Chapter 16: April, 1994. Nearly busted.
We learned the `alternative' prom would be held in May at a hotel on the west side of town about four blocks from the hospital. The Alternative Prom was a few weeks after the AHS Prom but I decided not to go to ours, I could have gone to both. Dan went to the AHS Prom and said it wasn't worth it but he was still slightly glad he went.
We learned the alternative prom was open to anyone (age 17-19 regardless of sexual preference) and one guest. I asked Tom to be my date, he accepted. He sold his ticket to the prom at Caprock High School, which was the same day as the prom at AHS. Both were held inside their gymnasiums.
Daniel said he never danced and the food sucked. He said they kissed at their table and were never bothered. I think the reason why he went was because Carlos was too young to attend but the school decided to ignore his age. I think they made an exception for Dan because of rumors of coming lawsuits.
Final Semester (#3 of 3) of our senior year.
Grandma settled into her temporary life in Amarillo. She talked to GP (Grandpa) about four times a week in the evening but it took a little engineering to make it work. Gram figured out she could call Gramps with no long distance charges on her Motorola bag phone, so we got her a 12v power supply and her bag phone landed on the end table beside the sofa where Mom used to park her ass on the weekends. I had to buy another one of those weird coiled car antennas and mount it on the living room window and connect it to the bag phone but really it was about as hard as hooking up a VCR, I just never touched one of those phones before.
With Tom's help and a small investment in hand tools we took apart both bed frames and adjusted them to our liking. My grandmother wanted hers higher and I wanted mine lower, so Crow could get on it if he wanted. I think Crow appreciated the extra leg room on his own mattress on the floor. Plus, he could dream and kick and nobody would slap his butt like I did when he woke me up. Crow and I continued to be best friends who knew each other's moods and read each other's thoughts. I dread the thought of burying him too some day. To date he appeared very healthy and happy. He's getting more grey haired in the face. And as he gets older he's starting to ignore my commands because he learned there were no actual consequences.
His disregard for the rules usually manifest when walking on the leash or on the baseball field. Let me tell you, if you hold onto his leash and tell him to heel or cease and he has his mind made up to go somewhere and spray some scented piss there's little I can do to stop him, his legs are strong. He's got twice as many and paws with long nails for added traction, plus his center of gravity is much lower than mine. He has the mechanical advantage when we're outside.
One time I scolded him for trying to run off the baseball field, there's an opening in the fence which puts him maybe ten feet from Bell Street. I stopped him, physically turned him around and shouted at him and he actually raised his jowls and snarled at me, so I gently grabbed his snout and pressed my nose into his and in my deepest voice I warned him to never do it again. I even used the B-word loudly at him. It was possibly the first time in his life he got scolded in public. He stood there with his nose against mine and took it but trembled the entire time. Sometimes he looked in my eyes, sometimes not. But I understood he knew he did something wrong.
On the way home I strictly enforced HEEL and didn't allow him to pull on the leash or I tugged back powerfully, enough to lift his front feet off the sidewalk. By the time we got by the Crown Vic he was no longer pulling on the leash.
Twice that day while we were walking home and he was pulling hard I yanked him backwards and made him sit on the sidewalk and I stepped in front of him, raised his snout and shouted angrily at him to stop pulling or we're going to spend the rest of the day walking up and down the sidewalk practicing. I did that twice and finally he stopped pulling. I even threatened if he didn't stop pulling we'd stop going to the ball field, he could live in the little back yard. He probably thinks I'm too much of a wimp to carry out any of my threats.
The thing with dogs is they want to be out front because in their language it shows higher rank in the pack. They're in charge and showing it off. The last thing he would want is to be walked in public being yelled at by me.
I'd bet his ultimate wish would be for us to let him run free. But if I opened the front door and let him run free he'd be dead within 48 hours, hit by a car. And you know where I think he'd end up if he survived? He'd go to Puckett Elementary School because to little kids he's a super rock star celebrity! He'd be a four-legged Mick Jagger! He'd spend his days patrolling for unauthorized animals and he'd always be the tallest person on campus.
I'm doing well in school despite all the shit lately. This semester (my last semester of high school) I'm taking Calculus, and college level English composition. I'm also taking Spanish-2, PE, Literature, and study hall to minimize my at-home homework. At AHS if you take Study Hall for credits you have access to the school library but you can't sit there and socialize or it counts as an absence.
I'm not driving to school, still walking the three blocks. Mom picked this neighborhood for a reason, we lived almost halfway between the elementary/middle school and the high school. I enjoyed my quiet time during the short walk (without a dog on the leash) to the campus.
One day this week when I got home from school I saw a realtor sign in our yard. Gram located an apartment willing to accept our 150lb dog-child. She said it's almost two miles (east) away and would require taking the bus, or I could drive my car. All we needed now is a buyer for the house, which is considered a high-end home in Amarillo. And we didn't even have a pool! In our subdivision it had the most footage for a one story house. Older buyers liked single story floor plans, but it's kind of big for a childless couple.
My grandparents changed their plans, originally they were going to alternate staying up here for a couple weeks (they are still very part-time teaching at TAMUG). The change Gram told me was she decided to stay here until graduation.
We've grown closer than we ever were in the past, and I don't walk around the house in my underwear any more. After some testing she decided not to buy a new mattress but she liked the mattress in the third bedroom so I swapped `em for her, which was not a fun task. Swapping around mattresses is a little like moving dead bodies with rigor mortis.
She also re-arranged my room the way she wanted and decided to paint the walls a brighter color instead of Royal Blue. She also threw away all of Crow's old toys under my bed, but he watched it happen. Gram does not bow down to Saint Crow like Mom and I did. He also did not act like he cared as he stood there and watched them all get bagged and tossed in the trash can.
Grandma is also an excellent cook. We split the chores, I did the stuff Mom taught me: laundry, basic house cleaning, trash, and recycling bins to the street. Plus I did most of the dog care. And I ran the vacuum cleaner since most of what it sucked-up was dog byproduct anyway (sand and hair on the floors). I packed away my darkroom gear because it was impossible to use in my new bathroom since it had two large windows high up on the wall. Even at night with the lights in the area it would be impossible to block. My darkroom gear was packed in boxes in the garage, ready for the move. I even took apart the enlarger and packed it back in the original box. So I'm out of the photo hobby until who knows when. The apartment I'm moving to doesn't have enough bathroom counter space either but it's possible I might be able to use the kitchen late at night. Tom said I could tack up some light blocking curtains over the kitchen door and use it as a dark room. But I pointed out all the light sources in the room he never considered: the GF outlets had light emitting indicators, the display on the microwave oven, and the clock on the range. Most people never experience true darkness.
That reminds me, I should explain something about making photo prints. When you buy Kodak photo print paper we get the kind that has what they call a Satin Finish, meaning it is not shiny, sort of like a normal piece of copier paper. But photos look much nicer when they're on shiny paper (which is more expensive). I have this thing called a glossy photo dryer. It's a simple curved sheet of chrome plated metal with a mirror-like surface. Once the photo is developed but still wet you place it on this curved (slightly heated) metal thing with the image-side down. Then you use an ordinary small rubber roller and roll all the water out. You just press down firmly and rub back and forth for maybe ten seconds and at that time that photo is like glued to the dryer. But when it dries it easily peels off the metal sheet and then it has a shiny surface on the picture side!
I'm still working at the vet office, six hours every Saturday morning for eight bucks an hour but I think that will come to an end soon.
After Gram officially became the executor of Mom's estate we sold the Buick for one dollar to Maria. She traded the Buick in on a Toyota Camry. We'll never have to see that Buick again, unless one of my neighbors bought it at the dealer! Tom is driving her old Impala with the small V-6 engine and air conditioning.
I haven't been hit-on by Bethany since the funeral. I think she figured out my gayness was real and not an adolescent phase. We talked at school and even lunched together from time to time but the whole thing she had for me seems to be over. Hooray! It made us better friends too. And now she's even trying to be friends with Daniel at school, but she never calls him Kermit.
Tom and I have been spending one night a week together. We usually did Saturday or Wednesday nights if homework permitted. We frequently discussed moving to Galveston. He mailed his application and money order to the University and also applied for student loans. Gram said we could stay in their 2nd bedroom again until we moved into an apartment near campus. A lot of those apartments won't be ready for a new occupant until about a week before Labor Day weekend.
I'll be in the Bachelors in Journalism (aka: J-School) program this fall, I'm already getting mail from A&M as if I was a student! I also applied for an apartment near the campus, a small one bedroom place within skateboard distance of most campus buildings, but it's not on Pelican Island. I sent them a check from my mother's estate to cover deposits, first and last month's rent, and six months of regular rent. If I remember the check was for $4400.00. (450x6, + 450x2, + 400+400).
I can't believe after all our discussions about taking time off after high school to enjoy life that our plans evolved into going directly to college. Tom was excited because he's known since he was twelve that he wanted to own a restaurant someday. My goals were not as specific but I wanted to be a photographer some day. Everyone tells me that job will be going away soon, but I still see the need for professional photographers, like for portraits, special occasions, and weddings, and school photos. Some suggested a photo booth might be a good invention to make some day, if I had the technical smarts.
When I told my grandparents I wanted to take time off after high school Grampa said "By the time you reach the end of your first semester of college you'll look back on high school as if it was as hard as kindergarten so you don't need a vacation." He insisted I should keep pushing and learning, it only gets harder with age.
Mom's life insurance claim was still being processed so we still depended on cash that seemed to come from no-where, probably via a Pentagon petty cash fund I think. But my trust fund was still not ready. Whenever we needed cash she called Gustavo Catering's number and someone somehow delivered an envelope packed with sequential hundred dollar bills. Tom agreed to keep it a secret for our safety. A couple times when we were totally alone I whispered a few things to Tom about the mystery cash, eventually I convinced him to keep it secret. He said it was like dating Oppenheimer's son during the cold war.
Tom asked me to go see `Naked Gun 33.3, The Final Insult' in the theater with him on Saturday May 7th. We did the same routine as before, but this time we took my car. He drove over and parked in the street. We got to Westgate Mall about 45 minutes before the movie started so we waited in the car after going inside to buy tickets and snacks from the popcorn stand. And yes, we parked in that one spot as far away from the mall entrance as we could park.
"How's school?" Tom asked.
"Oh, not bad. At least now with rumors of FBI agents on campus all the junior redneck wannabes avoid me and Daniel."
"Really? That's cool. I don't get bothered much. Once in a while I hear a distant `FAG' in the hallway but I don't care what they think. At least I can drive to school now!"
I told him that some kids told me they actually saw men in suits watching the line of camera monitors in the office. The door to that room was supposed to be shut all the time, but somehow it was left open.
"Yeah baby! So tell me, how `out' are you at Caprock?" That was something I really wanted to ask Tom for a while now.
"Ummm, I'm out a little, my friends all know of course. Management's family knows I think. My dad's family don't care so neither do I. The school knows, I'm sure it's in my records somewhere. I think pretty much about one third of the student body knows but most don't care. I get teased a little. The worst is at work because all the mashers in town think that because I'm gay I want to suck every dick in Amarillo. The older fags are the worst, it's like the skankier they are the dumber they are."
"Too bad I can't loan you the Navy guys for a while!"
"Yeah well I don't know what they'd do."
"Rough up a few gay mashers, make an example out of `em." I suggested.
"Yeah I'd rather move to a less redneck city like Galveston!"
"YES! I am so ready. Mid-June and we're freakin' done!" I said with excitement in my voice.
Then Tom reminded me we still gotta wait all summer until nearly Labor Day to escape Amarillo. I told him I suspected Galveston was less redneck but more churchy than Amarillo. I've read that gay was old news along the coast, so gay stuff mostly went unnoticed. But if someone tried to organize a gay parade in Galveston it would never get a permit. Tom said he really didn't care, he just wants to live his life and make decent money too.
During our chat we sort of twisted in our car seats to half face each other and stared into each other's eyes for a while then leaned in and kissed. At first it was just lips and tongues but it got hotter. After several minutes of kissing we got out and got in the back seat. He unbuttoned and removed my shirt. I took his off too.
The car quickly got hot and steamy inside, the windows fogged-up too.
Tom eventually positioned me on my back and laid on top and sucked hard on one of my tits then opened his pants and started to jerk off above my belly. The back seat in my Honda was a lot smaller than his Mom's old Impala, so it took careful moves to get into position. We leaned the front car seats forward for more room in back.
Tom sat up once while he was stroking it and looked around then dropped down whispering, "Oh holy shit it's the cops. Fuck!"
He got down flat on top of me and we tried to be as invisible as possible in the back seat with the windows fully fogged and the doors locked. We heard a second car drive up and more doors open and close and two-way radio noise in the background. We stayed motionless in the back seat, as low and still as possible. The entire inside of my car was flashing red and blue.
Tom pushed up to look around the driver's headrest again then lowered down and whispered that now there were two cars there and three guys standing right in front of our car. We could hear them talk but not so much what they were saying.
There was engine noise, lots of traffic noise from I-40 which was only like 200 feet away, and then we heard raised-angry voices like men arguing loudly.
Tom peaked again and said it looked like the cops were fighting now. We both heard tires screeching nearby and then he counted three cars, the new one was another Crown-Vic with one of those stupid police lights on the dashboard.
"Oh wait that's weird, one of the uniform cops got busted, they got him bent over the Crown Vic hood and two men are holding him down while they put cuffs on him and take his weapons." Tom reported.
"What the? Maybe he's drunk on the job."
"But still, oh wait, be quiet I can sorta hear `em."
We both stayed scrunched up in the back seat for several minutes. Tom saw the black coat guys escort the one patrol cop into another police car and haul him away. Then Tom sat back down and we both twisted around and started pulling our clothes back on since nobody was paying attention to my car anymore.
"I bet I know what happened." Tom said softly.
"What?"
"Mall security called town cops when they saw us get in the back seat way out in their parking lot and when they came to bust us the Navy guys stopped `em but there was a disagreement over who's in control!"
"That sounds crazy."
"Yep, the city cop probably refused to stop so the Navy guys busted him and had him taken to a city lock-up. Say goodbye to your job asshole." Tom speculated.
"Maybe we need to find somewhere else to park."
"Maybe." Tom muttered.
As a joke I suggested we could park in the back of the lot at Stars! But Tom briefly glared at me as if he found no humor in my suggestion.
After a few more minutes Tom rose up and looked around and saw all the cars were gone now. We got out of the car and put our shirts on, and got in the front seats.
"Fuck, missed another movie. Tom have we ever actually seen a movie together?" I asked while he started the motor and put the car in DRIVE.
As we drove away from that spot I saw a Crown Vic two cars over, looked like the one from down the block.
"Oh fuck, they're still there?" Tom muttered as we slowly drove away.
We drove to Der Weinerschnitzel for something to eat (four Kraut Dogs with mustard and one order of fries). When we were walking back to the car I looked across the street at the parking lot of the Auto Zone. "Tom don't stare but isn't that them again over there?"
He glanced over as he climbed in the car. "Yep, I'm sure of it."
"God, how embarrassing." I whispered as we closed the doors.
"Yeah well it may have kept us from getting busted for something like public nudity!"
"Oh shit! Is that the same car that's always parked down the street?" Tom said it looked the same. Then he said "...there's people in it." He said he saw heads moving around. I said what we needed was some kind of scanner radio to keep tabs on them keeping tabs on us!
We drove back to my place and went inside. Gram was already in bed so we walked Crow to the baseball field then back home. While we were sitting on the bench by third base I wondered if we were being watched there too but I never said anything to Tom. It just felt like eyes were on us.
That evening after showers I blew him in bed. After he came I thought about us in the apartment in Galveston and hoped that once we get going in college we'll still have time where we can be together, him naked on his back, my head on his tummy and his boner in my mouth for hours at a time.
I really like it when he's totally turned on and producing a lot of pre-come and I'll take his head and smear the drops of salty pre-come all over my lips and gradually lick it off. I told him my fantasy was that his nipples produced pre-come after being licked a few times, with a steady drip-drip.
He asked me if I ever had actual human milk and I told him no, then asked if he had. Tom said yes, he has. He asked if I knew what human milk tasted like and I guessed it was like cow's milk. Tom said, "No, it's very sweet, it tastes like vanilla milk shake but it had kind of an oily-thick texture." I asked how he knew and he said a couple years ago he knew someone with a girl friend who just had a baby and she'd let anyone sip right from her tit. She was the girl who told Tom that any woman who says there's nothing pleasurable about breast feeding was lying. She said it felt very nice and nearly sexual as long as the kid doesn't bite.
In early-May my trust fund started (after one of my mother's life insurance policies finally paid directly to the trust bank) and we met the lawyer to learn the basic tax laws. We watched a training video and Gram ordered a booklet with trust fund rules from the IRS.
After school one day Gram greeted me in the kitchen and said we got two offers on the house yesterday and she accepted the larger one (higher than the asking price, and they wanted immediate possession). Everything fell into place but we had to be out by May 17th. We'd already started packing and had a garage sale that weekend. I purchased us a bundle of large moving boxes and taped them together and set them on the floor in every room, ready to use.
My room was easy to pack, I don't really own much. My belongings were mostly photography stuff, my little stereo, some tapes, my VCR, my TV, clothes, the computer and printer, and some books and magazines, that's it!
We both packed the utility room stuff and the kitchen stuff, most of the rest of the house was already empty.
I had a strong feeling that Crow's not going to understand moving until afterward, so he's going to need extra patience and kindness. I might even cook him breakfast a few times a month, and let him hover near the stove and watch. He's tall enough on all fours to rest his chin on the counter but not tall enough to see down into a fry pan on the stove.
Gram reminded me we only had a few days left until the moving truck arrived, they'll carry the furniture and all the boxes in the garage so we had to step it up, getting things boxed and the boxes into the garage. All we should leave unpacked was stuff we'll need for a few days, like clothes, bathroom stuff, and some kitchen stuff. Otherwise everything else had to get packed. Our furniture was going to the new apartment but all the appliances were staying here. We sold the kitchen table and chairs and the dresser and bed frame from the third bedroom.
The house sounded weird, it sounded empty in all the rooms now and almost all the drawers were empty, and the walls were bare. We packed one entire box full of utility room stuff. I wondered what the dog thought as the house slowly became empty. Gram said the plan was on moving day I'd drive to school but after school I'd drive to the apartment, she already gave me a door key. My new bedroom will be ¼ the size of the one here. And in the apartment we'll be sharing one bathroom.
My room was easy to finish, and we drove to the Goodwill box five times with the back seat full of trash bags. I swear my Mom had like twenty pairs of shoes. But it's all gone now. I can still smell her in the house, but I think what I smell is a combination of her shampoo and skin lotion she put on her legs after shaving. It had kind of a grandmother odor to it.
I bagged up all of her books, and found a few notepads and chemical company training books in her bookshelf, we gave those to someone at Pantex in case they were confidential. The rest of her books and all her VHS tapes went to Goodwill. She had every Clint Eastwood movie (67 tapes in cases).
On our last day of packing we were pretty much out of the kitchen business so we relied on carry-out. Gram kind of fell in love with Waffle House, it's over on 45th Ave at I-27, its less than two and a half miles east of our home. She liked it because they offered breakfast all day, it was affordable, quick, and anything could be carry-out. The big problem I had was getting her to order for the dog, she thought he should be eating dog food from the store. My best way to change her mind was to remind her that her daughter would strongly disagree, and in fact it was her estate paying the tab. So Gram grumbled and let me order for Crow. Mom was the person who put Crow on a human food diet, supplemented with special ($$) dry dog food from the Vet's office.
I usually ordered him a ham and cheese omelet with toast and hash browns. If Gram complained I simply said `Mom's paying so stop complaining.' She loved Crow and wanted him to eat people food, not one year old dead horse meat in a can. I reminded Gram the dog risked his life to protect me. "When was the last time you heard of a human running through a plate glass window to save a teenage boy?" That guy would have stabbed me next if it wasn't for Crow.
"All right, all right!" she complained after I made my point a few times.
The next day I visited with Dan, we decided since the weather was nice we'd go for a walk. Dan lives on Roxton Drive, one block north of us. We walked over to Oakhurst then toward the elementary school. During our walk we spent time rehearsing some new sign gestures he wanted me to learn, which was something we did at least once a month. He taught me most of the ASL I know today and Dan's a pretty good teacher, but I have watched a few training videos for basic ASL, like how to order food.
When he's in one of his ASL teaching moods he signed A, B, C to me with his right hand. This was his signal that he wanted me to do the alphabet so he could watch and correct any mistakes. When people spell out words with ASL it's important to do it right according to Dan. He's very strict about that rule.
The thing about the sign alphabet versus words/phrases in ASL is with alphabet it's the hand position that forms the letters, but with phrases it's also your movement into the hand positions and the hand positions themselves representing words/phrases.
When we got near the elementary school play field there was one last house on the corner, their back yard faced the play field. At the other end of the field was the school. The houses on Gatewood Street had an alley behind them. We turned on the alley and stopped by the first yard. They had a dilapidated one car garage in back, he said it was the location where a group of kids from the area performed for other members. I recalled he told me they converted an un-used garage to a mini theater and members of the group put on shows for each other, it was a secret masturbation-exhibition club.
We stopped and looked at the garage, he tried the door knob and it opened so we went inside but it was dark inside. There were still two old sofas and some broken down arm chairs. Dan said the platform was made with stolen lumber from when there were still houses being built in the neighborhood, it was like 8x8ft and raised maybe 18 inches. They nailed boards to the roof trusses for clamp lights and someone had a portable radio but all that stuff was gone. The place was pretty much the same as when he performed, except now it was dusty and smelled moldy. It looked like it hadn't been used in a year or more.
Dan said the garage was a remnant from before the neighborhood was developed, it was beside a farm house and was probably built as a chicken coop in the 1800s.
I asked when his last time on stage was and he said 10th grade, maybe 11th. I asked when he joined and he said 3rd grade. One of the boys once told the club he met a guy at the park and they talked and the man agreed to pay like $60 bucks to come and watch, but no touching, no talking, and no pictures. The next time it was two men and they charged $100 each to watch the live half-hour show. And by the time it ended they could charge $500 each to watch the show, which was usually a musical strip tease (x3), and cum shot on the stage. He said almost everyone watching the show was wanking and many of them came too. So these middle aged men were paying hundreds of dollars to watch three boys solo-strip naked and masturbate and ejaculate on the floor in front of maybe eight people. He said almost everyone in the garage was stroking.
I asked why it broke up and he said some families moved away, one of them was the one kid who kind of ran the group and recruited new boys. For a while they had a local tom-boy girl member, she really wanted to be a boy and she got naked but it was awkward because she had no boner, only a slit between her legs, but her tits were popular despite being small, she was only in 7th grade when her family moved.
I asked if there was ever forced sex or rape or fucking and he said: no, never.
"So why were so many families moving out?"
"Most of `em were Air Force brats, they're constantly getting transferred."
"Where were they stationed?" I asked.
Dan said Amarillo International used to be an Air Force training base but closed a few years ago. But the main runway was originally part of the base.
He said sometimes the person dancing on stage would select someone to come up and stroke his boner, but most of the time you stripped and wanked and dripped semen on the stage to applause and music. He said there was no video, no pictures. Dan said the club was not about fucking, it was about masturbating in front of an audience. Dan believed so many boys were told as children it was bad to masturbate so the club was their place to rebel and go to an extreme by doing it in front of people who cheered instead of punishing them.
I told him I heard he was in porn too and he said that was during high school and had nothing to do with the garage club, other than one of the members started making his own porno videos to sell online with neighborhood kids, mostly just wanking alone in bed. Dan said he did that several times and made some decent money. Dan told me it seemed like there were lots of super horny boys in middle school suffering with chronic erections.
Dan told me they made copies of the master tapes but they were all sold in California at a couple stores, a few of the boys would make out and pretend to fuck but the orgasms were real. He said they filmed it on VHS and made copies and sold them for fifty bucks a tape to the video store, where they sold for hundreds. You got a one hour tape which was short segments of various boys wanking and coming. Two boys did a pleasure-torture show. One of them was tied down with rope, blindfolded, and wanked by hand to orgasm, but none of them fucked. Sometimes they did simulated fucking but it never happened. He knew the boys in all the videos and they all swore there was no sex, just semen on skin. Back then a big leap for most of the kids in the videos was kissing another boy, then learning to kiss like a grown-up.
He told me when they were kids they rode their bikes out west on 45th Avenue, past Helium Road and out there was a big trash pit someone dug in the early 1900s and it was half filled with old farm trash.
But people driving by can't see down into the pit since it was like 25 feet deep, so they rode out there to play around and not get caught. Sometimes they camped out there too. Some of their porn videos were shot in the pit using a VHS camcorder on a tripod. They even wrote a basic screenplay and segment titles on handwritten sheets of copy paper. He said none of them had sound, just color video and lots of close-ups. Everything was kind of practiced first then it was shot in one take.
On the walk back to his house we talked about his father and school. He reminded me he'd probably be dead by now if I wasn't his body guard.
We sat in his bedroom and talked for another hour or so and then I went home. It was nice to spend the time with my friend, get caught up on stuff and make sure he was okay. I was glad he was so willing to talk about himself, which was kind of rare for Dan. In the process I learned five new phrases (sorry, sleep, bath, please, poop).
When I leave Dan's house we have to say goodbye in his bedroom, not out in the hallway. So he pulled my head down and we kissed for about four seconds. The part of that I like the most is it gives me permission to briefly rub my hands all over his body so I can check if he is losing weight. The bad part is I end up walking part way home with an erection. There is something about Dan's skin that makes him wonderful to touch.
It always irks me when I walk down his driveway to the street where I can see the roof of my house behind the house across the street, but I have to walk all the way around the block. On the long walk home I always keep one ear open for the sound of my dog barking, but that's rare to hear. But it's also very obvious, his voice is unique.
Speaking of barking, I've shown Crow several videos of wolves howling in the wild, and I tell them they're dogs, so he can howl too. But I'm told that all mammals can look at a wolf on TV and easily see its wild, so I bet Crow thinks I'm wrong when I tell him the wolves on TV are actually dogs. That's part of why I think a dog's personality is closely linked to their intelligence somehow. So if the dog does not have a personality trait for howling he believes it cannot be done and never tries. I think the desire to howl comes from the dog's emotions, therefore wolves may feel stronger emotions than dogs. Mom said because they live in the wild and hunt in packs for survival food they know their lives are very difficult. Howling is like venting stress.
Write the author: borischenaz mailfence
Author's note: I have the sinking feeling that in this story I may have been using the wrong year, not sure if this is 1994 or 1995 but it would take too much time to go back and sort it out! I think we crossed one new year without mentioning it in the story.
I may have to go back online and re-edit the chapters to fix the year mistake. The date set in stone is in the introduction: the story begins in August 1993, just before he starts his senior year of high school. On that day Robert is 18, Crow is 4, and Daniel and Tom are also 18. Lisa is 39.