Turnabout

Here is the second chapter of the second series of Turnabout. Of course, it will make very little sense unless you've read through the first series, all of which is on the Nifty Archive (to whom much thanks).

As always, I encourage the response of my readers. You can reach me at cgalt08@yahoo.ca

The usual disclaimer: the subject is love between men. If you should not be here, then go away.

-Two-

As I dressed the next morning, I had no idea how I was going to face up to the day. The exhaustion I'd come home with seemed to be still with me. I dragged through everything I did, getting more and more seriously late. I finally slammed everything together and charged out of the house. Not only was I not prepared to face either Josh or Will again, neither was I prepared for something as mundane as schoolwork now seemed to be. My head's contents, should anyone have cared to examine them, were nothing more than Styrofoam shipping peanuts. And precious few of them.

I skidded into first class, Mr. Rosenblatt's English, just as the bell began to ring. He looked over at me for a few seconds, seeming to assess what he saw. I had enough memory of what had passed between us yesterday to watch his reaction. A small frown appeared, nothing more than a small compression between the eyes, but I understood that he had seen I was still in trouble. Great. Now he's going to find a way to get on my case, I thought. Why can't people leave me alone? A night of tossing and turning had done nothing to improve my irritability.

He transferred the frown, which grew heavier, to the open books on his desk. Then he reached out and slowly closed them, one after another. There was an almost perceptible lurch as he shifted gears, and he was stumbling badly as he began to speak to us.

"I... ah... I want to... to try something a little different today," he announced. There were a few twitches of surprise. One of the things we could be sure of about Rosenblatt was his utter dependability. He took great pains to tell us, every few weeks, exactly what the plan was for the next little while--what we were going to be reading, what sort of work he would be asking us to do, how we would be evaluated on it, all that stuff. He absolutely never suddenly decided to "try something different".

We waited. He seemed to be groping for his next remarks, but he quickly steadied and went on more firmly. "We've been spending some time with the essay as it appeared in 18th century England and developed through the 19th and 20th centuries. As you know, in its modern form it can cover a wide range of topics from the personal viewpoint to the broadly political and societal. In spite of the breadth of topic, the basic form of any essay remains the same."

He went on to review the details of the essay form, taking care to emphasize its purpose of persuading the reader to a point of view. "In some ways," he went on, "the essay can be seen as a means of clarifying thought. Not only the thinking of the reader, but in many cases the thinking of the author. There are several examples of essays in which the author can be clearly seen to be working out some problem, some situation, for his own benefit. The finished product thus becomes only secondarily an attempt to persuade someone else to a point of view."

I was riveted. What was Rosenblatt trying to do?

"So, for this class, I'm going to ask you to do this: think of a situation in which you have had difficulty in sorting out your thinking. This could be something which has occurred in the past, or which is going on in your life right now."

Click. My God. Could it actually be that Rosenblatt was trying...

"I want you to write this by yourself to yourself. You and you alone are the audience. But you must treat yourself as a third person. You must attempt to place the argument before this third person in such away that, were an actual third person to read this essay, he or she would understand exactly what the situation is and what your thought process is. Thinking of yourself as another person altogether could make this easier. I will not be asking to see this work. If you would like to show it to me, I will of course be happy to read it and comment on it. This exercise will, I think, help you greatly in the essay assignment you will actually be handing in to me at a later date."

There were a few questions, and then the class settled in to work. I could actually see mental wheels spinning around me as people tried to get a grip on this very different kind of challenge. I was watching them only because I had no desire to start myself. After what I'd gone through on the long walk from Josh's, after the painful talk with Will, I didn't know if I had the strength to do what Rosenblatt had asked of us.

My gaze dropped to the blank paper in front of me. In spite of my reluctance, ideas began to form. OK, it's an exercise, I said to myself. An intellectual exercise. This is about someone else. A third person. Not me.

Ideas came slowly, then fast, then faster. Rosenblatt had been circling around the room, stopping here and there to talk quietly with someone. Now I was aware that he was coming up the aisle behind me. I tensed. He came up beside me. His hand dropped to my shoulder, gave it a quick, gentle squeeze, then he moved on.

My pen hit the paper, and I began to write. Words flowed, sometimes almost faster than I could get them down onto the paper. My fingers cramped around the pen. The only thing that gave me relief was when I stopped to consider how to move onto the next section. I clung tenaciously to the thought that this was nothing more than an intellectual exercise, an almost clinical examination of something that really had nothing to do with me at all. Weird how I could actually take me out of me. I was writing about myself, about Will, about Josh, but somehow it didn't have the desperation, the bitterness, the anxiety, the helplessness of yesterday's whirling mind.

Putting words down on paper focused my thoughts. It slowed the mad rush of emotions, forcing me to consider the chain of reasoned argument I was building. The ache in my cramped fingers matched the ache which still persisted in the arm I had smashed against the wall the previous evening. Words continued to flow. I was still writing when the bell sounded. The usual mad rush from the classroom ensued. I slowly unclamped my fingers from my pen, stretching them out, then stretched out my arm, trying to relieve the stiffness of the muscles.

Rosenblatt sat at his desk, turning the pages of a book. I stood and put my notebook into my backpack, then moved up toward the door, stopping beside his desk. He looked up at me. "Thank you," I said. "That was good."

"I'm glad. I can only hope it has helped."

"I think it will. It's not done yet, and I want to work on it some more. But that trick of being a third person--that was really something."

"It does work. I have done it myself. It's effective even if you are talking to other people who are concerned in the situation."

"Yeah, I know what you mean. You get so caught up..."

"Precisely. Well, your next class awaits, I think?"

"Yeah, right! Thanks again, Mr. Rosenblatt!"

"You're entirely welcome, Mr. Preston."

I stepped out into the hall, and right away the 'me' which had been pushed to one side for the last little while slammed back into this me. I immediately checked to see if there was any sign of either Josh or Will. There wasn't. What was going to happen when I did see them? I wasn't particularly keen on the idea. The process I'd just gone through was for me (yeah, but which me?) and wasn't concluded. I sure didn't have a conclusion for either one of them.

I went to class. On second thought, scuttled to class would be a more accurate description. Fearing to come across either Will or Josh also kept me away from people who were now willing to talk to me. I was getting some strange looks. Shit, I thought. I might just as well go right back to being the loner jerk I was before.

Oddly enough, history and math class helped too. In history, we were into my absolutely favorite part, Elizabethan England. Of course, that had to do with the fact that I'm nuts about Shakespeare. Yeah, I know. But once you get into it, it says stuff. Lots of stuff. And if thou lik'st it not, get thee hence. In math class, Ms. Seymour picked right up from where she'd left off, and I found myself engaged in a way I hadn't been until that experience yesterday. Jeez, I thought, if this keeps up I might actually get to like this stuff. A consummation devoutly to be wished?

But then it was lunch. Danger time. For a moment, I thought about taking off. In the mad rush of getting ready this morning, lunch had been the last thing on my mind, and I certainly hadn't stopped to make anything for it. I could have gone out, except that the school was kind of far from anyplace where I could get something to eat. No Vito's today, I thought wryly. So it was the cafeteria or nothing, and since I also hadn't stopped long enough to eat breakfast, nothing was not an option I cared for.

So it was down to the cafeteria. I got into the line, for once not very long so there was no danger of my fainting away from hunger. There was, however, a danger from sudden shock when Will came up behind me and said, "David."

I turned suddenly, digging the corner of the tray I was holding into the back of the girl in front of me. "Ow!" she screamed in a loud voice. I whipped back toward her, ready to apologize all over myself. That quick movement caught her whipping around to see who had hit her, and her tray connected with my still-sore arm, which suddenly became much sorer.

We stood still, finally, each moaning and clutching at the injured part of our respective anatomies. I thought she was being a trifle theatrical about it. I mean, I couldn't have hurt her that much. Next thing I knew, she'd have her personal injury lawyer knocking on my door. We finally sorted out the apologies, and she resumed her miffed progress toward food. I turned, slowly, back to Will.

"You certainly seem to have an effect on people," he said. I couldn't tell if was trying to be funny or not. I just kept rubbing my arm. "Listen," he continued. "Do you think we could talk?"

"Sure." I wasn't actually sure what more we could talk about, but it was an overture. I certainly wasn't going to turn it down.

We each got food. My choices were automatic and unthinking. I didn't even know what I'd gotten until we sat down at a table in a relatively quiet corner, by ourselves.

Will didn't waste any time starting to talk. His fork hovered over the food, but his eyes were intently on me. "David, I need you to believe this. I don't now, and I didn't before, think of you as just..." He paused to look around, checking if anyone was listening. "... just someone to have sex with." He swallowed hard. "I've thought about that talk in the park, and then the one... yesterday afternoon... in the bathroom." He was obviously uncomfortable thinking about them.

"I finally figured out what I must have sounded like," he continued, "but I guess that all came from being... well... terrified. Not knowing what was going on, but knowing that something was. And it was something that seemed to be taking you away from me, and I felt absolutely helpless to do anything about it."

All this was being delivered with a quiet intensity, nerves strained to catch any sign of anyone overhearing. I was worried about that too.

"Look, Will," I said. "What say we just hold off for a couple of minutes, get this stuff eaten, then head outside? It looks pretty decent out." In fact, the sun was shining brightly, and although the walk to school had been slightly chilly, it looked as though things had warmed up considerably since then. It might be quite nice up the hill under the trees.

Will agreed, and we raced through the cafeteria slop. We charged off to our lockers, grabbed our coats, and were outside heading for the trees. Without even consulting each other we just naturally moved to our traditional spot.

I sat down against the trunk, remembering vividly the first conversation we'd had there. It seemed so long ago, but it was only a couple of weeks. The really terrifying thing about all this was how quickly things could change. Will: a lover, then a monster, and now: what? Josh: a monster, then a lover, and now: what? And me? That's what the essay exercise was all about figuring out. But it was Will's turn first.

"David, what's going to happen?" was the rather surprising question which came out of his mouth almost as soon as he sat down.

It would have been very easy, not to mention true, to answer, "How the hell am I supposed to know?" but I didn't. I took the time to think about what he'd asked, and why he'd asked it. I finally said, "Why do you think I would know?"

"Well," he answered slowly, "you're the strong one."

I goggled at him. "Me, strong?"

"Well, yeah!" he responded, sounding surprised that I would question his assertion. "I mean, all that time I was hanging around you, like, before," he said, making it clear he meant before we'd become--well, whatever it was we'd become, "that's why. It's because you always knew what was up, where you were going. Nothing ever got to you. Then the way you stood up to Josh and his crowd. I mean--before." I knew what this "before" meant too.

"Jeez," I said, "and all this time I've been thinking I've been doing nothing but running away from stuff. I knocked you down and ran away; I knocked Josh down and ran away; and until this morning, anyway, I've been running away from me."

"What happened this morning?"

I filled him in on Rosenblatt's essay exercise. Will seemed interested. "Any chance I can read it?"

"Well, Will, I don't know. It's not done yet. And I have to bring it to some kind of conclusion before I'll know whether any of it's any good. At this point, I think I can. We'll see."

"It's just that I need to understand."

"You and me both, bud," I said. "You and me both."

Before I went back inside, I went around to the parking lot to see if Josh's Trans Am was there. It wasn't. Ominous. It was just a few minutes from the start of afternoon classes. Josh wasn't in any of my classes through the day, so I had no way of knowing if he were around other than catching sight of him in the halls or checking the parking lot.

Things with Will seemed to be at some sort of neutral level. He wasn't pushing me away, nor was he trying to pull me back. He seemed to both recognize and respect my current state of imbalance, and as far as I could tell was willing to give me a chance to get it together. It put him in a new and very respectable light. Now I had to do something about Josh.

Problem was, if I didn't see him here at school, I didn't know how else to get hold of him. I'd given him my phone number, but I didn't have one for him. I knew where he lived, but I wasn't going to hike back out there on the off-chance of finding him home. I resolved to try my luck with the phone book at the end of the day.

I was pulling books from my locker and stuffing them into my backpack when I noticed Debbie Harkins going by. She was one of the more intelligent of Josh's groupies. She might know something.

"Hey Debbie!" I called.

She swung around to see who had hailed her. When she saw me, she sneered. "Well, well, look at this. David Preston."

"This surprises you?"

"I'm surprised that you'd even want to speak to me. I don't know what it is you've done to Josh, but he's sure changed a lot. And every time I've seen him, he's been with you."

"Well, you're seeing me now and Josh isn't here. Do you know where he is?"

"Haven't seen him all day. I have a couple of classes with him and he wasn't in those."

Heedlessly I rushed on. "Do you have his phone number?"

Debbie looked at me strangely, and didn't answer right away. Finally she said, "Just what is going on here? One day Josh is like totally pissed off with you and getting us to give you all kinds of grief, and the next day it's like we don't exist and he's hanging around you. It's really strange."

"Maybe he just decided to become a real person, Debbie. Now, how about that phone number?"

She actually harrumphed. I'd never heard anyone do that before. Sounded funny.

"It's unlisted, of course," she said, with heavy emphasis on the last two words. "And after that last remark, I'm certainly not going to give it to you."

And with that, she swung sharply on her heel and stalked off.

So much for that avenue. I thought briefly of going into the office and trying some ploy to get the number out of the secretary, but then figured it would be a lot of work for no result. They can be awfully stuffy about things like that. It looked like there was nothing for it but to take a chance on going back to Josh's.

I beat it for home as fast as I could on two feet. It was a long way to Josh's, and I wasn't about to walk it again. Time to dig out the bike. Now, I mean, everyone's got a bike. It's just kind of natural. Doesn't mean you necessarily use it all the time, or even enjoy it when you do. I'd had one since I was five. Great sense of freedom then. In recent years, I'd graduated to an old ten- speed that had belonged to my dad. He'd used it a lot, trying to stay in shape. Hadn't helped, so he'd just almost thrown it at me, saying it was mine.

Well, it was mine, but that was about it. I'd used it like three times or so, and not recently. When I went into the garage to get it, I wasn't even sure which corner to look in. But I found it: front tire flat. That meant the good old on-board tire pump. Ever used one of those things? I think they were designed to torture self esteem. Don't ever use one of those suckers in public. Unless you're as coordinated as the proverbial one-armed wallpaper hanger, you will not look good trying to get air pressure out of the pump and into the tire. I was very glad I was safely out of sight in my own garage.

Twenty minutes later, sweating profusely, the swear words starting to reduce in flow rate, I had what I thought was reasonable pressure restored. I ran back into the house to clean myself up a little, then dashed back out to the bike. Sitting on it was Will.

He was staring critically at the front tire. "You sure haven't got a lot of pressure in that tire," he commented.

Christ. Seems as though I couldn't do anything right. What I'd done to him was bad enough, and now I was incompetent with bike tires. Maybe I should just grab the pump again and beat myself to death with it.

Will didn't say anything else. He got off the bike, kicked the stand down, detached the pump from its clips, and proceeded to execute a near-flawless performance of tire pumping without the faintest sign of undue exertion or incompetence. I saw the 9.9s going up all along the judges' bench. Fuck, the Australian judge even gave him a 10.

Will gave the tire a final two-thumb press, seemed satisfied, replaced the pump, and got back on the saddle. Then he looked over at me. "Something wrong?" he asked.

"Not a thing," I responded. "Just reflecting on my general incompetence with life."

Will's face took on a bemused look. He opened his mouth, seemed to think better of it, and closed it again. Then he said, "Going for a ride?"

"Not exactly. I've got see if I can find Josh." Why beat around the bush?

Will looked down. "Oh."

"Look, Will, I can't leave things the way I left them yesterday. And he wasn't in school today. I'm kinda nervous. And I can't find his phone number, so this is the only way left."

Will continued to study the ground. He made no move to get off the bike. Then he looked back up and over to me. "I could drive you," he said.

I stared. Will had been mad keen to get his driver's license at the first opportunity. My parents, as much as they left me to my own devices, had been firm in this one resolve that a too-early access to motor vehicles would lead to almost-certain evil consequences. Thus, I was to wait until I turned eighteen, which event was still three months away. In this regard, I was generally looked upon by my peers as an oddity.

"Umm, Will, you don't have to do that."

"I know. But I think I've got the picture now. You need to get this thing sorted out. I've caused you enough grief..."

"Will!" I broke in. "Goddammit, it's me who's screwed everything up. I've hurt you, I've hurt Josh, and I haven't got a fucking clue what I'm doing!"

"David, hold on! Jesus, man! Would you like me to get a whip so you can lash yourself better?"

"Actually, I thought of using the bicycle pump."

The first grin I'd seen on Will's face in a long time suddenly lit up his face. "Seriously, man. I'm not saying I'm not still hurting about this. But if you can't get a grip on this thing until you're square with Josh, then I want that to happen sooner rather than later. It's just that I maybe still have a chance." His voice lowered, as did his head. "I... I still love you, Davy."

"Oh, Will!" was all I could muster. I could feel a big weight coming down on me. I thought I'd had enough of a load before. And here Will was, generously offering to speed me to the guy who was maybe bumping him out of contention, declaring that he still loved me. What was I going to say?

"How can you still love me when I can't even figure out what the hell that word means? I just don't know what I'm doing!" The morning's essay was fading rapidly from sight in the presence of this all-too-real pain. I swung away from Will, tears stinging my eyes.

I heard him get off the bike, then felt his hands gripping my shoulders. "Come on, we'll go get the car." He tugged me a little, and my feet went into motion, walking me alongside him down the driveway.