NOTE: This is a biographic fictional love story as Macy Strickland and his companions make their way through the different stages of their lives. All of the characters in this story are fictional and resemblance to any one person whether dead or alive is purely coincidental. If you liked this installment, please send me some feed back; I have a rough mental outline for how this goes but some extra details or inspiration are always welcome. Needless to say, if you are offended by male on male emotional and physical relationships, you should be asking yourself why you are here in the first place.
Luckily, my paternal grandparents from just outside of Baltimore intervened; otherwise, this story would have probably had a way crappier ending. I mean, I was so fucked, more like unfucked, because getting fucked was supposed to feel good, at least that's what my worldly almost 16 year old mind could reason at the time. Yep, my grades were pretty good, mostly A's with a stray B or two gracing my report card and while I wasn't an A-list athlete on the football, basketball or baseball teams, I earned my letters in swimming, wrestling and soccer. My teen life seemed pretty close to perfect.
My parents were pretty open and accepting when I came out to them about my interest in boys before the start of my sophomore year at Wilson High School. Beth, my sister, said she knew all along because of how I tried to coordinate everything I wore from school clothes to swim or soccer gear. Dad gave me an almost "come to Jesus" sort of lecture about being smart, being safe, being discreet and being respectful with my " relations and interactions" and reminded me to "protect myself" all the time. My neighbor and teammate Danny Engel was "my first" foray into the world of male on male pleasure, starting with some jerking off; first solo, then each other during sleepovers at my house.
Danny and I were friends since middle school, each of us participating in wrestling, swimming and soccer together. Somehow, I was attracted to him, the way he looked and how fast and easy we became friends. We were growing at about the same pace and Coach Garth would often pair us up for wrestling drills. It was easy to convince Danny that we should put on our singlets and practice our wrestling moves on an unfolded moving quilt in the partially finished basement of our home. I loved how are bodies slid against each other so easily from the slick lycra fabric of the singlets. Eventually we would do it until we came in our singlets, then change back into our clothes.
Not long before the accident we got a bit braver during one of the last sleepovers. Danny's source for any and all information, explanation and education about sex was from his older brother Tony, the star quarterback on the Wilson Bulldog's football team, who explained to him about blow jobs. Danny brought this new found knowledge and we experimented with giving each other blow jobs, both before and after our wrestling matches and then some how, Danny's parents got wind of what was happening. Danny's evangelical Christian parents were not nearly as accepting of such behavior as my own family. On a scale of one to ten, ten being the best, Danny's folks rated about a negative two on the acceptance scale. From then on, Danny was forbidden by his parents to be alone with me.
Mom and Dad were excited at having the whole family together since my older sister was home from her freshman year at college for the winter break when the accident happened. I was at a regional swim meet and had just finished talking to my parents and sister and posed for a picture with all of us together before taking the starting block for the 200M Butterfly. I swam it like a boss, placing first in the regional event for Wilson High School. After the race and a hug from Mom, Dad and my sister, they left for our Wyomissing home. I would be on the school bus in another hour or so after the swim meet ended to start my journey home and maybe end up at the same party as my team mates and hopefully Danny later that Saturday night.
It would be the last time I ever saw my family alive.
Our team had done well at the swim meet, in addition to my own first place finish in the 200M `fly, others had taken first or placed in their events. Even if the team won overall but I lost my wrestling match or my swim event, then I lost, I wasn't a winner even though I was on the winning team. I began to take winning very personally, almost to a fault, the drive to achieve became the defining force in my life. What I didn't know was that my sky high happiness was about to take a crashing nose dive: just before we got back to the field house entrance at the school; I was talking to my friends near the back of the bus when Coach Snyder hung up his smartphone and called me forward to his front seat behind the bus driver.
We turned into the lot a minute or two later, greeted by one of the borough's police cars and and a little nondescript Ford product parked in the fire lane. My eyes focused on the police officer talking to Father Harding, rector of the local Episcopal church that my family more often than not attended. Once the brakes on the bus were set, Coach Snyder asked the rest of the team to remain on the bus before he escorted me off to Father Harding and Officer Sam Cushman, the school's resource officer. My knees felt a little weak when I saw their solemn faces; I knew something bad was up. Officer Cushman spoke first, "Mason, son, I'm afraid we have some very bad news for you."
With my team mates still on the bus, we walked towards the benches around the flagpole and sat down, Cushman continued, "There's been a horrible accident, I don't know how to tell you this; I don't have the words for this..."
Father Harding tag teamed in to give Cushman a respite, looking me square in the eye, "Macy, your mother and father were killed in an automobile accident just a little while ago, your sister died a short time later after being air-lifted to the trauma center at Reading Hospital."
All I could do was a mental roll call. Mom, dead, Dad dead, Beth, dead. Yes, my entire immediate family dead all at once. All because they came to watch me at a swim meet. All of a sudden, the gold medal around my neck didn't matter very much, winning didn't matter very much; I would have given it all up to have them living and breathing next to me right now. The rest of the words went in one ear and out the other -- something about a cement mixer crossing the center line and smashing into the family car head-on, firefighters using the Jaws-of-Life, the Medstar helicopter came for my sister, how hard they tried to do everything they could do but it wasn't going to be enough.
I remember swallowing hard and trying to be strong, I tried to stand, I looked at the bus and the steamy windows were filled with my team mates watching my world come unraveled. I tried to stand and immediately collapsed, Father Harding breaking my fall and helping me back onto the bench. I remember how I tucked on the bench, my heels almost touching my butt and rocked, asking Father Harding what to do next.
A few minutes later, Cushman and Snyder walked me into the locker room and I grabbed a few random things to stuff into my TYR branded swim team gym bag and then I got in the car with Father Harding who took me to my Aunt Sara's house, well, double-wide trailer following Cushman in his SUV so that we did not go past the accident scene that was still under investigation.
Aunt Sara was my mom's sister and never really got her life going in the right direction; Mom was the studious and successful one while Sara was the party girl and she kept on living like it. Neither Sara nor her 13 year old son, my cousin, Billy spoke to me much beyond exchanging greetings, only the live-in boyfriend made an attempt to acknowledge my loss. After being given a Percocet by my aunt, I crashed on the bottom bunk in Billy's room until the morning.
Apparently I slept long and hard, Billy had already woken up and was out of the room as I stirred in the bed. I laid there quietly listening to Aunt Sara talking to her boyfriend who's name totally escaped me. Sara was already scheming insurance payoffs and how she was going to finally get to move up, move into our house in Wyomissing. I closed my eyes and began connecting the dots. My eyes burned from the yellow tinge of nicotine shellacked to the walls of the trailer.
Some how, I knew this wasn't going to work for me, no way that irresponsible Sara was going to get hold of my life and turn it into hers. I had to find my inner energy, the same energy I summoned when I pulled up the shoulder straps of my wrestling singlet or stepped up on the starting block and pulled my swim goggles down before I took my mark. Mom, Dad and Beth had great expectations for me and staying here was not going to be part of that plan.
After the funeral I took my finals for the fall term and all things considered, I maintained my grade point average. Swim season was over and my 5'-9" body would be wrestling at the 155 pound weight class this season, up from last year's 140. I asked Father Harding for help in how to get out of the provisions in my parents' will, that I would be cared for by Aunt Sara in her trailer. I knew there is no way I could live in our own house alone but the Aunt Sara thing just didn't work at all for me so Father Harding put me in touch with Rita Burns, a family law attorney from our congregation.
Ms Burns, and it was always "Ms Burns" and an attorney for my paternal grandparents, Cal and Rita Strickland, hammered out the details in Berks County family court and I left Wyomissing and Aunt Sara behind. My grandparents' attorney also helped to settle my parents' affairs and established a trust fund for my college education with the monies paid out by the insurance company's double indemnity provisions in our family's life insurance policy. There was enough money to even give Aunt Sara a little boost after she picked through the furniture and other belongings in Wyomissing to get her out of debt, albeit temporarily.
Once I was settled into my grandparents' home just outside of Baltimore, my grandfather took me to Towson High School to enroll me for the upcoming spring term. After pouring over my previous classes and grades, I received a warm welcome from the principal and guidance counselor. Then I was introduced to Karen Winterson, a very pretty tomboyish sophomore who helped me find my new locker and gave me a tour of the sprawling school. Karen was also on a competitive swim team, the Towson Tritons, sponsored by the local YMCA since there was no aquatics program in my new school district and she invited me to try out for the Triton team.
My grandmother dropped me off at the Towson Y athletic complex on a cold Wednesday evening just after Christmas and I met Karen just as I had promised and I was introduced to Malcom Sessions, the assistant coach for the high school aged swimmers. I tried out using my strong strokes, freestyle and butterfly focusing on form while dialing back on speed a little bit. Coach and Karen were suitably impressed and I was invited to join the team and given a weight training regimen. Just like the school, Karen gave me a tour of the YMCA facility including the multi-use courts for basketball and volleyball and the weight room. I was able to find the men's locker room on my own.
Somehow, I sensed Karen was beginning to like me more than feeling sorry for the small town kid lost in a big new school and, if I wasn't wired the way I was, I could definitely be getting into liking Karen a lot more than the sort of big sister showing me around the new school. Karen and I also shared a few classes together including Mr. Hardesty's College Algebra class and last period physical education not too mention the same school bus stop on Thornton Road.
On the first cold wet morning of the spring term, Karen and I waited at the bus stop as an older but well-kept blue Saturn sedan went speeding by with a short toot on the horn. "That's Robbie Lawson and Mitch Humboldt, they're practically joined at the hip, I've known them since middle school."
Karen continued, "Both play football, basketball and lacrosse; Mitch is the big strong silent type while Robbie is kind of the loud, borderline obnoxious prankster jock. He's the one, that if you got a wedgie in middle school it was probably from Robbie."
I took it all in as we got on the bus and Karen introduced me to some of her friends and I acknowledged a couple of others from my new swim team, Karen and I sitting on the same bench in the middle of the bus, my neck craning around to take in the new people, who might be a future friend or future foe. "Mitch keeps him check as needed and well now, since his mom threw his drunk dad's ass out of the house, he has had to kind of man up a bit," Karen said, finishing her summary of Robbie Lawson.
By the end of my first day, it was time for roll call in the gymnasium for physical education, "...Humboldt here' ... Lawson here' ... Strickland here' ... Winterson here'..."
The activity was basketball and there were a couple of skill drills: dribbling, passing and free throws. I could feel the eyes from others on me before the teacher blew the whistle and selected Humboldt and another guy to pick players for the half court games. Mitch picked me along with others while Karen was on the girls' side of the gym with her classmates. I paired up on an opposing player and covered him enough showing that I could hold my own on a basketball court. Once we gained position of the ball Mitch passed it to me and I began dribbling, coming to an abrupt dead stop just before the three point arc and shot the ball as my covering man went past me.
Swish. It was enough to win and head to the locker room for a quick shower and change for the bus ride home. Robbie and Mitch stayed, they would have basketball practice for Friday night's game. Karen met me at the line of school buses and we headed home; my grandfather waiting at the bus stop with Shelby, their big brown Chesapeake Bay retriever. Although Karen had already met my grandfather, she loved Shelby who is the most mellow retriever on the planet. After our good byes for the day, Cal suggested, "she's a nice girl, are you sure?"
"110% Cal, I'm sure, and if I* wasn't*, I would, okay!?" I replied.
"I hear you, your Dad wasn't too surprised when you came out and he always said you carry yourself well, so that's what Rita and I expect you to do." Cal began to finish his thoughts, "just don't limit yourself; she seems like a nice girl, someone who can be your ally."
"Karen and I are clicking, we have a couple of classes together and she is introducing me to people at school as well as on the swim team," I said, adjusting my backpack of books as Shelby sniffed every blade of grass along the walk back to my grandparent's house, "and she's pretty smart too, I want to study with her whenever we can."
It was tough for both of us, really, all three of us when you count my grandmother, Rita, too. I had become an unplanned yet necessary interruption of their "empty nest" years but it was never met with any malice. Cal met and married my grandmother in Italy while stationed there during his enlistment in the US Marine Corps and with her family's blessing, brought her home to Baltimore where they have lived ever since, raising my father in the process. Cal owned a very successful machine shop, after earning his engineering degree, a benefit of the GI Bill. His machine shop focused on making replacement parts for out of date machinery or a part for prototypes of new machines that were going to be manufactured and marketed.
Karen and I continued to click, often studying together and slowly sharing secrets with each other. While many at school thought we were an item, I knew she had a thing for Robbie Lawson and she learned that I was gay. I wasn't ready to tell her yet that I was crushing on Mitch Humboldt: His easy going smile on that big strong silent type face was infectious enough let alone that he was just over six feet tall with broad shoulders, great arms, a cute butt in his Levi's and killer legs that could only make me wonder what they joined up to connect under his gym shorts. Wondering about what was under his gym shorts became the pre-eminent pre-occupation of most of my masturbatory thoughts.
As the weeks progressed I continued swimming with the Tritons; either a 100 or 200 meter freestyle or `fly race or a 50 meter leg in a relay. Membership at the Towson YMCA was not overly expensive and the majority of my equals had a membership whether for a martial arts class or to use the swimming pool, the courts and weight room. More than once I saw Robbie and Mitch among others viewing the pool deck area during a weekend swim meet from the glass-walled upper level corridor that connected the multi-use courts and weight room areas.
In addition to the demands of high school and the swim team, I was also working on that goal near and dear to any almost 16 year old man: my driver's license. With over a 100,000 miles on it, Cal and I worked on Rita's old Subaru Outback and he taught me how to "speed shift" the manual transmission and after earning my provisional driver's license just before the spring break for Easter, I was regularly driving Karen to school with me. On a warm spring afternoon after Karen and I had been studying in the library for Hardesty's College Algebra midterm exam, she spotted a younger boy walking his bicycle on Thornton Road, not too far from where we used to get the school bus. "Pull over, that's Robbie's brother," Karen insisted, yelling out the window, "Hey Jacob, need a ride?"
The look on Jacob's face was one of confusion, an unknown car and unknown people yelling his name made him ponder that age-old warning about accepting rides from strangers. "Jacob, it's Karen," she said getting out of the car, "let us give you a ride home."
He walked the disabled bike over and I got out and opened the rear hatchback door, "Hey dude, I'm Macy, I know your brother." I said as I helped him put the bike in the back of the Outback, the rear tire flat and the chain sagging off the sprockets of the front crankshaft.
With Karen's guidance I made the required turns to get Jacob home, pulling up on the driveway to the Lawson house where Mitch and Robbie were shooting hoops at the goal bolted over the garage door, pausing to wonder why the strange Subaru was on the driveway. I swear I saw Mitch smile as he saw me get out and I helped Jacob pull his bicycle out of the back.
"If you want, I can probably help you fix that flat tire, not today but maybe over the weekend," I offered to Jacob and to Robbie who had walked over.
Karen stood back closer to Mitch as Robbie took a deep breath, "well, what do you think we should do about it?"
Jacob shrugged his shoulders, "You really think you can fix it Macy?"
"Easy peasy," I said, looking at Robbie, "got any tools around?"
Through a side door, Robbie led me into the garage and sure enough, there was a set of tools, one of the things unclaimed by his father when he left after the boys' mother threw him out over his latest and final drunken episode. "Since winter swim season is finally over, I can come over Saturday if you want, get him back on the road. Looks like I just need to find a 21-inch tube," I said with a nod to the bicycle tire pump on the wall, "that cool with you?"
"Sure dude, that would be awesome; and thanks for looking out for my little brother," Robbie said, offering his hand to shake, followed by a quieter, "got a second?"
"Yeah, what's up Robbie?"
Robbie paused then put it all out there at once, "You and Karen, you all got something going on? At least that's what half of the student body thinks."
"No dude, we're just friends, we swim together, we study together, nothing but friends."
"No shit, you're being serious?" Robbie asked.
"I'm being totally honest with you Robbie, we're just friends" I stated again, "and..."
"And?" Robbie asked again, trying to prepare himself for what was coming next.
After a pause to ponder, I shared, "she's into you," not knowing if it was the right time or right place.
"Don't screw with me, don't screw with me or I will mop the gym floor with your face," Robbie said.
"That's not the Robbie she's into," I said confidently, "be high school Robbie, not middle school Robbie and you will be golden."
I could glance through the window of the garage door I walked through earlier and see Karen laughing while Mitch and Jacob were going one on one. "What about you?" Robbie grilled me.
"Pardon?" I replied to the prying question of somebody I just really started to get to know outside of school.
"Well, if you are not into Karen, who are you into?" Robbie said, rephrasing his question as my head bobbed, watching Mitch and his moves as I shrugged my shoulders with an "I don't know" motion in response as we walked out of the garage, Robbie's eyes on Karen and mine just wondering how bad I just betrayed a friend's trust to keep a secret.
"I screwed up," started, as we backed out of the driveway onto Alston Road for the short trip to Karen's house, "I let it out that you liked Robbie. I'm sorry; I didn't mean to, it just popped out when he asked if we were, you know, dating, a couple."
"That explains why he wanted us to hang out longer, and, Macy, I forgive you; I might as well face reality and see where it goes," she replied, "I'll call him later and talk to him."
On Saturday I delivered on my promise, riding my bike over to Robbie's house after picking up a spare tube at a local bike shop. Jacob was out doing some Boy Scout thing when Robbie answered the front door. We went to the garage and while I wrenched the rear tire off and replaced the bad tube with the new one Robbie shared a secret of his own.
"Thanks for telling me about Karen, I was never sure," Robbie started.
"No problem," I replied, getting my hands dirty as I worked the tire back onto the rim over the new tube.
As I worked the rear wheel back into position on the bike's frame, Robbie added, "and for what it's worth, Mitch talks non-stop about you."