RAISING CROW

Chapter 17: May 1995. The Alternate Prom.

Note to readers: for added enjoyment load these songs: by Wham!: Wake me Up Before...', and Everything She Wants', By Johnny Mathis from 1957, `Chances Are,' and have them ready to play where indicated.

The movers arrived on Monday May 8th; a school day for me. All I had that afternoon was study hall and PE so I got excused at lunch (5th period). I carried a handwritten note from my grandmother to school requesting that I be let out of school early. It helped that the letter was signed by the same lady who wrote all the science books used across all public schools in Texas.

It felt weird leaving for school that morning knowing I would never set foot in that house again but Gram reminded me this move was temporary. Crow and I were raised in the house on Sandie Drive, it was really the only home I knew. Crow got to watch the guys make trips from the garage to the truck with two wheel carts, going back and forth, over and over. Before I left for school I took the door key off my key ring and left it on the kitchen counter. Gram told the realtor we'd be out today and leave the keys on the kitchen counter.

Moving from a 3000+ sq ft house to a 950 sq ft apartment was quite a change. Luckily Gram and I were a lot closer, we got along very well, better than me and Mom. And she seemed to know almost everything about everything, especially science (but not about dogs). Don't ever get in an argument with Leslie Davis over food ingredients because she's always right. Despite her education she still got lost in Amarillo and never tried to learn the roads. All she knew was how to get to the post office, the bank, Waffle House, the UPS Store, and Piggly Wiggly.

Back when our house went up for sale we stopped parking in the garage and started stacking packed boxes out there, ready to go to the apartment. She had us divide the garage into rows, we marked with chalk on the floor. One row was for utility-kitchen-living room. The next two were for her room or my room, and then there was one last row for other stuff, like for the dog. By the time the realtor sign arrived my rooms were nearly empty. All my winter clothes and blankets were packed, along with the darkroom stuff, and anything except some clothes and the computer, the rest was in the garage. Gram said we'd probably not unpack much after moving and made sure I marked one box for stuff I'd need on day #1 at the apartment, like my alarm clock, school clothes, bathroom stuff, and the computer stuff, like my modem and the printer.

That Sunday Gram took spray paint and sprayed color codes on the boxes, black for my room, white for her room, and blue for the rest of the house so she could stand by the apartment door and tell the movers where each box went.

But Sunday night before moving day I packed my computer stuff and anything else into the trunk of my car for the next day. The only thing left in my room on Monday morning was toilet paper, a bar of soap, and a bath towel.

Tom and I frequently discussed moving south after graduation, but what we really wanted was a road trip to see Galveston for ourselves. We needed to investigate the city, the university, and places to work near campus. Tom was having serious talks with Management. Maria really depended on him to keep up their house and to work at the diner. He said he read magazine articles about the struggle some parents had with the young birds leaving the nest. He said he'd be hard to replace at the diner because he could do every job except payroll and ordering.

Another restaurant job Tom never did was difficult to explain. It's the position they call Head Chef. Most (locally owned) restaurants make their biggest profit on daily specials. They're designed and tested in the back kitchen by the chief-chef. They're designed on paper first and costed-out which takes experience to do correctly. Tom doesn't have that skill either. The Chef has to design the specials and get prices and specific weights on the ingredients to create a recipe, then calculate out something like 40 orders sold, then calculate the menu price and cost to make, etc.

When Stars or any other restaurant buys wholesale food they're dealing with cases of things like: buns, beef patties, lettuce, sliced pickles, ripe tomatoes, condiments in gallon jugs, time and cost to cook and assemble, serve and clean the plate and silverware after eating. They know exactly how much things cost each so they can say how much to sell the deluxe burger platter with fries and coleslaw, and how much profit is made off each one.

Tom told me the main job of the person working the grille is not to cook cheese sandwiches, eggs, and fries but to sell specials. Ideally the specials will sell-out before the Open sign gets turned around. He said sometimes the big food supplier in Amarillo (Plains Supply Corp) has special discounts to encourage restaurants to make special menu items to take advantage of wholesale discounts.

So as planned on Monday morning I drove to school but left at 5th period, then drove to the apartment complex (on Virginia Street at 45th Ave) instead. I already had a door key but Gram and Crow were already there.

Crow seemed bamboozled for a couple days, he acted like he thought at any minute we'd get in the car and drive back home. He lost his back yard kingdom and now he had a smaller fenced grassy area by the apartment complex and several dogs used it. The ground was mostly crushed limestone rock, some weeds and petrified dog poops all over the place. I think I was the only person who followed the rules and removed his piles. But being the only Dane, his turds would be easy to identify! At first he refused to poop in the enclosure, he held back for 24 hours then gave in and pooped on the rocks. And the dog walk sits right beside a very busy street, he's not used to that either.

Our first weekend at the apartment I was allowed to quit my job, they threw a short party for me and wished me well. I was going to miss giving treats and hugs to all those homeless dogs. And I still never met the Vet's son, but they had pictures of him with dogs on the wall inside the vet office. He looked a bit on the small and feminine side if you ask me. For the party they served Twinkies covered with whip cream, with a vanilla ice cream bar.

I also talked to Gram about Tom and me driving back to Galveston for one or two nights to job search and maybe even register for fall classes. She said it was fine but we wouldn't end up with any time, as soon as we arrive it would be time to turn around and drive home. I repeated what she said to Tom. "Oh," was his comment.

Two days after we moved to the apartment Mom's thread and fabric factory and the patents were sold but I never heard the amount. She put a condition on it that the sale must be cash only (certified check actually). I think heard it mentioned on TV news once the business was worth something like 12-megabucks, even though the building was rented. There really isn't that much to the business. They have two machines to mix and extrude the thread, an industrial oven for post-curing racks of spools, and a weaving machine to turn thread into fabric. That's it.

Gram said the trust fund account had enough money now to support both of us for the rest of time, but not to live like kings.

I remember Mom took me to work a few times when I was in 2nd grade. She tried to explain the process she patented, including the machines. They used something like six chemicals that were heated and blended, then super heated and extruded into something resembling spider's silk. That silk was coated and wound on large spools then were stored in a huge oven for two days to slowly cure at something like 140 degrees F. After that they were put on a different machine where the thread was combined with others and spun into a larger thread and then woven into a wide fabric sheet and wound up onto rolls and re-heated in an oven (180deg F) for two days to cure the rest of the way. Once that was done they were loaded on trucks and taken to the uniform company.

They used a test machine called an Extensometer to measure at how many pounds the thread snapped and how much it stretched at the breaking point, it looked old. She told me it was purchased originally by a rubber company near Detroit.

At the uniform company they unloaded the rolls into a large shallow water tank where the fabric was cut by computer controlled plasma cutters into the parts to make a uniform. But the neat part was the fabric was cut underwater like how they cut steel plates for building aircraft carriers and submarines. It had to be cut with a laser underwater so the fibers didn't end up with blackened edges.

Mom told me Plasma was a state of matter (like liquid or solid or gas) which was accomplished with very high heat in a sphere free of oxygen. The laser cut the fabric inside a plasma bubble.

We've been at the apartment for a week now and since the weather was getting nicer and we're getting more sunny days I'm starting to see some shirtless boys playing basketball at the school playground near our apartment. Gram got me started driving around Amarillo on weekends taking newspaper-style photos to build up my portfolio for college and future jobs after school. We got a used police scanner at a garage sale for my room and on weekends I listened for big stuff happening and got there with the long lens and tried to capture action photos. I go out for fires and major events like a bank robbery or big wrecks on the highway. I-40 is a constant source of big wrecks in Amarillo, many with fatalities.

Now that the trust fund was active it paid our apartment rent and daily living expenses: utility bills, cable-TV, groceries, gasoline, doctor visits, two phone lines, and Compuserve. I had to buy another one of those spiral car antennas for her Motorola bag phone so she could use it in the recliner, I got it mounted on a single pane window in our tiny living room. It has a coaxial cable that connects the antenna to the phone. Gram didn't want to use the rubber antenna, she said it was too close to her body. I reminded her once in a while that although it looks like a phone it is actually a two-way radio and no communications by radio are totally private. Gram said despite the high price the voice quality on the bag phone wasn't very good.

Gram showed me the most recent statement from the quarterly trust report showed it had nearly 18.5 million buckaroos, and as fast as we could use it for bills it grew larger from the interest. We sold the house for almost triple what Mom paid ($140k) for it in 1980, Gram said the cost to sell the business and the patents required a special lawyer from Dallas, so that will be a huge bill coming in the next 60 days. She said he charged $400 an hour! The person in Amarillo who bought the thread-fabric company was the same man who purchased the uniform company. Gram said five years from now he's going to be super wealthy but they needed to invest a lot of money to build more machinery. She said he'll probably move the company closer to the gulf where labor rates are lower and the cost to import chemicals would be cheaper. She thought it might end up near Gulfport Mississippi. She said while Amarillo is centrally located, it's far from any major port. And truck drivers do go on strike once in a while.

That weekend I did some reading on complex trusts. It's hard to explain and even harder to understand but it's a group of trusts (with rules) to manage my financial life. Everything I had was actually owned by the trust. All my income went to the trust not to me. I got tax advantages and protection from liability since I didn't own anything except my clothes and the food in the refrigerator. It also made it hard to get a job at small businesses because they're not set up to do payroll taxes with a complex trust. Someone said the entire tax withholding tables changed if the employee had a trust, but few employers had that information so they couldn't hire me. I was far from an expert but Gram got me books on how to live under a complex trust. The way I understood it now was as an employee I had to be hired as an independent contractor, not an hourly employee. Not too many small companies knew how to do that because they used a one-size fits all payroll accounting system. I'd probably need to buy my own health and life insurance too. She said I should plan on starting my own business after college and being self-employed for life.

I get a monthly allowance as a check in the mail from the trust bank. I go to that bank and cash it into twenty dollar bills then pay in cash for everything during the month. So the nice part is my shopping history is private and Gram told me if I ever signed up for a shopper's card at a place like Kroger to never use my actual name or address.

Gram also told me about when Senator Ted Kennedy drove off a dirt road into a pond. She recalled the story went something like this: the vehicle turned over in the water and he escaped but the lady in the back seat couldn't, then he left the scene (July 1969). When her family tried to sue him they discovered he owned nothing except his clothes, but they still received an insurance settlement. I told her I don't plan on driving drunk on Martha's Vineyard but she said accidents happened and were unavoidable, that's why we have insurance.

The registration for my Honda said it was owned by the Davis Trust and showed the address of the lawyer's office. Gram also said the tax withholding percentages were lower for someone with a trust than a regular hourly employee. It also meant I'd never qualify for Medicare, Social Security, or unemployment benefits, and I never had to work unless I really wanted to. I enjoyed working in photography, but if there was a camera store in Galveston I never heard of it, Grandpa looked in the yellow pages and said there weren't any listed, people drove to a nice camera store up in Houston.

School was going okay. People treated me differently after Mom died like I was suddenly no longer a tall skinny child. I also noticed I could concentrate in class longer than a year ago, I was taking better notes too. Gram was looking into trying to get my final exams done early and moving to Galveston as soon as possible. Part of the problem was getting all my homework assignments in writing almost two months before the end of the semester, some teachers are not that well organized. I told Tom we were trying to get me to graduation early. Since mid-April I've only seen Tom about two or three times a month. It felt odd to have him in bed while Gram was in the next room. Guess I never appreciated how much Mom overlooked stuff when she was alive. Gram never said anything but it still made me feel uncomfortable knowing she was so close. We've started having most of our sex at his house when his mother was at work which gave us two Saturdays a month with the entire afternoon in his bedroom and no Great Dane to ruin the moment. Lucky for us oral sex is nearly silent if done correctly!

Gram also started tutoring me on some basic college level stuff to improve my grades and give me a big advantage in the fall. We spent one weekend with our own little classroom. She even borrowed a dry erase board from a neighbor and taught me about studying and learning like they'll cover when I take Intro to Psych 101 next fall. She said I should teach it to Tom too.

We had some problems with Crow and other dogs in the apartment dog walk, he started to show aggression, which was totally out of character for him. The vet suggested keeping him on the leash inside the dog walk. He also suggested using a pinch collar for a while but try to leave his regular collar on at the same time.

After we finished Intro to -- Intro to Psych at home she started working with me on finishing this semester three or four weeks early. Every day after dinner we stayed at the kitchen table with my books open and she covered the rest of the material and homework for the rest of the semester, and a review as well. Our finals don't cover the entire school year, just that semester.

Saturday May 28th 1994 was the Alternative Prom at the Diplomat Hotel on I-40 at the Hope Road exit.

Tom and I wore black suits (two-piece with white shirts and black narrow ties) with red roses, his was rented, and mine came from Goodwill. Tom brought cash in case we needed any. We drove his car instead of the limo option because it was way too expensive and the limo carried ten teenagers per trip - not very romantic.

I was on CompuServe chatting with Daniel when Tom arrived. He got smart and let himself in the back door. The big news Daniel told me was he found a lawyer willing to take his case against the school corporation and some of the staff. He said the lawyer told him he charged 30% and he felt this case would win a huge judgment against the school, as well as serious criminal charges against several staffers. He told Dan that knowingly putting a child in danger in Texas was a felony with mandatory prison time.

So I was in a good mood when Tom suddenly walked in my bedroom door.

The hotel expo-center opened at 5:30pm on Saturday night. We arrived at 5:49pm and hung out in the hotel lobby watching for familiar faces. Since the prom was open to all seniors we discussed possibly not seeing anyone we knew. We saw two armed security guards at the entrance, probably off duty Amarillo cops. He pointed out a third guy outside looked like he was plain clothes security and like he was packin' heat under his jacket. I think he was the rented doorman, but we parked and walked past him like two chumps.

I saw two girls I recognized from AHS; Tom introduced me to four people from Caprock. Around 6:15pm the doors were propped open and we took our seats at a large round table for eight along with two single boys I never met before. We talked and introduced ourselves long before the emcee told us to do so. The tables were covered with white linen cloth and had red ribbons stretched across with some standard restaurant table stuff in the middle. Prom included a catered dinner but we heard it was supposed to be super cheap, like elementary school cafeteria frozen fried food. I'd say it was one step above a frozen TV-dinner in quality. It was impossible for Tom to not gripe.

I was surprised the Hispanic dudes Tom introduced me, none of them were hissy or gay acting. They all looked like they were on sports teams, not at all what I expected. Tom whispered to me that as far as he knew at Caprock they had like 850 total students and maybe two of them were hissy fags, none of them attended this event. So based on what I saw most of the dudes at Caprock he hung with were masculine bi or gay Hispanic teens, same as him.

William, one of the single guys said he went to Holy Cross Catholic and the other single guy (Jason) went to North Heights Alternative. The other couples were girls from Palo Duro High School on the north side of town. One of the girls loudly asked "You're a gay student at a Catholic high school? How does that work?" We all chuckled at her comment. William kind of mouthed back the words: `I'm going to hell but I'll have fun on the way there.'

We moved chairs around so the guys were on one side and the girls were on the other so we could talk better. They had assigned seating but we ignored that. Tom whispered to me that Jason was probably on parole and William might have been expelled from public school.

While we were talking the band was setting-up on stage. A speaker introducing the 3rd annual alternative prom, thanking the A&M PFLAG office for organizing the event, blah blah blah. We mostly ignored what they were saying. The band had a hard time being silent during the short speech, which made lots of people laugh. Any time she paused to cough or clear her throat the drummer tapped his stick on the cymbal as if phlegm flew out of her mouth. That made everyone laugh but the speaker lady didn't seem to understand what was so funny.

By 7pm we were munching soggy 2-piece fried chicken, coleslaw, baked beans, new potatoes, salads, cakes, and our choice of pop. The cake tasted weird (or extremely cheap) but nobody got sick. During the last minutes of the meal the band started tuning up. Nobody at the table heard of `em, Jason said he heard the band was just cobbled together from other bands in town because no one band wanted to play at a gay prom and the pay was marginal. The band was called Twist. They played a mix of dance and pop doing songs from Elton John, Culture Club, Wham, K.D. Lang, Madonna, and Soft Cell. There were the obligatory slow dance songs, straight songs we adopted as our own, like Cherish by The Association and Faithfully by Journey. The lead singer announced that the event was a success they had 296 paid attendees and made a nice donation to PFLAG and would have another one again next year.

My big secret before today was I never danced before. In the car on the way to the hotel I told Tom I didn't know how, he assured me he'd show me, it would take all of two minutes and I'd be an expert. Nobody would know I was a newbie.

Sometimes Tom speaks with a fake Texas cowboy accent, trying to sound silly and dumb. So when I told him I didn't know how to dance he said he'd `learn me up in a jiff.'

(Start playing (one time) the song: Wham!: Wake Me up Before you go go.... now.)

The band started at 7:05pm with `Wake Me up before You Go-Go.'

The room cheered loudly when the lead singer started with: '...JITTERBUG, JITTERBUG you put the boom boom into my heart, you send my soul sky high when your lovin starts...' Tom reached over onto my lap and squeezed my hand. I got cold chills when the colored spotlights started moving with the beat. Electricity was in the air and I instantly felt high. `WAKE ME UP BEFORE YOU GO-GO, TAKE ME DANCIN TONIGHT!' I could not stop myself from tapping both feet when they started playing.

That night turned out to be a night of many firsts for me. I could hardly sit still I was so excited; we held hands on the table after the lights went down. We slid our chairs around so mine was to the side but behind his. Jason was behind me and William was next to Tom's knees. I was able to reach forward and rub my hand up and down his flank during the first song. I felt so incredibly happy I had to force myself to stay focused and not start crying.

I thought to myself this is the very first time I was gay in public, luckily there was nobody here I knew except some faces from AHS but I never spoke to them.

William kind of reminded me of a kid I knew at school. He was the same height as Tom (5'10") and maybe 195lbs, he had no muscles in his arms, but with a sport coat on he was hard to see but it looked like he had an 'Indoor Boy' build. His voice was somewhat deep but he didn't say much. We never discussed sex and he showed no interest in anyone around the table and mostly never spoke to the females across from us. The two lesbian couples turned their chairs around to face the dance floor so we never spoke after introductions, except everyone agreed the dinner was a little better than a two dollar frozen TV-dinner.

Everyone at our table turned their chairs to face the dance floor; the entire hall was done up to look sort of like a wedding reception. Along one side was the stage where the band played. They had lights on steel racks above them, the lights also shone on the dance floor and seemed to be controlled by the volume and pitch of the music. Or maybe someone was steering them but the beauty of the show nearly made me get emotional.

While the band was playing one old guy went from table to table gathering our dishes and trash and eventually cleaned the entire hall. We counted nearly 40 tables with eight students at each table. A few chaperones were in the hall too but I didn't see any from my school.

We have one science teacher at AHS most kids think is gay, but frankly, nobody cares because he's a great teacher. We sort of expected to see him as a chaperone.

Once the band started the entire mood in the hall changed to `party time!' We saw lots of bare feet and several people got changed into more relaxed clothes for an evening of jumping and dancing.

Someone pushed a cart around the hall selling cold drinks, 7-Up, Coke, Sprite, Grape, Orange, and some kind of fruit juice. Tom pointed out lots of airline-size booze bottles got poured into glasses, accidentally of course. Lots of kids went outside to smoke but they stamped our hands to enter the doors, and to get back inside.

So once the band started there were a huge number of people who went to the bathrooms and just in general walking around and visiting other tables. Our table was in one far corner so we sort of saw the band from the side.

There was one large plastic banner hung on the wall, I bet it was 40 feet long and said A&M University FPLAG Alternate Senior Prom.

When the band first started the dance floor was covered by dozens of balloons, those were the only source of rainbow colors in the hall, and it was kind of pretty.

(Pause here until Wake Me Up is finished playing)

(Now start the other song: Wham! Everything She Wants, play it one time)

During the second song Tom stood up and offered me his hand with a smile. During the first song only four couples danced, all girl x girl couples and a hetero chaperone couple from some local school. Then in the second song, (Everything She Wants) a ton of people flooded onto the dance floor below the disco ball and colored spots moving to the music. The band improved once they got warmed up. The singer actually did a decent George Michael imitation. And the drummer sounded exactly like the original version.

Tom pulled me over to the corner (where it was dark) and showed me how he liked to dance. He started by telling me to just watch his feet. We stood there side by side in near darkness looking at our feet and dancing together. To help me improve he put his arm over my shoulder so we were against each other while looking down at our shoes. That hint allowed me to better follow his hips, but Tom still laughed at my stiffness.

After I could mimic what he did he added arm motions and then body moving too. He showed me how in sections then put the whole thing together. He had me look down at my body while I did it so I tried to relax more and move more like fluid, then he laughed and said I needed to move more like a Mexican! I couldn't move as well as him but I improved, he kept telling me to relax and move my entire body with the music. When we first started he said I looked like my hips were welded in place!

After a few songs with us practicing beside the wall we moved across the room near the center of the dance floor where nobody at tables could see us, I just did what he did and after a minute or two we were nearly synchronized. My attention was focused on Tom's wonderful face in all the colorful lighting, especially the colored dots reflecting off the mirror ball above us. It was a beautiful sight and I wished I could have photographed him in color. I imagined how nice it would be if I could have had those moments with his shirt off. I was super proud to be seen with him, but I never told him.

If they hadn't specifically said: `No bare chests' I would have pulled his shirt off to show him off. I bet his nips were probably bigger around than 10% of the girls at the prom.

He was bathed in tiny colored squares of light. There was an occasional yellow spotlight passing over us with a flash. The dance floor got more crowded during the next song. Then another one started, by Culture Club and we were totally focused on each other's eyes. Tom had this huge happy face, his thick eyebrows were raised up giving him an excited expression. His wide smile and deep brown eyes pulled me in like I was hypnotized. I looked down a few times to check out his upper body.

For a while I put my hands on his shoulders and held on so our bodies moved as one and with my eyes focused on his eyes the rest of the world became a blur and it was just the two of us slowly turning around and dancing to the beat. I actually lost awareness of the 300 other people in the hall and it was a beautiful moment, it was a bonding moment for both of us. If Tom had shouted to me that we should get married I would have agreed right then, I was on a natural high.

We left our sport coats on our chairs but still had our ties and shirts buttoned-up. We both started to get sweaty, he sniffed his arm pits as sort of a joke. The announcer already said everyone had to remain dressed for the entire prom, no bare chests, and no undershirts. People booed and laughed when they said that but I understood why later on because the dance floor got hot. I also noticed that was when people started to leave the hotel.

After about fifteen minutes in the middle of the floor we headed back for the table where we took off our ties and unbuttoned our shirts about four buttons down. I took off my cuff links and rolled up my sleeves, Tom kept his rolled down.

Then the lights went off to only a dark blue spot as the band played the first slow dance started (`Almost Paradise' from the Footloose Soundtrack, 1983 by Reno and Wilson). Tom pulled me around the table and out on the dance floor, we stepped into each other and embraced firmly. It felt weird to be rubbing his back with a starched shirt on instead of his silky soft flesh, moments later he un-tucked my shirt. We stared closely into each other's eyes as we slowly rotated on the dance floor. I caught a glimpse of other couples starting to kiss, so I took the plunge and pressed my lips into his and for the first time I kissed a boy in public. Let there be no doubt about my gayness after tonight. When we started kissing there were only three couples slow dancing so there were over 300 people watching. At first we were the only 'boy x boy' couple on the floor.

I felt totally safe and excited in his arms, flashes of blue light crossed my eyes from time to time as we slow danced and kissed, my eyes were shut almost the entire time. His tongue invaded my mouth. I started to get turned on but wasn't sure if he was too. The thought crossed my mind that I might be fully bonerized when the slow dance ended and we had to walk back to our table with hundreds of people watching!

(Start playing Chances Are (1957 by Johnny Mathis, one time, now)

Almost Paradise ended and the lights went off, the band announced they were taking a short break and the DJ immediately started playing music. The first DJ song was a famous slow dance oldie `Chances Are' (1957 by Johnny Mathis). Several moments into the song I heard applause for the band. I caught a glimmer of light through my closed eyelids, still French kissing Tom. The applause kept going and a few people whistled loudly at something. I barely opened my eyes and was instantly embarrassed to see we were the only couple on the dance floor, two blue spots directly on us and the entire prom was applauding our passionate display. I laughed loudly and grabbed Tom's hand and pulled him to our table where everyone was applauding.

I was somewhere between embarrassed and proud. We sat down and leaned into each other to discuss what just happened. William and Jason patted us on our shoulders. I leaned toward Jason and asked him if the lump in my slacks was visible when we left the dance floor and he simply said, "Uh huh but it looked great."

I told Tom I was embarrassed and he told me I sounded like my Mom, which wasn't a comment I anticipated hearing that evening.

The emcee played records while the band took a break. We had drinks and took turns walking to the bathroom. After our break we sat at the table holding hands and facing the band. William asked Tom in the bathroom if we had plans for later tonight. Tom whispered to me we were invited to a private keg party on the fourth floor. I asked what would be going on, he said beer, lesbians, and boys, maybe some hot sex and a couple fat joints.

The band returned, we danced again and started to get tired of the high volume and I think both of us were horny as fuck, so we got up and left the ballroom and sat in the hotel lobby with our coats and ties across our laps. My eyes got stuck staring at Tom's body, his hairless brown skin behind his white dress shirt looked extremely appealing and I think I was half hard the entire time. I bet he had no idea he was turning me on just sitting there with three buttons open on his dress shirt.

A short time later William walked out of the elevator and across the lobby and nodded to Tom to follow him. In the elevator he told Tom it was twenty bucks for two cups, Tom got out his money. On the fourth floor we walked down to room 419, it was at the end of the hallway. The room had a balcony overlooking the pool deck, two rooms, one with two king size beds and another with two sofas, presumably they converted into twin beds. There were three veggie, cheese, and cracker trays, a keg of beer, and a few fat joints too. The hotel room even had a tiny kitchen so it looked like a small apartment. It reminded me of the neighborhood party we went to near his house. He handed one of the girls the Twenty and she pulled out two red plastic 12oz cups and wrote our names on the bottoms.

At first it was about seven kids with music on a boom box while they had Showtime on the TV with the sound muted. After filling our cups from the keg in the bath tub we sat on the sofa holding hands, while William welcomed friends he knew from around town. Within an hour the place was half full of high school aged kids about three quarter girls and one quarter boys I never met before, except for William and Jason from our table downstairs.

Tom said he recognized William from somewhere but couldn't place him yet, but he'd definitely seen his face before.

Some of the girls danced in front of the TV after someone shut off most of the lights. Tom and I worked slowly on our cups of beer, of course being Texas it was regular Coors Banquet.

I asked Tom "Why Coors, why not Texas Pride?"

He answered, "Have you ever drank Texas Pride?"

"No, seen it in the grocery store, it's always pretty cheap."

Tom said, "It's probably one of the worst beers made in America, almost as bad as Grain Belt."

"You had Grain Belt Beer too?" I asked.

"Yes once, never again. It tastes like they spent five bucks and 45 minutes making it. It's cheap crap and tastes like rotting barley with cow dung and grass clippings pitched in for color."

I laughed at his description and told him it sounded like Prohibition Era beer.

(See the movie: A Slight Case of Murder 1938 comedy)

It was actually a nice gathering. No fights or puking or anything like that. I saw people passing joints out on the balcony but it was a well behaved crowd. The kitchen was where most of the girls hung out, with two couples slow dancing in the very crowded room. I smelled some cigarette smoke but it was manageable.

I tell you what, watching two horny girls French kiss really turns me on sometimes. I could have stood there watching for quite a while but I think it was a no-boys gathering at the moment, but they needed our money to cover the cost of the keg.

When I went to the bathroom I caught a glimpse of a girl-couple in one of the beds under the sheets. I had to wait two minutes in line to pee. It made me a little uncomfortable but Jason was seated on the counter in the bathroom smoking a cigarette and blowing smoke into the exhaust vent since it was supposed to be a no-smoking hotel room I think. I'm not one to pee in front of strangers but I did it anyway. He looked down at my dick and winked at me, I told him he could stand out on the balcony and smoke outside and still be nearly in the room. It reminded me of kids sneaking smokes in the bathroom in 7th grade.

I went back to the sofa and sat beside Tom. He took our coats and ties and hung them on hangers by the door and had his shirt unbuttoned all the way. I could hardly resist the temptation. I completely unbuttoned and un-tucked my shirt which put my weird looking belly button on display. He slowly leaned me back on the sofa so he could melt on top but we shared the sofa with William, the back of my head landed against William's thigh but he never protested.

Tom put his hands on my chest and spread my shirt wide open then started to drag his tongue across my tits, I got hard quickly. I had my hands up his shirt rubbing his back or down to his butt cheeks. Everything we did was right there for William to see, but he never commented. I'd never had an audience for something very intimate before (except Crow who always acted with total disinterest).

I heard girls giggling and laughing in the kitchen and moaning coming from the bedroom. When Tom pulled off to catch some air we both looked around the room. We both heard some loud talking in the kitchen, one of the girl couples just announced they decided to get married.

Jason was out on the balcony looking down at the pool. There were about ten girls in the small kitchen doing stuff and still two couples slow dancing. And William was next to us on the sofa with my head against his left thigh like a sofa arm rest.

Tom was on top of me and two other guys were on the other sofa doing the same as us. The boom box was still playing music from a local FM dance music station. I wondered what Dan was doing at that moment, I knew Crow would be asleep somewhere waiting for my return. Gram would have taken him to the dog walk before it got dark outside.

Tom lowered his head and kissed my neck then worked his way back down to my chest again. William sat there with one hand on Tom's shoulder and his right hand shoved down his pants, which was now wide open. We stayed like that for a while then Tom rolled off to the floor and un-did my slacks and spread them wide open. The only light source in the living room now was the TV, which was muted and playing a movie.

Tom moved sideways so his face was above my lower stomach and his right hand was on my crotch. He wiggled down my slacks and pulled my boner out and started blowing me on the sofa in full view of everyone in the living room. I've never done that before but I trusted him to not get too crazy, even though we were both nearly drunk. Aside from the boy's shower room at school I never appeared naked in front of strangers before, so I closed my eyes and pretended we were alone somewhere.

I got the impression he wasn't trying to make me come, just having fun with it in his mouth, and maybe showing off too. After Tom got up to pee William moved over a little so my head was now fully on his thigh and he was sort of leaned back and stroked himself with his right hand. Then it magically bounced against my cheek, and sometimes his boner was actually rubbed on my ear and my neck, but he smelled clean so I had no problem with it. William was getting leaky and left smears of precome all over my head. A couple times I turned my head and kissed it which made him stroke it really fast and hard. I completely lost track of my pants which were wide open and my boner was on display for everyone to see while Tom took another bathroom break. (What goes in must come out!)

Tom came back with our beer cups filled and got on his knees beside the sofa and moved to my tit and started nursing hard while he stroked me. I didn't last long, maybe two minutes and spurt twice across my stomach. Without any paper towels he licked it up and cleaned my rod with his tongue. Then William raised his shirt and came on his tummy.

I whispered to Tom to hand me the cup. I sat up while he packed away my boner with three people watching while I guzzled my beer and belched loudly.

Our next stop was the bathroom, there was one person in line and the door was shut. Then the young lady ahead of us went in and came back out quickly, so we went together and took turns pissing, then left.

Walking past the bedroom door the room was dark but we saw the outlines of bodies on both beds. The number of bodies in the kitchen looked to have shrunk a little, so the ones in bed were probably all female.

Back in the living room William was gone, Tom whispered we should be leaving soon. Tom seemed pretty sauced but in total control and his car was here. I think we both drank the same, about five beers each.

We kissed briefly and got up, located all our clothes and got dressed into our prom suits and left. I lead the way to his car holding his hand (after we were outside the hotel lobby).

We talked about him sleeping at our place. He agreed and with the greatest care we drove to my apartment. En-route he mentioned that one car followed us most of the way home. I told him I thought he should ignore it. We made it back to the apartment and an excited Great Dane. We walked Crow to the dog run, which was designed as a storm retention pond with a fence around it. But Crow only had to tolerate it for a short time. Crow seemed resigned to his fate not understanding why all these big changes took place. I'm sure he missed his big grassy back yard. However, I believe he enjoyed having other dog poops to sniff, which was the reason why God gave them the world's best nose.

While we were in bed Tom said he thought he knew who William was, he believed he was William Ford, his father owned Bill Ford Ford, the big truck-tractor dealership on I-40 on the east side. He said he'd seen him in TV commercials since he was a kid. I didn't recognize the face but I knew the name. I couldn't agree or disagree with Tom.

Tom spent the night and left the next morning after a short breakfast where we told Gram the G-rated version of the prom story that I'm sure she knew wasn't the entire story but she was willing to act pleased that everyone made it home safely.

Too bad my Mom never got to see me, she would have loved it. Crow sniffed the clothes before I put them back in my closet.

You can't sneak nuthin past the dog's nose!

Sunday I spent the morning relaxing and reading. I checked my email hourly. Gram and I had a conversation about the transition to college life and moving to the coast. We discussed me living in their guest bedroom until I could move into the apartment and found out exactly what would happen with Tom after graduation. There were still several weeks of school to go, a lot could change between now and then. She called Gramps to tell him about our talk. She had a way of convincing me her ideas were the best, I really trusted her advice. The more we talked the more I saw my Mom in her eyes and her voice. The main change she pushed was moving to Galveston as soon as possible instead of staying in Amarillo until the end of summer and moving when the thousands of other college students invaded Galveston.

I emailed Tom with the suggested plan and asked him to consider doing the same thing. Gram allowed for the possibility that I may eventually have a roomie and they were willing to accommodate two of us (and the dog) until the apartment was ready.

Talking to Tom about the move I got the impression that Maria had become less than supportive of him leaving her and he had to stay here until just before Labor Day weekend. That news crushed my heart for a few days but I understood. My biggest fear was once I left he'd meet another boy and his mother would convince him to go to community college here instead and become a part-owner in Stars eventually.

Sunday evening Tom emailed back saying he had another heated discussion with Management. She seemed to be in denial about him growing-up and moving away. He said he still needed to work on her and started talking about moving away at the diner in front of people so there would be peer pressure on her, maybe someone to model good parenting behavior for her to emulate.

School was like normal on Monday except the alternate prom was the big gossip topic on campus. I saw some fag graffiti on blackboards in some classrooms. Rumor was the alternate prom was better than theirs, but ours was twice the price of theirs and had no fights. Some kids said that halfway through the AHS prom the security guards left and that's when the gang shit started at a girls-only table.

I pretty much kept my mouth shut about prom and ignored anyone pretending to be my friend asking me if I went. I stayed mostly in the study cubes in the student commons reading and doing homework ahead of time and keeping a low profile.

Daniel and I ate lunch outside in the warm sunshine, I told him some of what happened at the keg party. He said there was a rumor going around the FBI was watching AHS because of me and I was a spy. I laughed and then both of us laughed, then he signed to me that maybe Crow was probably a Russian robot dog with cameras. We laughed and finished our school lunches (ham sandwich, grilled squash slices, and cottage cheese with a chocolate milk carton). Before we parted I corrected him and said it was Naval Intelligence and not the FBI watching AHS and he sat in silence not knowing if I was kidding, but I told him the absolute truth!

I rode the city bus back home from school since my tank was on E and I didn't have money left from my monthly allowance. One older guy on the bus kept staring at me, so I opened my history text book and pretended to read the rest of the way home. Inside the book I had one of the 4x6 photos of Tom in his shorts, Crow at his side on the beach in Galveston. I smiled at the photo and thought of how much I loved everything about both of them.

When I got home there was a police car parked beside mine and Gram looked upset about something. There were two officers leaving as I walked up.

Gram told me to sit down. She told me more of the toxicology reports came back on Mom. First, she explained what an autopsy was and why they were done. She said there was evidence that Mom was repeatedly poisoned and they had no suspects but were reviewing the security tapes and told us the local police patrols would resume like when she died and we might notice the surveillance but shouldn't pay any attention to it. We both sat in silence. I didn't know what to think but it made no sense to me, why would anyone want to kill (me or) my Mom? She said Mom was poisoned with tiny amounts of plutonium too, it was found in her lungs and bone marrow. Then she explained what it was and how someone might come in contact with it.

She showed me graphs of her white cell counts then it dropped very low and she started to lose red blood cells.

Gram also explained that there were a lot of atomic bomb tests done in Nevada and there were trace amounts of Plutonium all over the USA from testing and making bombs, it's one of the most poisonous substances on Earth. She said it usually doesn't kill quickly, but it's guaranteed to kill with an extremely tiny amount (smaller than a regular grain of sand).

Mom never said it but Gram did, she told me Mom designed MERV-type thermonuclear warheads for the Pentagon and worked with plutonium in the lab at work a few times a year. She said Pantex used to make those bombs but not really anymore because they're never used, so nobody runs out. The only thing companies like Pantex can do today is take the old nukes apart to make new-smaller-lighter versions. If a warhead gets damaged or tests faulty Pantex also repairs them.

Note: When the first hydrogen bomb was tested in November 1952 (Eniwetak Atoll) it was bigger than a U-haul truck. Before Lisa Davis graduated from college a hydrogen bomb was as big as a refrigerator. After her work at Pantex it was reduced to the size of a three gallon blue plastic water jug making it possible to destroy a medium size city with a suitcase size hydrogen-nuke. Most recent testing was done deep underground in Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, and California.

Next weekend was spring break, a four day weekend. Amarillo schools were not huge participants in spring break fever. The city was far enough south that we've already had warm weather since March. But we didn't have a beach to party at so the rich kids flew to Daytona Beach, but the smart ones went to Galveston instead. Galveston wasn't as raunchy as Daytona but had its share of nudity and drunken parties along the coast. The police usually didn't get involved as long as there were no injuries or property damage. The biggest share of college age people at spring break in Galveston came from Oklahoma and all the A&M campuses. The UT campus kids mostly went to Florida because their families were wealthier. That rivalry was highly visible during UT vs. A&M football games! The bad news was Tom said he couldn't go, he had to work.

I got permission to fly down (Thursday morning) to visit Gramps, the first time I boarded a plane by myself. I flew from Amarillo to Dallas and then to Galveston where Gramps was outside the airport in his Subaru 4WD station wagon, I recognized it right away. We drove downtown since I was nicely dressed, he introduced me to his friend the editor of the Galveston Daily News.

He handed me a copy of their intern brochure and told me to apply after I moved, and handed me his card. Then we went to the A&M campus where we met another guy Gramps knew who's the Dean of the School of Language Arts where the journalism students went. He toured us around that part of campus (near the OCSB Classroom Building) and urged me to consider their school. I told him I was already enrolled in the journalism school! After that we drove to a couple of the apartment complexes near the campus, and the one Gram already mailed a deposit. We looked at the grounds again, the laundry facilities, and the common areas. It looked sort of worn and like something buildings you'd expect to see in Soviet Russia or China. Gramps told me that 1950s-80s hurricane proof construction sort of looked that way around the Gulf.

We went inside the office and she pulled-up my application on her screen and changed the date to two days after graduation in mid-June. She said that would increase the chances of getting an apartment if I moved-in before the freshman rush on September 1st. She said there would be openings starting in June. After someone moved out they hired a service to re-new them inside so it took two days to get them ready for new occupants. They steam cleaned carpets, painted, and had a maid scrub everything, so it looked new-ish inside (Soviet outside).

We finally arrived at the Davis bunker on stilts. The place hadn't changed but now they had an electric chair lift installed on their outside stairs because of Gram's hips. Gramps said he only used it once in a while and it's great for hauling groceries to the top. I wondered what Crow would think, he might refuse to trust the stairs now. Either way it was a potential dog-problem. They had another stairway on the other end of the house but it was narrower and also wide open. The chair lift took up nearly 1/3 the width of the stairs. I asked Grandpa to not operate it when Crow was here. He said it had a 350lb lift capacity and moved slowly, maybe I could get the dog to sit on my lap and hold him all the way up. My comment to him was two words: `fat chance.' I told him Crow was very anti-machinery except for cars and freezers. I told him the dog wanted all four paws on solid un-moving ground all the time. Gramps said to never take him to Alaska.

After dinner we chilled out for a while, I went to bed early. I asked Gramps and he gave me permission to call Tom from the phone in my room. That was the very spot where I lost my virginity over Thanksgiving. We talked for about half an hour and even wanked together over the phone. We never did that before, but it was kinda hot. It only took me about two minutes to come.

One of the things I really liked about Tom was how open he was about sex. My mother taught me to not play with my penis, she told me masturbation was a sin. Then along came Tom and he was exactly the opposite. He boasted about wanking in front of anyone who wanted to see, and he was proud of his body and loved showing it off. I was embarrassed at letting people see my unusually large tits, my skinny pale arms, flat chest, and weird belly button lump. I hated gym showers and only ever discussed sex with Daniel. Like me, Dan was also shy about his petite/pale child-size body. Before Tom I treated semen like it was gross but Tom treated semen like an edible gift to be cherished and shared. To Tom semen = party time!

I fell asleep wondering how Dan was and where he was at the moment, probably in bed in his briefs with his hearing aids in the charger on his dresser.

Sunday I boarded my flight at 12:15pm. Before going to the airport Gramps spent time showing me how to navigate around Galveston, his favorite street shortcuts, and the two primary escape routes to the mainland. He drove us to a 16-story condo building on Seawall Boulevard, they had a little known observation deck on the roof and from up there on a clear day you could see downtown Houston. That was the best place to see the Spring Break crowds and the fastest routes off the island in case of a sudden severe storm.

Before we left the bunker he taught me how to crank the storm shutters down by hand in case we had to `abandon ship.' He said they've been closed twice since they moved there. He said they got a big tropical storm about every other year but hurricanes were in 1983 and 1989 and the house survived both just fine but their neighborhood got damage. He said their house was literally a bomb-proof above-ground shelter. He said the guy who designed and built it lived in it for five years and worked at the University Hurricane Research Center.

You cannot tell it's a concrete box on stilts on the outside, he said there were ten of them in that part of town. Technically they are outside the city limits of Galveston because they were west of the airport.

I asked him if he was home alone and cranked his stereo up really high could the neighbors hear it. Grandpa laughed loudly and said no, they can't. I could almost picture him hanging out the dining area window smoking a joint with the stereo playing Led Zeppelin while Gram was getting her hair tinted silvery-blue.

Gram picked me up at the airport Sunday because Tom was at work. We hugged and had a long talk about my trip but I started to feel like she already talked to him after I left the island and he told her everything that happened! Possibly the biggest step was the contact with the apartment complex and changing my arrival date, moving it ahead by two and a half months. My next step was to wait for their letter that the unit would be available at some date. Gramps had me change my address (for the apartment office) to theirs and use him as an emergency contact.

School Monday was like any other day. I got a note from the office during lunch that I could test early for all my classes. It included the time, date, and location. It was the same place across the street from Caprock High School like I did after the funeral. Testing early would get me out of school three weeks early. It would allow us to move earlier and me to find a job in Galveston before the school year ended statewide and the best intern jobs suddenly disappeared. While I was in Galveston Gramps suggested a couple places to apply. One was a photo studio that also did contract work for the newspaper and all the schools.

Tom and I talked by email and phone during the week. We spent Saturday night (again) sitting in his car, this time we used the mall hospital lot. He picked that spot because the lighting wasn't working. I suggested we should start a web site with the best places to park in Galveston, to make out in the car.

I got printouts from all my teachers what chapters would be covered in finals. I gave it to Gram, so we spent that night making a checklist of everything I had to study and what I needed to review to pass finals with all A's. We got it all in writing that day and started working on the list, she said it was like a recipe for success. Gram helped as I reviewed for tests. We set up my computer on the dining table and turned it into homework central while I got all my homework assignments done for the rest of the year, and handed-in (Gram checked each one first). My writing class had a paper due but no actual final exam. Gram reviewed it for me and had me fix a few things and re-order two paragraphs and explained why.

Tom was still working on his mother and reported some improvement. He said instead of her screaming mad in Spanish now they discussed plans for visiting relatives in Galveston, and job possibilities there too. Tom didn't know much about my trust fund, except that it existed. We still didn't know the exact amount of Mom's estate because the sale of some investments and other things were still pending. And now with the news of a possible murder investigation money was the farthest thing from my mind.

We just lived a simple quiet life in a small two bedroom apartment along a busy street in south central Amarillo. I'd give it all up to get Mom back.

To be bluntly honest Gram told me that for murder investigations the immediate family is always on the suspect list, so I should be prepared to answer some questions, but it was not personal, they're just being thorough.

Life slowly got better, but not so much for Crow. My life was centered on schoolwork, reading, and trying to find time to spend with Tom. Crow had sort of faded into the background but he was very close with Gram now since she was usually the one who fed him when he asked. He trained Gram to feed him on command, which was usually late in the morning.

Gram also started trying to walk the dog with the long leash. Our apartment is near an elementary school and they all know Gram because she wrote most science textbooks used in schools across Texas. One day she saw the playground was full of kids at recess so she put the leash on Crow and walked him over and introduced herself. Her name is on the front of millions of textbooks in Texas, she promised Crow was professionally trained and fantastic with little kids, he loved the attention.

She said the first time she walked to the playground she introduced herself and the teacher watching the playground said her name sounded very familiar! So she explained who she really was and why she was in Amarillo and who owned the dog.

I know this sounds dumb but we usually didn't fill his bowl and leave it sit around all day, because his dog food would get stale and it's too expensive to throw away. So we let him ask for dog food. I also made progress getting most leftovers put in his bowl instead of the refrigerator where they eventually turned moldy and got tossed.

Write the author: borischenaz mailfence

Note to readers: By now the memories of Lisa Davis are starting to fade as Robert had to become a homework machine. His grandmother tried to make it fun to spend all evening with her at the kitchen table reviewing stuff he hasn't even covered in class yet.

Tom and Daniel started to fade into the background and Crow felt a little bit unwanted with all this focus on finishing his last semester of high school almost a month early. Gram wanted to get them back to Galveston early for the best possible summer jobs. Plus both of them knew they were at some risk living in Amarillo from the same people who poisoned Lisa and stabbed Tom.

Robert's grandmother uses the homework assignments to decide what to review to take the place of missing weeks of classroom time. When Leslie Davis first called his principal she was told what she is attempting has never successfully been done before at AHS. Six days a week, all evening after dinner they spent hours at the kitchen table reading, discussing, and reviewing. She verbally quizzed him over and over until he answered questions from the text book without any mistakes, plus he understood why those answers were correct.

Slowly, day by day the list of stuff to cover got shorter and shorter until Gram decided he was probably ready to take finals.

Reminder: everything in this book is fictional, none of it is real, none of it happened.

Author's note: George Michael actually died on Christmas Day, 2016, at age 53.