The usual disclaimers apply - ie. no reading this if you're not of age to read it, and no peeking at this if you can't stand gay people (which would bring to mind the question of what the hell you're doing reading this anyway).
Shameless plug alert: I've also written another story, titled "Cameron". Go look. :)
All questions etc can be directed to dcross1@home.com
September 10, 1992
4:30 PM
Shane paused at the front doorstep of his parents' house to check the mailbox. Nothing. He unlocked the door and went inside, swiping the phone book off the table in the process of darting to his bedroom. He closed the door and began paging through for a certain last name.
Shane placed the phone base beside him on the bed, and prepared to punch the 7-digit number. After a moment's hesitation, he did so, knowing that the worst-case scenario was that he'd get hung up on.
The phone at the other end was picked up. "Hello?" A woman's voice.
"Yes, hello... um, could I talk to David, please?"
"Just a second." He heard a distant shout. "David! Telephone!"
"I got it, Mom." Shane heard a clunk as the other phone was hung up. "Yo, who's calling?"
"David?"
"Yer talkin' to him. Who is it?"
"Shane. I've got the locker next to you."
"Oh, that Shane! What's your number? I gotta call you back on a secure phone line."
"HUH?"
"A secure phone line."
"But why?"
"Pal, where I come from, you keep your cards close to your chest or you don't play. What's your number?"
Shane told him.
"10 seconds. Don't go away." click
Sure enough, barely 10 seconds later, his phone rang.
"Yo, Shane?"
"Yes, this is him."
"Whee. Ok, I'm on my personal phone line, which has one jack in this whole house and only one jack. No one'll pick up the phone and nobody's gonna walk in on me unless I know about it."
"Damn, you're paranoid!" Jesus, but this David Conway was freaking him out a bit about how cloak-and-dagger he was getting.
"Yeah well, I'm surprised YOU'RE not the one insisting on 100% privacy in this conversation."
"I wasn't exactly thinking..."
"Start thinking. Your cover's blown the instant you compromise your privacy for any reason. Lemme guess, one phone line only?"
"Uh... what do you mean?"
"You don't have your own phone line? On a different number than your parents'?"
"No, just an extension."
"In the future, we do all this face to face or when your parents are guaranteed to not be around. Ok?"
Shane was beginning to get a little irritated at the lecture he was getting. Who was this paranoid fart?
"Look, I think you're getting a little too paranoid--"
"ME?! You're the one who should be paranoid, man. If I were you, I'd be working on 10 ways from Sunday to do this all in code without any indication to anyone that anything unusual was going on." David paused for a moment, and then resumed. His tone was slightly less hectoring. "Shit. I should have realized not everyone thinks like I do. Sorry about that."
"Where do you get that talent anyway?"
"Not important. Anyway, lookit. You wanna talk about this face to face?"
Shane hesitated. The phone was like a comfortable barrier that let him separate himself from the revelation of his identity. At the same time, he had, after all, asked if he had permission to discuss the subject. And in all honesty, he wanted to talk about it some more, and a face to face discussion was better.
The thought of enduring another evening with his father suddenly became very unattractive... "Ok, can we do this after supper?"
"Sure. Meet me at the school, 7 o'clock tonight."
"What if I can't make it?"
"Call me on the number you got out of the phone book, and when you get hold of me, just say the one word 'finished', and hang up. I'll figure out why when the time is appropriate."
"Ok, gotta go. I just heard the door close."
"Seeya." click
Shane stopped for a second to catch his breath, literally, after the fast back-and-forth tempo of a phone conversation with this strange guy. Paranoid, yet at the same time oddly accepting of the fact that Shane was gay, and unyielding in his insistence (unstated, but present in the phone call) that Shane be protected from the danger of being outed before he was ready.
Supper proved to be relatively ordinary. Shane's father and mother stayed engrossed in a conversation all through supper about the upcoming speech that would be made at the church about the dangers of atheism. The irony was so thick Shane could have cut it with a knife. He himself questioned the existence of God inside and outside the rafters of a place that, at least in name, was identified as God's house of worship.
Having put his dish and cutlery in the dishwasher, Shane turned back to his parents.
"Mom? Dad?"
They looked at him inquisitively. For a brief second, Shane imagined himself in the Star Chamber, that top-secret panel of judges in Great Britain centuries ago who were accountable to no one, passed judgements arbitrarily and from which there was no appeal. The Star Chamber was eventually dissolved, however; what that historical parallel meant in Shane's own life was not yet settled.
"I have to go to the library to get a couple of books I can't find in the school's library - it's about this essay I'm doing on Lord of the Flies."
His father's bass voice boomed out. "You can go, but you know the rules. Be back by 10!"
Shane nodded, hardly daring to show any sign of relief at the sudden dispensation with the inquisition by his parental Star Chamber. He gathered his books, slung his backpack over his shoulder and made his way out to his car. He had a mission to accomplish.
7:00 PM
David spoke first. "Kinda weird, being at school after school."
"Yeah, tell me about it."
"Ok, we're here, whaddya want to talk about?"
"Well, about the fact that I'm gay, I guess."
"I figured that. You wouldn't have called me otherwise, and I'd have been mildly surprised if you had actually just needed help with physics homework." David grinned.
"And how would you have known I wasn't the type to need help with physics?"
"Maybe I just guessed." Smartass.
Shane paused, unsure how to ask the next question. Finally, he just plowed ahead. "Um, are you--"
"Gay? First, that's not important. Second, even if I was, somehow I think I wouldn't be your type."
Shane stumbled on his words for a second. "B-but..."
"Relax, you don't need to lie to save my ego, since it's undamaged. It's just that I think you are interested in someone. Don't ask me what gives me that impression, cuz I couldn't tell you. Kind of irritating for a scientist like me, actually. We're supposed to be able to put something on a scale, weigh it, poke it, prod it, and from all that and more, elucidate ourselves and the world about whatever that something is."
"What are you trying to say?"
David sighed. "You think that quantum mechanics stuff the other Dave and I talk about fries your noodle? Try this on for size: the fact that you are in love with someone is, according to some people, yours truly included, nothing more than your interpretation of various electrochemical phenomena in your brain cells."
"That's bizarre."
"Tell me about it. That reductionistic viewpoint isn't popular for a lot of reasons, the primary one being that humans refuse to believe that they are just walking bags of chemicals that have the unique ability to ask themselves why they happen to be a particular walking bag of chemicals. Evolution - that god of natural selection, my friend, has blessed and cursed our race with the ability to manipulate our world with more sureness and exactness than any other species, while at the same time giving us the ability to question the reality of our own existence and to seek reasons beyond the power of rational explanation for why we're here."
"Jeez, man, don't get all profound on me! I'm just trying to deal with telling other people about me!"
"I was saying all that to make a point. You, my inquisitive comrade, are in the blessed or cursed position, depending on who's evaluating the situation, of questioning the logic behind your desire for this other guy, as well as telling the world what you are. But let me bring us backwards one step. Do you fully accept that you, Shane Wilson, are a homosexual?"
"Well, yeah. I only spent 3 years turning it over in my head!"
"That's one hurdle out of the way. At least you accept who and what you are. Now the next step is making everybody else see the logic of that. But there's something I'm dying to know. Who is he?"
"Robin Peterson." The words were overlaid with a sense of wonder and longing; even the densest person would have been able to understand; the tone was as old as time itself - the conveyance of desire, not of the physical realm, but of the emotional realm.
"I'm no expert, but he sure isn't hideous, from what I know of him. Lemme ask you another question. How do you know he's gay at all?"
Shane was struck dumb. He had no ready answer. "I'll be honest. I don't know. But I wish... I just WISH he was!"
"Why do you like him?"
"Huh?"
"It's not hard. What do you see in him?"
"Well... um... shit. I dunno, I can't put it into words that easily."
"C'mon. Everybody's got something to like about the object of their affection."
Shane couldn't help but grin as he pictured Robin in his mind: "Those soft brown eyes, the way his hair's all curly, his beautiful face, even his hands. And the outfits he wears - I don't know if he even knows how he does it, but he wears just the right things all the time!"
Shane looked over at David, who was pretending to gag, and punched him lightly on the shoulder. "Hey! Stop that!"
David looked back and started laughing. After a bit, he settled down and said, "Such mawkish sentimentality. I'm going to have to bring my barf-bag if I see you two together." He stuck his tongue out to show he was just joking and went on. "Ok, you like him, you're attracted to him, and so on. Assume for the moment he is gay. What makes you think he'll like you the same way?"
"I could swear he was returning the looks I was giving him in English class. We're right next to each other in Mrs. Johnstad's class."
David's raised eyebrows were enough.
"Don't ask me, man. It was probably just coincidence because the seating assignments were set in stone the first day."
"If you ask me, I suggest deeper forces at work." David's poker face was unsuccessful as a smile began tugging on his lips.
"Deeper forces, my ass."
"Never mind your ass. Question: Do you believe in God?"
"No. And why the subject change?"
"Just curious. I've heard a bit about your Dad. Had to ask."
Shane groaned inwardly as he realized that his father was probably the butt of jokes among some of the freethinkers in his school. "Well, he's my Dad, not much I can do about it."
"Yeah, true. Still and all, you're going to have to prove for yourself whether or not Robin is gay, and you're going to have to find out whether or not he wants to get into your pants."
Shane looked shocked for a second, then rallied and replied with, "Maybe he'll want to get into YOUR pants if he sees you!"
Darn. Couldn't faze that guy. "Nope, he won't want to get into my pants. They wouldn't fit him. One size too big."
"All kidding aside, I think I'll write him an anonymous note."
"Awwwww."
"You do that again and I'll hurt you."
"No fair! I have no loved one to save me!" David pretended to be scared of Shane's threatened stoppage of his acerbic wit.
"Puh-leeze. What's his locker number?"
"Um, shouldn't you have already found THAT out? I ain't the one trying to tackle him, ya know."
"So sue me, I'm new to this game."
"Be quick, or the ref's gonna blow his whistle."
"Who's the ref, buddy boy?"
"Me. And if I have to, I'll just shove you at him in the hallway." David winked slyly and grinned like the Cheshire Cat.
"You do that and I'll have to retaliate."
"You and what army, eh?"
"Maybe I'll just splash you with water when you least expect it."
"Ooooooooo. There's a threat. Never know when the rain might fall indoors."
Shane stopped for a second and marvelled at the ease of the back-and-forth repartee he was having. He didn't have many friends; he wasn't a social kind of guy, by and large. But the ease with which the conversation seemed to flow, coupled with the mutual understanding of Shane's "condition", if you could call it that, served to heighten Shane's feeling that he had probably made a new friend.
He realized suddenly that time had passed. "Dave, have you got a watch? What time is it?!"
"Yeah.. um, holy shit. 10 after 9!"
"Wow. I've gotta get back soon. Look, thanks for the conversation. You've helped me sort a few things out, I think."
"Thanks also. Mind if I get the summary of your thought-sorting?"
"Well, I like Robin - it's not just a 'phase' or a crush; I'm not afraid to tell people I'm gay if they ask me, but I'll play it safe for now; I'm going to tell my Dad and Mom the day I graduate and move out of here, AND I'm going to enjoy changing their world!"
"Evil man."
Shane arched his eyebrows. "I don't recall you being all that angelic yourself, mister."
David looked mock-offended. "Oh really? And what have I done?"
"You swore."
"Oh, is that all?"
"Yes, that's all."
"Meanie."
At that, both of them simultaneously broke up laughing. A minute later, they were calmed down enough to say their goodbyes.
"Ok, Dave. I gotta hit the road. Dad's really strict about being back by 10 o'clock."
"Ok. Seeya tomorrow, Shane."
The two shook hands and parted.
That ends part 5.