. "Ummm . . ." I could tell that he was intimidated by it. "How about you first?" "Can't argue with that." I threw the lighter at him, "Can you light it for me?" "Sure." I stood up behind it and cleared my lungs. Placing my lips on the edge of the bong I started inhaling as he lit it. I watched as the smoke filled the chamber. I stopped inhaling and covered up the hole to exhale on more time and clear the chamber in one take. I exhaled as Andrew took out the slide and I put my lips back on the bong. Inhaling is the easiest part about a bong. It's keeping it in that's the problem. I cleared the chamber on the first attempt. "Alright, your turn." I said as I tried to keep it in my lungs. "Okay." Andrew stepped up to the plate. I sat on my haunches to light it and noticed that half of the bowl was gone. When I lit it I made a mental note to pack another bowl after Andrew was finished. He cleared the chamber on his second attempt. I was impressed. "You want more?" I asked him. Andrew took a few seconds to think about it. The weed must have already punched him in the gut. "Nah man." He finally said, "I'm cool." "I'll have one more." I reached over and took a smaller nug from the book and packed it in the bowl. I switched places with Andrew and hit the bowl until it was out. By the time Andrew and I got to the bottom of the stairs I was really stoned. Andrew was also. I stashed the bong in the closet. I'm going to clean that later, I told myself. Andrew had already sat down on my Persian rug and was not staring at the designs. I joined him. "So . . ." Andrew spoke slowly, "What do you want to do now?" "I don't know." I said. Andrew stood up and then pulled me up too. He left his clothes in a pile next to the bookcase. I left them at the foot of the bed. I looked at his body. I was beautiful and tan. I watched as he walked towards me and wrapped his arms around me. He threw me down on the bed and started to explore my body with his mouth.

Afterwards I laid in bed with him, stroking his hair and occasionally kissing him. "God, that was great." Andrew said. "Yeah." Suddenly, my phone started ringing. I checked the clock, it was 1:00am. Shit, I thought, it's probably Eric. I jumped out of the bed, doing my best to keep my balance. "I need to take this." I told Andrew. I grabbed a robe from the closet and clipped the hands-free to it. I answered the phone on the roof. "Hello?" I was out of breath, I had run up the stairs. "Hello? Is this Matt?" Eric's voice crackled across my night like lightning. "Yeah, I'm here. What do you want?" "You haven't called me. I thought something might have happened to you." "No, I'm fine. I'm still here." "Good." I could hear him lighting a clove in the background. The only things that Eric smoked were cloves. I don't see how. "Say, Matt . . . Can I come over?" "No." "Why not?" I looked into my bedroom, through the skylight at Andrew. He was rolling a joint. "Can you hold on?" I asked Eric. "Sure, I guess you still haven't answered-" I put him on hold. "Andrew," I called down into my room, "Don't roll a joint. Just grab a bong from the closet. Not the four footer though. That will get you too stoned, alright." He looked up and gave me an exaggerated salute. "Yes, sir!" I closed the roof door and took Eric off hold. Andrew was going to get really stoned. I giggle a little bit. "What are you giggling about?" Eric asked me. "Nothing . . . Look, Eric . . ." I checked to see that the door was closed. "This is a REALLY bad time." "Oh, I see." He said, "What are you doing Wednesday?" "No, I'm busy then." "Thursday?" "No." "Friday?" "Why do you want to see me so badly? "Well, we haven't talked since our first date. And, I miss you." I never considered inviting him to see Vertical Horizon with me as a date. I don't even consider Eric as datable material. . . anymore. My thoughts went back to Andrew. Eric was there first. But, then again, Eric was a conceited bitch only interested in making small talk and shallow conversation. Each night that I was with him that we had sex, pillow talk would consist of him listing off his conquests. It became very apparent that he was a size queen. Why he was interested in me, I have no idea. I'm average and he was talking about nine to twelve inches. He was no giant himself. I didn't answer his last comment. I couldn't figure out what to say. "Friday?" Eric asked again. "No, dude." I lied, "I'm busy then too." "Oh." "Sorry." I sat there with the phone to my ear. I could hear Andrew coughing downstairs. Eric was starting to cry. "Why are you doing that?" I had suddenly become lethargic. "I'm sorry." "No," I tried to talk him into stopping, "Stop." "I need to go." Eric said quickly. The phone clicked and there was no one else on the line. I walked back into my smoky room. Andrew had set the bong on the desk and was laughing at it, coughing. I picked the bong up and looked inside of it. The blue Bic was sitting inside. I had to laugh at Andrew. "Tweaking tweakerson." I called at him. Andrew's face contorted and he started laughing again. I laughed at him for a little more when I decided that I needed to get higher. I grabbed the bong, emptied the water out and the lighter. I washed it and put more water in and packed another bowl. Andrew had now fallen asleep on my bed. I toked the last of the bowl and joined his side on the bed.

When I woke up Andrew was gone. The phone was off the hook and the bong was still in my hand. I put the bong on the nightstand next to my bed. "Andrew?" I called out. The light just had a major shift. This is because two things happened. A: Someone turned off the track lighting in my room. B: It was morning. I hadn't noticed that. My door was open, the light switches were right next to it. I walked through the door and wandered in the direction of the kitchen. If Andrew was anywhere, it would be the kitchen. I still had the munchies and was going to the kitchen anyway. I arrived at the fridge and did not see any Andrews hanging around. I opened the fridge and took out some salad stuffs. A bowl and a fork and Goddess dressing. I munched on the greens and wondered where Andrew was. He wasn't in the kitchen. I was too lazy to look elsewhere. I continued to eat. I became aware of a low humming in the background. I dropped my fork into the empty bowl and followed it. It got louder as I went into the den. A blue light was reflecting on the wall just outside. As I stepped in I was greeted by a louder hum and a brighter light. Andrew was fooling around with a Play station Two. He was trying to hook it up to the main switch but was having a hard time. I took the cords from him and hooked it up to the switch. He thanked me and I turned the game on. The opening credits for The Bouncer came on. The Bouncer had become one of my favorite games. "So . . ." I said to Andrew. "Hey." Said Andrew to me. "I'll play you?" I offered. "Sure." We took our controls and I entered a versus game. Head-to- Head. Andrew against myself. We picked our characters and began. He won the first game with a repeated flaming uppercut. But Andrew won the next three. We played a set of ten games. This time I won most of them. We stopped playing as the sky became more brilliant with the rising sun. Now it was around 8:00am and mom had been up for an hour. She was cooking breakfast. Bacon, eggs and waffles. I could smell the bacon and eggs but I walked in and saw the waffles as Andrew and I were going to sit on my patio. "Do you two want something to eat." Mom asked us. Andrew and I turned around immediately. "Sure." We said together. Mom dished us up and we ate and talked. She talked to Andrew more about school and, yet again, how he was going to love it. Then we talked about Andrew and me. She had heard us going at it last night. There was a box of condoms and some lube in the hall bathroom, if I needed them. Mom was so cool. Talking to her about my sex life was no big thing. Andrew was a little uneasy, I could tell that by the way he shifted in his seat from time to time. But the talk all came down to three points. Don't be too loud, Be safe and Have fun. Andrew was finished with his breakfast and wanted to go take a shower. "Do you like this one?" Mom asked me. I gave her an awkward glance. "Yeah, I do." "What about the other one? Eric?" "We haven't talked in a while." "Did something happen at the concert?" "Yes. I realized that Eric is nothing that I want in a boyfriend." "Oh." Silence. "So . . . You're happier with this one?" "Yes." "Alright." And that was our talk about Andrew.

I was playing The Bouncer when Andrew walked out of the closet with a towel around his waist. I watched as he took out some clothes from his bag. His body sparkled. Andrew untied his towel and started to dry off. He stopped when he noticed that I was watching him. "What?" Andrew asked me. "Nothing." I replied. "Oh." He continued to towel off his legs. But stopped again because I was watching. "What?" He had a look on his face: like he was thinking something was wrong or wasn't going right. "Nothing," I stumbled over the words in my head. "You just look . . . Beautiful. Andrew blushed. "Thanks."

Once Andrew was dressed, we sat on the roof again. "So what do you want to do today?" He asked me. "I don't know. What do you want to do?" "Not something inside." "Alright, want to grab a bike and ride around Bay Farm Island?" "Sure." We took bikes from the garage and I told mom that we were going on a ride. Once the wind was in our face, I rode towards fast food. In Bay Farm Island, many things are compartmentalized. Example: The fast food is on one block while the restaurants on another. All-American places like Denny's and Applebee's are on a different block than the Thai Cuisine. All of the places to eat were conveniently separated. Breakfast was on the lots behind dinner/lunch. Dim Sum was one of it's own. The Dim Sum House was open 24 hours a day. I don't know how they pulled it off. I'm sure they were losing money in the deal. We stopped to drink some water. "Do you want to see your school?" I asked him. He gave me an awkward glance. "Sure." I led Andrew through Bay Farm Island to a short hill. This was the hill that I had to walk up to get to school. The hill itself doesn't look very tiring, but it is. The grade of the hill deceives you. People break out in a sweat trying to get to the top of that damn hill. God I hate that hill. I clicked my bike into first gear and rode up the hill into the second parking lot. Andrew was about 10 feet behind me, so I waited for him. He had never been here, I assumed. Andrew walked up the hill, pushing his bike. For a split second, I thought that a chain had broken or the gears were jammed. "Too hard." Andrew was out of breath. "You'll get used to it a little more than you are now. But no one ever gets used to the hill." I went on, "You're going to laugh. But it's a custom to come up that hill, climb those stairs and proclaim, 'I hate that fucking hill!' Even the instructors hate it." "Oh," Andrew was still working on breathing. "Well, come on." I walked up the drive-way to the school. This wasn't really a drive way. This was more like a strip of road that lead no where, but just made it easier to bring things to the school. "School's closed, obviously. It is spring break. But I can show you a few rooms." The first room was the sunset room. A room at the very edge of the school. It was separated from the school by a staircase leading up to the church. (My school is under a church, by the way.) The sunset room doesn't look like a sunset. It isn't painted in fabulous blues and oranges and reds. It's just a room with a large desk at one end and two couches at the other. Just before the window on the left side (coming in) there is a crack in the cement. This crack has formed over however long this building has been there. This crack is part of the sagging, sorry structure that is the sunset room. If you sit on the couches and look towards the window on the far wall (towards the neighboring house), you will notice it is lower than anything else on your side of the room. In fact, you can see a horizon if you lay your cheek against the asphalt. I wouldn't recommend doing so, though. The next room is the lounge. The lounge is a room where everyone gathers for community meeting and special events. There are two couches, raised on platforms, facing each other on either side of the walls. Under them are benches made from scrap wood lining the rest of the room. For cushions on the benches is an assortment of oddly-stained, abandoned pillows. I don't ask questions, I just spend four hours on a weekday here. (Saturdays, Sundays and holidays are exempt.) The room adjoining the lounge is the art room. A constant mess of collages and paint there is a large desk made out of three smaller desks and several chairs. None of which match. On the walls surrounding the room are collages and murals. Have I mentioned that there is a graffiti wall in the lounge. Yes, a graffiti. You can write whatever you want on that wall as long as it doesn't offend too many people. Currently, "Fuck Safeway" was the only thing that stood out. Back to the art room: Towards the back clay was stored and pottery wheels are to be seen. Behind that is a black room. This was the last room that I could show Andrew. All of the other rooms: Purple, Blue, Library and The Crypt were inside the building. From the outside, you could see the office. But, of course, there's nothing much to an office. Files and computer, interns' boxes, that's all. "There's more." I told Andrew. "But you can see that when the school is actually open. What do you think?" Andrew was smiling, "It's pretty cool." "Just wait until you meet the people." "Yeah." We lingered at the picnic table in front and talked a little more before we got back on our bikes. We rode around a little bit. I decided to take Andrew to my favorite spot. "You up for a more challenging ride?" I yelled behind my shoulder. "I guess." He yelled back. "Com'on." I said as I cut through two lines of traffic. Andrew followed me flawlessly. We rode on a dirt path that went into the cuts of Alameda. As the trail began to fade I went into the bush onto a trail that was barely noticeable. You have to be careful when you ride this trail. Shift your weight the wrong way and you're gone. Going 35 on a weak trail, Andrew and I rode into the heart of the wood. The heart of the wood was like the center of a hurricane. Trees would represent the disturbance on the outside, but inside . . . "Whoa!" Andrew said. I stopped my bike hard to save myself from thrashing through the river. "Yeah." In the center of the storm was a swimming hole with a creek flowing through it. The same lagoon you would be able to see from my kitchen. We weren't anywhere near my house though. But you wouldn't be able to go very far into this place, the lagoon becomes shallower here, there is a filtration system a mile or two down that empties out into the marsh near the Oakland Airport. Next to the watering hole is a spool-table and stumps that I had chopped to use as stools. This was my own little paradise; the center of the storm. I found it wandering around one day, like I find everything else. I saw a large area of dense trees and headed into them. Only two other people know about this place. Laura and Jennifer. "Now that you've seen this place, you can't tell anyone about it." I told Andrew. "Do you understand?" "Good," I smiled at him. I didn't have a game plan if he said no. "Want to go for a dip?" Andrew looked around nervously. "Ummm . . . we didn't bring any swimsuits." "That doesn't matter." I stated matter-of-factly, "No one comes around here anyway. It's too far out of the way." I undressed and was in the water before Andrew could respond. He made up his mind to come in also and stripped. We sat there for a minute or two, getting used to the strength of the water. I hadn't swum in this water for almost six months. It had been too cold and whenever I had come up to the hole, there was ice on the edges. Andrew and I splashed around for a while. I began to enjoy his presence a lot more than I originally did. I mean, the butterflies that were in my stomach when I had first met him had multiplied. I was sprung. This realization made me uneasy. I had come into this thinking that I would get a better fuck buddy. But now . . . I don't want him as a fuck buddy. I want to have a serious relationship now. Andrew was looking at me and smiling. I had stopped splashing and was sitting on a ledge of the creek. "What are you thinking about?" He asked me. "Nothing," I replied. We went back to splashing, but the thoughts that we were heading into a serious relationship were on the forefront of my mind. Every time that he would brush against me here, or touch there, I would pause to think. We played for two hours. The sun had risen high in the sky and it became a little bit too hot for us. Though the creek was refreshing, we wanted to do something else now. We pulled ourselves out of the water and used our underwear to dry off. I stuffed them in a bag that was attached to the bike. We rode through the woods back to my house. There was a message waiting for Andrew. He needed to go home and help with something. ----------------- And that was the second chapter. Third one is coming along nicely. Stay tuned. Send me feedback. me@th380y.net Go to my website. th380y.net