My Bodyguard Chapter 7
A very special thanks to Ed for editing this chapter.
This is a story of love, trust, hope, and commitment. It is not a sex story. However, this story deals with love between two teenagers. If you are offended by stories involving love between two teenage boys, please do not read this story. There will be some sex scenes in this story; however, sex is not the main theme. If you are under age 18 or 21 or it is illegal to read this story where you live, don't read it.
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Thank you for all your e-mails. If I have missed answering you, I am truly sorry. I have tried to answer all of them.
Our embrace lasted for about 30 seconds but I think that it helped both of us.
He pulled away and asked again, "Are you Okay?"
"I am fine, now," I replied.
Mark smiled. I looked around and saw about 30 other students standing around, watching us, including Doug. When I tried to make eye contact with him, he looked at the ground. It really bugs me that he hates me. We have been friends forever. Perhaps someday he will get over it. About 30 seconds later Sam and two other patrol cars pulled up. One was a state police car. First Sam told the other kids standing around to get lost and go home. They took Ed and the other uninjured (just the wind knocked out of him from falling on his back after Mark threw him) boy into the back of the patrol cars. Sam told Mark to check out the other four until the ambulance arrived. Mark went from one to the other, asked them questions, and carefully looked at their injuries. He said that they would be okay. One had a broken collar bone. Another had a broken arm. There was a broken leg on another, and a broken jaw on the last, Mark figured. He told them all not to move and to wait for the EMT. They all groaned. He did what he could to make them more comfortable. I was amazed; one moment Mark was breaking their bones and now he was helping them. Two ambulances arrived and splinted them, and off they went.
We went to the police station and made statements. I also called my mom to let her know that I would be home late. She wanted to know what happened and I told her I would tell her when we got home. It was just procedure, Sam said, because he had a tape recording of everything that was said from Mark's wire. Sam said that all would be charged with assault and battery, and assaulting a law enforcement officer. Ed will have some additional charges. He said that all but Ed would probably be out by tomorrow. He explained that, as soon as the hospital fixed them up, they would be transferred to the county jail. After about an hour Sam said that we could go home. Mark followed me home.
When we got home it was about 5:00 o'clock. Mom was in the kitchen, making dinner, and we went in and I kissed her on the cheek. Surprisingly, Mark did too.
"Okay, what happened, you two?" she inquired.
"Can we wait to tell you and Dad together at dinner?" I replied.
Answering a question with a question? Hmmm, perhaps I should be a politician some day. Hehehe.
"I suppose it can wait. Now out of my kitchen, you two, and go do your homework," she stated.
We walked up toward our rooms and I asked, "Do you want to do homework together?"
"Well, I normally beat up my punching bag after school. I think that I already got my workout for the day. Sure, I will do my homework with you."
"Great."
We got in my room and started studying. After about 10 minutes he stopped and looked up.
"Mike, what's it like to have a best friend?" he asked.
"You have never had a best friend?" I exclaimed.
"No, at least not my own age," he whispered.
"Well, let me see if I can explain. When I was five years old, my best friend Doug got hit with a baseball in the nose. I broke his nose. When he got back from the hospital I went to his house. I asked his mom if I could see him. She said he was not feeling good and was in bed. I could not see him. I just wanted to sit beside him and hold his hand. When he was in pain, I was in pain. To have a best friend is to love him. When he is happy, you are happy. When he is sad, you are sad. When he is hurting, you are hurting."
"Love is not a switch you can turn on and off. Doug did something terrible to me last week. And I don't mean telling the whole school about my personal business. What he did was say, "We are not friends any more." You see, I love Doug with all my heart. And I don't mean lovey-dovey love like with your lover. But like brotherly love. When he hurt, I hurt. When he was happy, I was happy. I tried to make eye contact with Doug twice today. Both times he looked away. I can feel his pain. If I could look in his eyes, I could see his pain. I feel like there's a hole in my heart right now and I know he feels it too."
"You see, Mark, love is unconditional. There is not some switch you can turn on to make you love someone. There is not a switch that you can turn off to stop loving someone. Love has a will of its own. Just because you think someone is cute does not mean you will fall in love with him or her. Does that makes sense to you, Mark?"
"Yes it does. Today when I came around the corner and I saw you cornered and scared, I felt cornered and scared too."
"And when I saw you taking on six big guys to protect me, I felt bad I could not help you out. When Ed pulled that knife, I was so scared, but when I saw you were not scared, I was no longer scared. Then, when I saw you pull that gun and Ed was in custody, I could see you relax and I relaxed. Friends can feel how the other is feeling. And then when all you cared about was 'am I all right', I had no words to say. When we hugged, it was like all the feelings I'd had came together with yours," I explained.
"That's exactly the way I felt too, and I really liked hugging you too," Mark stated.
"Well, Mark, don't feel that you need a situation like we had today to hug me. You can hug me anytime you want."
I stood up and spread my arms out. Mark stood up and embraced me.
After about two minutes he stood back and looked me in the eyes and said, "Thanks."
"For what?" I asked.
"For being my friend."
And he hugged me again. Just then Mom called up the stairs, saying dinner was ready. I guess all good things must come to an end.
When we got downstairs, Mom and Dad were sitting at the table.
Dad started speaking, "I got an interesting call from Sam this afternoon. It sounds like you two had a interesting day. Would you like to tell us about it?"
Mark and I took turns telling them about our day. Mom looked surprised and even shocked. Dad seemed to have a knowing look.
"You boys could have been killed," my mom stated.
"Actually, Mrs. C, Sam said we were never in any real danger. I'm not sure exactly what he meant by that but I assume he had us covered," Mark replied.
Dad went from a knowing look to a sly look.
"Where do we go from here?" my mom asked.
"The only thing that is going to change is Mark will no longer be undercover. He will go to school tomorrow in his uniform with side arm and billy club. After what happened to 5 of the biggest guys in the school, I don't think that anyone will mess with him or Mike. Sam said it will probably be several days before we know the results of today's arrests," Dad answered.
"What do you mean by 'the results of today's arrests', Dad?" I inquired.
"Mike, with every action there is a reaction. We don't know if these boys are the whole problem or just part of the problem. How is the school going to react? How are their parents going to react? What are the DA and the courts going to do? I don't think that we have solved anything today, we only exposed the problem. Perhaps we have even made things worse, but nothing that together we can't handle."
After dinner Mark and I finished up our homework and we played some games on my computer. He was not very good but he got better real fast. We both got tired and went to bed.
The next day I got up and got ready for school. I went downstairs and Mark was sitting at the table. Mark was in his deputy uniform and he was looking good. After breakfast Mom kissed us good-bye and wished us luck.
We drove to school in Mark's truck. It was the first time that I had ridden in it. It was sure nice. We walked to my locker and I saw Doug. I asked Mark to give me a minute.
I approached Doug and asked, "Can we talk, bud?"
"Can you give me a couple of days?" he responded without looking at me.
"Sure, whenever you are ready."
I grabbed my books out of my locker and went to class with Mark.
That day every teacher in every class gave basically the same speech. They said that every teacher in every class would be saying the same speech. The best was our gym teacher who is also the football coach.
"Men, (he always called us men) in my twenty years of teaching and coaching I have never until this week been ashamed to call myself a teacher. Why am I ashamed? Because I represent you and you represent me."
"One week ago one of my students was beat up in my locker room and not one of you did anything to stop it. To make matters worse, some of you might have been involved."
"Today 6 starting members, including my captain of my football team, are in jail. Four of them made a stop at the hospital on their way. When one member of the team makes a mistake, all suffer. We only have one game left and I don't care if we are in the running for the conference championship. I don't care that 6 of my starting players are no longer on the team. I try to teach sportsmanship, and six against one is not sportsmanship. Football season for this year is over, and I am considering resigning as football coach."
"The school board met last night and voted to expel the 6 men from school. If any of you feel that you can't follow the rules, come see me. I can take care of that today."
"From what I have seen, none of you are perfect. Some of you can't make a free throw if your life depends on it. Others can't run three miles. Some can't do pull-ups or climb a rope. Does that mean that you don't have a right to go to school? Does that mean you should get beat up by those that can?"
"Here is the deal. Mark will be in this class but he will not be dressing out for class. Why? Because you can't be trusted. Monday the principal told you what is expected and it went in one ear and out the other. It has become necessary to have an armed deputy sheriff to escort our students in school. What is the world coming to?"
"Men, if I hear the slightest comment from any of you concerning someone's ability or character, you will be dealt with aggressively. At the very least you will be running laps until you drop. At the worst you might end up like Ed. He had a full football scholarship to a well known college and now he is sitting in jail and the only college he will be attending will be behind bars."
"If you can't follow these rules, like I already said, just come see me. Am I making myself clear, men?"
All morning I felt like the man on the moon. Mark felt it too. Everyone was looking at us but no one said anything. I felt alone and on center stage at the same time. I think that Mark felt it worse because he was in uniform and we were the topic of conversation throughout the school.
At lunch Mark and I sat together. Al Smith, the senior class president and varsity starting quarterback on the football team, asked if he could join us.
"This in Mark Adams. Mark, this is Al Smith," I said.
"Hi, Al, nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too, Mark."
"I wanted to let you guys know that not everyone in this school feels the same way as those 6 bone-heads. It might take a few days for people to become comfortable with you, but I am sure they will loosen up. If you don't mind, I thought that we could talk and become better acquainted."
And we did get better acquainted. Al made us feel very comfortable.
The afternoon was pretty much a repeat of the morning. When we got home, Mark said that he needed to work out and asked if I would spot for him ('spot' means that you help the person lifting weights if they do too many reps and need help getting the bar bell back on the rack. This person also helps encourage you). I asked if he would show me how to train too and he said sure. We both went upstairs and changed into sweats. He started stretching first and did some other warm-ups, as he called it. He said that this is necessary in order to keep from hurting himself.
He started doing reps with his weights. I would help him if he had trouble with the last few reps. Then, he changed the weight for me but he would not let me push myself like he did himself. He said that if he did, I would be very sore the next day. After a while he took off his shirt and I had to work hard to keep from getting hard! After about an hour and a half we finished.
We went upstairs and Mom was making dinner. We told her about our day and then went upstairs. I did my homework and Mark took a shower. I really did not work up that much of a sweat. Dad came home and wanted to know about our day, so we told him. Dinner was quiet and afterward we went into the family room to watch TV. About 7:30 Sam showed up. He asked about our day and once again we told him. Geez, first I felt like I was on stage all day and now I have to keep repeating myself.
"Well, let me tell you about my day," said Sam.
"All six were arraigned and 5 were released on $10,000 bond. Ed is still in custody; his bond is $100,000 and his parents have not arranged to make bail for him yet. I have not been able to get anything out of any of them. Ed's future depends on his cooperation with us but he is saying nothing. They are protecting someone or someones. If they were the only ones involved, they would be more cooperative."
"The high school principal called me today and said the parents of the boys had called and were crying about police brutality. I told him to arrange a meeting at the school later in the afternoon. I just left from there. All the parents showed, along with the school board and the superintendent."
"First I played the tape of the recording of the wire Mark wore. Then I asked each parent one at a time if they raised the boys to beat up someone half their size. Then I asked each of them if they raised their boys to gang up on someone half their size. Then I asked each of them if they raised their boys to attack a police officer. All of them claimed that they did not. I then asked who did. I then asked Ed's father if he raised his son to carry a hunting knife to school and threaten to kill a police officer with it."
"I then explained that Mark is trained to defend himself. How can you say that it was excessive force when he took on six by himself? He is trained that, in a situation like that, he needs to disable his assailants one at a time without killing them. That is the only way that he could win. If he does not disable them one at a time, no matter how good he is at defending himself, with six against one, eventually he is going to lose. After all, he was only returning what your boys were trying to do to him. Your boys attacked him. And your son Ed is lucky to be alive. He is the only one of the boys that used deadly force. Mark was within his rights to blow his head off. I don't know where you get off complaining about excessive force when 6 boys attacked my deputy!"
"They asked, 'where do we go from here'. I told them we go nowhere unless their boys decide to cooperate. It is up to your lawyers and the DA to work out a plea, or go to court."
"The superintendent then explained that none of the boys will be allowed to return to school or any public school for that matter. If they wanted their kids to finish, they would have to send them to a private school."
"Anyway, I wanted to tell you to be careful. I don't think that this thing is over yet. Watch your backs and don't fully trust anybody, even teachers, or other adults."
Dad thanked Sam for informing us of what happened. We sure knew a lot more than we did this morning.