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----- A Drink with a Stranger By: Sean Roberts -----
-- Chapter 4 --
The next day, Lane was working in the Hunter's office during one of his spare periods, a glass of scotch keeping him company. He was working on a short story for the paper, though the story had grown and was not going to fit in the paper. Lane was enjoying writing it, and was devoting more time to it than he had initially planned. He swore at the interruption when he heard a knock on the door.
He opened it, ready to tell whoever it was to fuck right off, when he saw a pair of eyes the colour of a fine scotch. Lane's thirst increased exponentially as he looked into them. The boy looked familiar, but Lane could not quite place him.
"Yes?" Lane said.
"Hey! Are you Lane Conway? Is this the paper? The Hunter?"
"Umm, yeah," Lane said. "And you are?"
"I'm Ellis. Ellis Walsh," Ellis said, holding out his hand.
"Ellis Walsh ..." Lane said, ignoring the hand. "Don't you go to St. Thomas Prep? What are you doing here? How did you even make it past the front doors?"
"I came to see you."
"Right," Lane said.
"No, really. Can I come in?" Lane stared at him for a few moments, and decided it would not hurt.
"I guess," Lane said, stepping away from the door. Ellis came in and presumptuously shut the door behind him.
"I transferred here, umm, pretty recently," Ellis said.
"Ah," Lane said. "So that's what everybody's been on about. Well listen, I don't know what you've been told, but I have absolutely nothing to do with soccer. The pitch is actually on the other side of campus."
"I know where it is," Ellis said. "I came here to sign up."
"Sign up for what? I just told you I have nothing to do with soccer."
"I want to sign up to work on the paper."
"You don't have to sign up," Lane said. "You can just submit whatever you want. There's an email address for it." Lane pointed to a sheet stuck to a corkboard. Ellis squinted to read the small writing.
"That's good to know, but I wanted to actually work on the paper as a full extracurricular. I'm a good writer. I can help go through submissions, help with the editing—"
"You don't want to do that," Lane said. The last thing Lane needed was some dim witted jock making stupid suggestions about Lane's paper just to beef up a college application.
"Why not?" Ellis was asking a lot of questions, and his eyes were making Lane thirsty. Ellis was standing straight and still, one hand in his pocket. His uniform fit too well. Lane needed to figure out a reason, so he opened one of the lockable desk drawers and poured a second glass of scotch. He handed it to Ellis, who put it down in front of him.
"It really isn't any fun," Lane said, sipping his own drink. "If you want to write, write. Why bother with doing all this other stuff?"
"It will look good on my college applications. And from what I've been told, you do this whole thing alone, so maybe—"
"And you don't have soccer anymore," Lane said.
"What do you mean?"
"Well you just transferred here. You can't have gotten on the team. It's a few weeks into the season already."
"They made an exception. I am on the team."
"Great!" Lane said. "Well there you go. Doesn't playing soccer cover college?"
"It helps a lot," Ellis said, "but I'd like to show that I can do other things." Lane took another sip. He was out of arguments, and technically he did not own the paper—at least not to the extent where he could deny people entry based on them being jocks.
"Well, alright then," Lane said. "If you're sure." Lane put down his glass. "You'll have to fill out a signup sheet." If anything was going to nip this in the bud, it would be making Ellis do some work.
"No problem," Ellis said. He helped himself to a seat and picked up the glass. He closed his eyes and gently brought the glass to his nose, taking a small whiff of the drink. He did not taste it. He put it back down on the desk, then reached into his blazer and pulled out a pen.
Lane was looking through the files for the sheets. He knew they were around there somewhere, he had definitely seen them at some point. When he finally found them, he put one down in front of Ellis. He watched Ellis unscrew the cap of his pen, revealing his Montblanc's gold nib. Lane cleared his throat.
"Nice pen," Lane said, reaching into his own pocket and pulling out a similar pen. Ellis looked into Lane's eyes and smiled. He leaned forwards and filled out the sheet, not looking up until he was done.
"Here you go," he said, pushing the sheet across the desk towards Lane.
"Great," Lane said. "There are mandatory meetings every Monday and Wednesday after school. Meet me next Monday and we can get started."
"Oh," Ellis said with a fading smile. "See, the thing is, that's when I've got soccer practice."
"Well those are the rules," Lane said, impressed with himself that he found an irrefutable way to keep Ellis from encroaching on his paper. Lane picked up his glass and took another sip.
"Right. Well, I guess this was a bad idea then," Ellis said. He slowly screwed the cap back onto his pen and replaced it inside his blazer. He stood up and held out his hand. "It was nice to meet you Lane. I'm sorry I wasted your time." Lane took his hand, but quickly pulled it back for a spark of electricity.
Ellis left. Lane smiled to himself; another dumb jock put in his place. Lane finished off his glass and picked up Ellis' untouched glass. He glanced at his watch. Fuck. It was not even eleven in the morning and he was drunk. He had classes to attend and a paper to write. For some reason, the toy between his legs also started to demand attention as he sat there, his list of tasks exploding in his mind.
Lane, generally, was a stellar student, and his teachers never paid much attention if he missed a class or two. This was good, because he woke up at 4:00 p.m. with a headache, a dry throat and a hardon. Fucking jocks. He chugged from a water fountain and went to find Taylor.
--
Lane decided to watch the practice instead of going home and coming back to pick up his brother. He sat low in the bleachers, close to the pitch. Taylor saw him, smiled and waved. Lane laughed a bit when he saw that everyone on the team was wearing shorts and t-shirts except for Ellis, who wore his uniform from St. Thomas Prep. He was just begging to have the crap beat out of him.
The coach assigned the drills, then announced that he would be back in a few minutes. No doubt he had his own bottle of something back in his office. They started to do as they were told, until Richard interrupted the practice.
"What's the deal Walsh? What's with the fuck you uniform?" From where Lane was sitting, he could hear everything. He was smiling to himself, waiting to see where this was going. Everybody stopped to look.
"My Deer Creek uniform hasn't arrived yet," Ellis said.
"So why didn't you wear something else? Why that? After weaseling your way onto our team, you wear that fucking uniform to practice?"
"I like to practice in uniform," Ellis said. "It's important to get used to wearing it. This is why you guys don't win matches. Matthew over there has been slacking off this whole time, and you can barely kick the ball with what you're wearing. You should be happy that I weaseled my way onto your team." Lane smiled, thinking he may have underestimated Ellis when he met him yesterday. It took guts talking to the team like this just after joining from a rival school.
"Okay guys, do you want to play some more or are we done for the day?" Finn said. Richard rushed Ellis and delivered a right hook, sending Ellis flying backwards. Lane stopped smiling. Finn and Taylor ran over and grabbed Richard, who had thrown himself towards Ellis to hit him some more. Richard elbowed backwards, knocking Taylor back away from him. Lane saw red.
Lane ran onto the pitch. The other team members were standing around laughing. Lane grabbed Richard's arm, and with Finn's help, pulled Richard off of Ellis. They let Richard go, and Lane immediately punched him as hard as he could. Lane was pretty sure he got hurt more than Richard, but he followed it up with a kick to Richard' stomach, knocking the wind out of him. He ran over to Taylor.
"Are you okay?" Lane said. Taylor nodded.
"Oh shit," Lane heard someone say from behind him. The coach was running back towards the pitch.
"What on earth do you think you're doing?" Coach shouted. "And you!" he said, pointing at Lane. "You're not even on the team. Every single one of you, get over to Mrs. Jackson's classroom!" he shouted. His voice boomed and felt like it was shaking the stadium. He ran over to Ellis, who had not stood up. Nobody moved—they were all staring back at the coach as he leaned over Ellis.
"Now!" Coach bellowed, turning back. Everyone ran. They walked through the school into the English classroom—it was the closest room to the locker rooms.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Finn yelled at Lane once they had gotten to the classroom. "Why would you—"
"He hit my brother," Lane said pointing at Richard. "What did you expect me to do?"
"He didn't hit me!" Taylor said. "He just knocked me back because he was—"
"Because he was beating the hell out of Ellis Walsh," Lane said to Taylor. Finn shook his head. Everybody was sitting except for him. He moved to the center of the classroom.
"Well Ellis is a faggot," Richard said.
"Enough!" Finn shouted. Everybody had been sitting except Finn, who stood in the front of the classroom. "Richard, you're an idiot, you know that? Ellis may be an asshole but now we're all in trouble because you started a fight."
"You heard what Ellis said about us, what did you expect—"
"I expect you to shut up and listen to him. He knows how to play soccer. And I was about to shut him up anyway. I'm the captain, you've got to let me deal with things like this."
"Fine, deal with it. What are we going to do?" Richard said. Everybody turned to Finn.
"'Fess up and get yourself expelled," Lane said, smiling. Richard stood up quickly, slamming his desk. Lane did the same.
"For fuck's sake," Finn said. The coach walked into the room. He sent everyone away except for the ones involved in the fight. Ellis came into the room, accompanied by Principal Vance, holding a pack of ice to his face.
"Richard hit my brother," Lane said immediately. Finn buried his face into his hands. "I want him expelled."
"You don't get to make those kinds of decisions Conway," Principal Vance said. He looked tired; Lane could not blame him, having to deal with this lot. He looked over at Richard, who had a very small smile on his face. "I'm calling your parents in so we can get this sorted out," Principal Vance said. Richard's face fell. "I'm thoroughly disappointed. In the meantime, I want all of you to sit here and be quiet." Principal Vance left with the coach.
"My dad's going to kill me," Richard said quietly. "Fuck." His voice sent a chill down Lane's spine. They were all watching him. He was looking down, defeated. His hands were trembling slightly.
"Lane," Finn said firmly. "I need to talk to you." They stepped out into the hallway. "Lane, I have no right to ask you this, but I need you to stop Principal Vance from calling Richard's parents. I don't give a shit what you tell him, just don't let him do it."
"Why me? And why would I even do that Finn? He hit Taylor. You saw him. Not to mention what he did to Ellis."
"Fuck Taylor!" Finn said. "He's not a little kid anymore. You don't need to worry about him all the time."
"I don't worry—"
"Lane, you only have a couple minutes to stop him. Listen, Vance loves you; he thinks you're responsible and shit, running that paper all by yourself. It has to be you. Please. I'll do anything." Finn was not shying away like he had in previous encounters with Lane. He was standing straight; his voice confident, looking right into Lane's eyes. He was sweating though, and he looked worried. And desperate. Lane sighed.
--
Lane usually packed a lunch so he could avoid the cafeteria, but the next day he had not done so. He sat in the office for five minutes, deciding to skip lunch, before coming to the realization that he could not. He ventured down into the cafeteria to buy something. He looked around and saw Taylor sitting with the jocks. Ellis was at a different table, eating alone, his face all bruised up. Lane pretended not to see him as he walked past to buy his food.