Chapter 17
Even though Eddie always seemed to be subtly testing the waters with every guy he met, other than going to the GLBT club meetings we were cautious about doing things in public that smacked of the truth of our orientation. It's not that I'm all that concerned anymore with what anyone might think or say if they were to find out -- I'm good with being gay now. As long as Eddie's by my side, I could give a rat's tail about what anyone else thinks about me -- about us. It's just that there's no point in some macho jock with the IQ of a frog finding out. Those are the people I'm seriously afraid of. They are such idiots. Even if Phil's way of cleansing the world of gay people works about as well as nature's perfect human specimen's way, at least Phil's way is non-violent.
"That Dillon Westfield guy," Eddie told me at school one day, "can get major air off the top of the pipe. He's pretty cool, but you should've been there when he saw two guys getting a little friendly with each other. He pretended like he was jamming his finger down his throat and gagging. It was all I could do to keep from grabbing Phil and sticking my tongue down throat just to watch what the guy would do. Let me tell you, ése, that boy's got problems."
I rolled my eyes and shook my head, thinking how funny it would have been if my man would have done that. Then I noticed Phil in the background, listening -- and turning three shade of purple -- so I shot Eddie a stare to remind him that I didn't approve of him saying stuff like that about Phil.
Being grounded was a pretty boring... make that an extremely boring two weeks. Mom made me remove the power cord from my computer so she could hide it. I didn't even know she knew that you could take the power cord off a computer. I tried to get dad to make her not do it, but he just shrugged his shoulders as she shoved it and my cell phone in her handbag. Now I can't even "borrow" them back when she's not home. We don't have a land telephone line, so without my cell phone and computer, all I can do to kill time is watch TV and daydream about being with Eddie. I can't believe how much I miss being with him.
"Let's go Christmas shopping tonight," I suggested to Eddie on the last day of my sentence.
Eddie kind of surprised me by the way he asked "It's been two weeks already?" It kind of made me wonder if he hadn't even missed me. Later that day he caught me alone and proved to me that he had.
"I wan' to take you out to Sutton's for dinner, then we're gonna go back to my place. My parents are going away for the night," he whispered to me as he tickled my ear with his tongue.
Oh my gosh. Sutton's! That's the place where dad says dessert costs more than a whole meatloaf dinner at Hazel's. "Awesome," was all that came out of my mouth though.
Friday after dinner, we were killing some time in Shirley's Closet, which my mom calls a "cutesy shop." I guess the clerk saw Eddie standing against me and looking over my shoulder at the snow scene globe that I had just shaken, because she smiled at us, and asked, "The two of you wouldn't happen to be a couple would you? You look so cute together."
I think even my toes must have turned red. I had no idea we were that obvious. Eddie's squeeze and kiss on my cheek made my face feel even hotter.
"Just roll with it," he told me, taking my hand in his as we left. I let him lead me next door to Driscol's Fine Jewelry. Spying him eyeing up a pair of amber ear studs that matched the color of his eyes, I knew on the spot what I was going get him for Christmas. He picked up a gold chain necklace with a kind of an elongated heart pendant fastened right in the chain and looked at it thoughtfully. I hoped that if he got it for me, it would have our names engraved on it.
A clock chimed the half hour, which seemed to prompt Eddie to hand the necklace back to the jeweler, and whisper in my ear: "It's eight-thirty, ése. My parents should be leaving the house by now to go to their party."
"I know where they keep the key to the liquor cabinet," Eddie whispered, as he quietly opened the door to his house and pulled me inside. We found his brother watching a movie in the home theater downstairs, and his sisters watching TV in their bedroom. It was exactly what we were hoping for. Sweet!
Eddie poured a generous glass of cognac for each of us.
"Oh my god, Alex, I missed lovin' on you so much.
We were both dizzy with lust before we took even one sip of our drinks.
I wished I could have spent the entire night in Eddie's arms, but the last thing I wanted was to get grounded again, so at eleven forty-five, we headed for the car. To my way of thinking, we had had an awesome day together. I don't think Eddie felt quite the same as me, because I knew he wanted something from me that I was scared to give him.
Eddie pulled into the driveway to my house at exactly eleven fifty-eight. He was finally smiling again when he grabbed my arm as I was about to open the car door.
"Alex, I almost forgot. There's this club in Trenton that has an alcohol free teen night once a month. They're having one on Friday the 29th. Want to go? We'll have to stay overnight at the hotel across the street, because I can't drive after midnight on my Junior Drivers License."
"Awesome!" I told him as I leaned over for a goodnight kiss.
I got up early on Saturday morning to ask dad. Mom always slept in on the weekend and I knew if I asked when she was up, she'd say no without even listening to what I was asking.
"You two are a little young to be going to a dance club."
"But there's this place that's having an alcohol free, teen night on the twenty-ninth of December, and... well, Eddie like asked if I could go there with him. Can I?"
"May I."
"May you what?"
"It's may I go', not can I go'... anyway, If you're sure that it's only going to be teens, and no alcohol, then I don't see why you couldn't take a couple of girls to a dance -- as long as you're in by midnight."
"Dad, the club's in Trenton. We'd need to get a hotel for the night... and... and we're not taking any girls."
"Why do you have to go all the way to Trenton to dance? Isn't there some place closer, like a school dance or something that you could go to?"
"Dad, I can't dance with... you know, I couldn't dance with him at a school dance -- I mean think about it."
"Then why don't you just get over it, and dance with girls like every other boy on the planet does!?! Why do you have to make life so difficult for us, and for yourself, by getting messed up with all that gay crap?! I don't know. I'll have to talk with your mother first."
"Dad" I pleaded, "there's nothing to get over. Can't you just say yes, and then cover for me this once. I promise there won't be any alcohol. You can check it out on their website," I told him as I gave him a slip of paper with the web address of the announcement on it. "It's a completely safe place for teens -- It says so, right on the ad. That's why they have it; so parents don't have to worry about their kids getting into trouble."
"I said I'll think about it, Alex. I swear, sometimes I think your mother must have dropped you on your head when you were a baby."
Over the next two weeks before Winter Holiday, I had gotten to know Dillon. He was such a comedian. He was always trying to make us crack up. The time we cracked up the worst, though, was when he wasn't even playing a joke.
Eddie and I had just gone through the half pipe. Eddie had gotten air for the first time -- and landed it. I was so amazed at how quickly he was getting the hang of skateboarding. Well when he came out of the pipe, I held up both my hands to meet Eddie's, and as we swung our arms in an arc down to our sides, instead of bumping our chests together, like most guys do, we kissed on the lips. It wasn't like a porno kiss or anything, it was just a quick little one. You should have heard Dillon squawking.
"Oh my gosh, Phil. Tell me that they didn't just kiss each other on the lips. That is like, so not cool."
Eddie and I both turned and watched as Dillon just stared at us for a while, and then he started squawking to Phil again.
"I can't believe they just did that. Oh my freakin' god, Phil, Eddie and Alex are homos. I'm gonna puke!" His voice kept getting louder and louder as he spoke.
"Whoa. Chill, man. So they like each other. What's wrong with that?" Phil asked.
Dillon looked stunned when he heard Phil say that. So much so that Phil must have felt the need to over-explain what he meant. He's good at that. "I mean, think about it Dillon. They're just two guys who happen to, you know... like they like each other in a different way than most guys do."
Dillon still looked at him like he couldn't believe Phil was okay with two guys kissing each other on the lips. Then he went off again. It was so hilarious.
"That's what I just said -- they're homos. What part of that word don't you understand?" I couldn't tell if Phil was going to crack up or if he just didn't know what to say, but he had a sort of weird look on his face. Dillon looked like he was gonna lose it.
"Please, Phil, don't tell me you're one too? Man, this is freaking me out. I am like so outta here. Please tell me you're straight, Phil."
"Relax a little, okay?" Phil finally told him. "I'm not gay if that's what you're worried about. But I do understand how they feel."
I don't know if the look on Dillon's face was that of astonishment, or of horror after Phil's words sunk into his head.
"If... if you can understand how they feel, then you must at least be bi, `cause them doin' that with each other, sure doesn't register on my radar screen. I'm thinkin' that maybe you'd better stay the heck away from me, Phil."
Looking back to me and Eddie, who was now holding my hand, Dillon turned to Phil again and then started to back up. He looked like he was totally ready to jet. Eddie and I just stood there and listened. I knew, from the things Phil had shared with me, where he stood on the subject, but I had also been wondering just how far he'd go when it came to defending gay people's rights. This seemed like the perfect opportunity.
"Dillon," he said, rather calmly, "let me say something before you go." Dillon stopped moving away, but he looked really nervous.
"Having feelings for someone that you can't help having doesn't make a person bad."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, what made your tongue practically fall out of your mouth the first time you saw Susan Shaffer?"
"How should I know. But the fact that she's a girl may have had something to do with it for crying out loud."
"Right, but what if she wasn't?"
"Wasn't what?"
"A girl. What if she was a guy and you couldn't help it if you felt like that for her anyway?"
"Dude, you are making absolutely no sense. In the first place, she's not a guy. And in the second place, if she was, I wouldn't have been interested."
"That's my point," Phil told him like he had just hit the lottery jackpot. "What if you couldn't help it that you were interested in her even if she was a guy?"
"I'd probably shoot myself in the head."
"That is so not funny, Dillon. Don't you know that's what happens to a lot of gay kids when they figure out it's not going to go away?"
Dillon thought that one through before answering. "I guess so, but that stuff still makes me want to puke."
"I'm kinda glad for that," Phil told him. "Can I be honest with you without you getting mad?"
Dillon just kind of looked at Phil warily. I honestly think he thought Phil was gonna tell him he had the hots for him or something.
"I don't think it really matters a whole lot who a person's attracted to since God's Word says that Christians aren't supposed to be doing certain stuff until they're married anyway."
"You have a weird way of looking at things," Dillon told Phil matter-of-factly.
"Maybe that's because I have to. I'm not like you, Dillon. At times I guess I kind of have a little trouble with my thought life even though I believe God'll eventually change it. Since Alex and Eddie apparently aren't trying to do things God's way, my dad told me I should try and find a straight friend. That maybe having someone who wasn't likely to fall into the same trap as me, could help me to avoid some of the things I don't really want to do. As soon as dad told me that, I remembered seeing you at school with your skateboard, and figured since you were new here, you might want some friends.
"It was so cool the way Susan passed us while we were talking that first time. I figured that the Lord had led me to the right guy, when you went gah-gah over her, `cause I had no idea how I was going to ask you about that subject.
"Anyway, things worked out, and we all think you're a totally cool guy."
Dillon looked back at Eddie and me. We were still holding hands. He just shook his head, and then turned and slugged Phil on the arm.
"Just don't get any ideas."
"You don't have to worry about me if you're gonna cream my arm like that. In fact, you can do that to me any time you see me staring at them...or anyone, for that matter. I don't want to lose any friends, but I don't want to mess up either."
I whispered to Eddie, "I'd say he's already messed up if he doesn't want this," just before I kissed him again.