Any feedback is appreciated, please write me to seanr_13@yahoo.ca
Please donate to keep this great community going: http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html
----- A Drink with a Stranger By: Sean Roberts -----
-- Chapter 3 --
The first soccer match of the season was against St. Thomas Prep. The rivalry had intensified over the last few years, especially from Deer Creek's side, since St. Thomas was the one team they had not beaten in a single match. The students who came to watch the matches were very verbose about how they felt about other teams. Once, the mascots and cheerleading squads had gotten into a fist fight. Lane was not there to have seen the legendary fight. A snide comment could always be heard when students from the opposing schools passed each other on the street.
Lane was at the match, both because of the paper and because of his brother. Taylor was only a freshman, but he was good. He was fast, and his smaller size allowed him to dart around the players and steal the ball. Lane was nervous. He had been drinking, of course, and sitting with his parents was a bit nerve wracking. Luckily, instead of paying attention to him, they were both flinching every time Taylor, or one of the other players, was violently knocked around.
The referee could not be everywhere at once, and so while doling out a scolding, penalty kick or retrieving the jaws of life, students in other areas of the pitch would be insulted, knocked over, kicked or elbowed. The first match saw students from both sides having a lot of pent up energy from having just been on summer vacation. Lane smiled to himself, secretly happy every time he saw Keith get a blow into one of the Deer Creek players. Watching the matches really was not so bad—there was warmth, sunshine, and fit high school boys.
Lane focused more on what Finn was doing than the rest of the players. He told himself that he was only doing this because Finn was the captain, the best player, and so the extra attention only made sense. As the first half of the game approached, there were buckets of sweat pouring off Finn's body. He looked defeated. He and Ellis Walsh, St. Thomas' star player, had been going after each other right from the beginning. Ellis had a smile on his face the entire time. He was sweating too, but not in the same way. He was alert, and came to a graceful stop after Finn flew through the air for a few feet before landing on his arm. Ellis immediately turned around, found the ball and struck it into the net. There was no penalty—the way Finn was knocked over was clearly an accident. Ellis was quite the artist. Lane chose a slightly different word to describe Ellis when he wrote the article for the Hunter about the first game of the season.
--
Taylor quickly became one of the jocks. He was handsome, athletic, and had started dating a very pretty girl named Jessica. It was a Saturday evening, and Lane was sitting in his bedroom with a glass of scotch, researching colleges, waiting to pick up his brother from the movies.
"Bro," Taylor said as he and Jessica were buckling up. "We ran into your friends, Finn and Victoria, at the movies. They actually asked us to sit with them—it was like a double date!" Taylor said excitedly.
Lane humphed. They were not his friends. Victoria Hamilton was a stuck up perfectionist who started dating Finn in their sophomore year. Lane knew he had no right to be jealous, but Finn was not the reason that he considered Victoria his arch enemy. Aside from soccer, Deer Creek students placed a lot of importance on the grades they needed for college applications. To keep a healthy sense of competition amongst the students, the school posted everyone's GPAs (anonymously—student numbers only) online. Victoria and Lane were always at the top, periodically switching places depending on how the latest test or assignment had gone. She did not like Lane much more than Lane liked her.
"I can't believe it," Jessica said. "Do you think I might actually get asked to prom?"
"Hey!" Taylor said to her.
"Well, it's the only way I'll get to—" There was a loud screech and the kids were thrown backwards against their seats as Lane sped off. Lane was not a fan of Taylor hanging out with Finn, but there was nothing he could say. How could he have explained what happened between them? It was humiliating, and Lane was happier that nobody knew. Though they did not see Finn around anymore, Lane's family never got out of the habit of calling Finn his friend. They did not ask about him much though; they probably assumed Lane and Finn hung out at school. Taylor thought that Lane was part of the inner circle of cool kids because of his friendship with Finn. Taylor seemed to have dismissed the incident on the pitch as a joke, since he had not mentioned it. Typical, Lane thought, that nobody really paid attention to what was going on around them.
--
Lane and Finn had grown up together, really, and gotten their first taste of freedom at Lane's family cottage, at the same time that they got their first real taste of each other. They had spent a blissful week alone in the summer's heat learning the various ways they could make each other feel unbearable amounts of pleasure. During the entirety of those days, Lane could smell Finn on his skin; he could taste the other boy just by licking his own lips. I love you, they had said to each other. They were only fourteen, and maybe it was just puppy love, but Lane had still melted in Finn's arms when he heard those words.
Finn was one of those rare cases that made the soccer team as a freshman. Soon after Finn had gotten on the team, a hazing ritual kicked in where the jocks picked on the nerds. The biggest nerds were, of course, the staff of the school paper. Lane was the one grabbed out of the hallway and pulled into the boys' locker room. He could immediately smell old sweat and wet towels. When he had been this close to Finn before he had smelled like a fresh lake.
They were all there. Lane looked pleadingly at Finn, begging him silently to help him. He did not say anything out loud, knowing instinctively that it would make things worse. The game they were playing was called kick the faggot', which was misleading for two reasons. The victim was not always a faggot', and kicking did not have to be part of it. In fact, creativity was encouraged. So while Lane was held down, his clothes stripped off him (mercifully they left his boxers), he was not just kicked but slapped, punched and fondled. One of them chose to give his hair a yank. A boy named Richard looked him right in the face, smiled and punched him in the gut. Finn punched him in the gut, pretending to do it a lot harder than he did. There was no physical pain from Finn's smack. Finn laughed after he did it. It was a fake laugh—Lane could easily tell Finn's real laugh—but the sound still knocked the wind out of him. Despite being held down, he curled up like a coin operated book snapping shut, so suddenly and so powerfully that they had to let go. Not everybody had a turn, but they were all laughing, and the hormonal, excited teenage mob decided to call it quits.
Lane and Finn, over the years, had become accustomed to showing up at each others' houses, uninvited. Later that evening Lane's bedroom door opened and Finn walked in. Lane had been lying in bed, and he wiped his face, hoping that Finn had not heard him crying. He heard the door shut but did not move or speak. Finn spoke from across the room, scared to approach the bed. He tried to explain why he had to do it, and then stood silently in the darkness of Lane's bedroom, waiting for a response he knew he did not deserve. Lane did not answer him; he lay in bed, waiting to hear the click of the door. Finn finally left the room, and they had not spoken again.
--
Lane had two more glasses of scotch after bringing his brother home. He slept in his clothes and woke in a haze of blurred memories of the day before. He swore at his alarm clock, then at the sun, then at himself as he stumbled out of bed. I'm never going to drink again, he lied. It was Sunday but his alarm remained constant. He never missed a day of swimming. A swim and a lot of water was the second best way to get rid of a hangover. He caught up on his homework and started on another task that brought him a lot of pleasure—writing assignments for his classmates. It felt like a rebellion against them; against the jocks who could not graduate except for Lane's help. It was his own, silent revenge.
Lane had created an anonymous email address where students could write in to request assignments. It was a good system. Lane knew who they were, but nobody had any idea who Lane was. Lane would even ask that they send him other assignments of theirs, so he could mimic their style and remove any suspicion that they had done the work. He charged based on the grade, though it was rare that he would do an A or an A+, again to eliminate suspicious jumps from fails to As. Aside from the money (his work was not cheap—he charged a minimum of $300 per assignment—more for better grades or more complex projects), Lane found he quite enjoyed his endeavour into the world of business. With the hangover mercifully gone, Lane spent the rest of his Sunday earning his booze money.
--
Lane was called into the principal's office on the first day of school in his sophomore year. Finn was already there, having told the principal about the soccer team's annual hazing ritual. He had also told that Lane could confirm the veracity of it. Lane looked at Finn, then at the principal, and flatly denied that it had happened.
"Mr. Conway," the principal had said. "There's nothing I can do to punish the guilty parties if you don't—"
"Well, it never happened," Lane said again, cutting him off.
"Then why would Mr. McClain here tell me that it did, and implicate himself in the process?"
"You'll have to ask him," Lane said. When they left the principal's office, Lane told Finn to follow him. He was seething, and he walked along the corridor and climbed the stairs to get to the Hunter's office. Lane slammed the door behind him.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing Finn? They'll expel you for this shit," Lane shouted.
"I deserve it," Finn said.
"It was a year ago."
"I know. I'm an idiot. It took me this long to figure out what I needed to do about it."
"You don't need to do anything about it. Just make sure it doesn't happen to anybody else. And make sure your dumb arse doesn't get expelled."
"Why? You don't think I deserve it for what I did to you?" Lane smiled.
"Of course you deserve it," he said. "In fact, the things I think you deserve—well, quite frankly, will give you nightmares, so I'll spare you."
"Then do it."
"What?"
"Anything. Whatever you've imagined doing to do me. I'll let you do it. I want a way to make this up to you."
"Like I said, make sure it doesn't happen anymore."
"I promise. And I'm sorry Lane, really. It's good to see you, you know. I tried to get in touch, but I guess you were busy. How was your summer? I missed coming up to the cottage with you guys."
"Finn."
"Yeah?"
"Fuck off." Lane slammed the door again after Finn left.
--
There was definitely some sort of scandal going on. It was the middle of the week, and everyone in school was talking about something in hushed, surprised tones. When Lane caught glimpses of the conversation, he heard soccer, and tuned out.