Fags Do Too Skateboard! Copyright 2001 by Chris Yost
It's strange the effect a quasi-breakup of a relationship has on your days and nights. I won't say my life. It has no effect on the rest of my life. No way. Well, maybe just a little bit of an effect, Pete thought to himself as he pulled up his calf-length Nike sock over his slender foot. All right, to be honest, his downright bony foot. He got his skateboard, ran down the stairs, said good-bye to his mother, and then he left his home.
During an evening last night spent at a rave crowded with young people who looked expensive with the clothes they brought from malls, Pete had some serious thoughts about breaking up with his boyfriend, Josh. All about him and Josh were kids who were wearing clothes which they hoped would advertise the personalities they hoped that prospective lovers would be fooled into thinking they they had. Boys wearing loose hip-hop jeans sliding down the peaks of their slender hip bones. Their chests covered up with a T-shirts, and a open flannel shirts. Hundred dollar name brand sport shoes on their feet. Other boys wore bits of leather, aggressive face jewelry, and torn T-shirts. And still other boys wore gothic black T-shirts draped over tight black jeans. Their necks decorated with satanic chains. Josh couldn't help but make a couple of sarcastic comments about a couple of boys wearing tank tops welded to their chests and wearing leather pants superglued to their hips and thighs. He thought they were just the wrong way. A way, way wrong way side of looking too gay. What's with their calf-length laced up boots...and what is with the make up? Give it a break!
It wasn't that his perhaps-soon-to-be-ex boyfriend Josh, who still wasn't outed, was not completly intolerant of swishy looking guys. Well not completely. Pete noticed he liked to make fun of people who were freaks, delinquents, goths, and anyone else who didn't fit the "Book of Josh" 's idea of proper attirement: smart; almost preppy, sporty clothes.
Which had been the reason Pete decided that for their evening out that night, he was going to forego his usual cargo pants and Hawaiian shirt, worn sometimes with his "Jesus Loves You" T-shirt. He didn't mean the T-shirt to be a kind of sarcastic fashion statement. Some of his gay friends took it that way. Where is a hand to hold on to when you're just trying to be yourself? Instead of his habitual style of clothing, he changed his syle for Josh. He wore a Nautical brand polo shirt Josh had given him for Christmas, and a nice pair of jeans that were not that loose! He so drew the line at Josh's attempts to persuade him to shorten his hair and spike it up a bit with jell. Out of a mood to be kind of "Well what do you think of this Josh?", he put eyeliner on one of his eyes. When Josh finally came by to pick him up, he showed his lustful appreciation of the added mystery the eyeliner gave to the luster of his hazel eye. Then he promptly made sure Pete wiped it off because, come on now Pete, sure it's cute, in a scary way, but it makes you look like such a screaming faggot. This was after Josh maneuvered him to be pressed against the sheets of his unmade bed. And also after Pete pulled up his thong underwear. A costume piece Josh insisted he start to wear under his clothes. After Josh had called him a pussy while they were doing it. Pete got so mad, he jumped out of bed, slamming his feet into his dirty hightops, then pushing his feet through his jeans. It didn't work out too well. Josh laughed at him while he untangled his shoes and legs from his jeans. Pete ended up being tackled back into bed.
After Josh was done cleaning him up from sure signs of his sexual orientation, all signs of offending eye liner, they went to the rave.
How could Pete describe Josh? Casual expensive: Nautical clothes, Tommy Hillfiger type. Radically athletic; handsome, and aggressive, slim and muscled. Someone who took you to places he knew would be absent of any of his preppy, jock friends who might, gasp gasp, see him with his slightly too slender, endearingly gawky adolescent boyfriend who was a year younger than him. Such a girlish cast to Pete's shy down cast eyes. The way Pete would quizzically cock his head to one side, and kind of sway on his feet. Tragic isn't it? 'Stand a little straighter Pete; stop ducking your head. What are you afraid of? Someone looking at you?' Josh would tease him. While Pete would question Josh: 'What are you afraid of?'
At the rave, in the blackest, most dark part of the huge warehouse converted over for dancing, Josh would stare at certain bitching looking girls till they got the courage to come over to their table. Frightful looking sluts, Pete would think. What with their tube tops over their halters covering, but barely covering, their adolescent, sweaty breasts in their push-up bras. Josh would tease and ogle them to make then giggle and squeal. As if that wasn't enough, he then would hit the dance floor with the one he considered to be the most choice. He'd leave Pete stranded with the "reject". Sometimes the "reject" would stumble through a conversation with him. "Stumble" being the operative word, because Pete really didn't feel much like talking while watching his lover mixing it up with a leggy girl. He did seem to be drawn to the long ones, Pete noticed.
Gradually, the "reject" would stop making senseless noises, which were only proving to be hurtful to both her and Pete's ears, and she would find a herd of people which more reflected her likes or dislikes.
If Pete dared to gravitate to guys who he thought might share common interests with him, guys who might even want to dance with him, he knew, simply knew, it would be taken offensively by Josh, who would remind him he came with someone and he would be leaving with the same. Remember, or I'll die.
So Pete would sit quietly waiting for Josh to come back from the dance floor with his lady girl in tow. Gradually her crowd would surround them. Her friends. Her people. And they would all have a round-robin conversation about school, and stuff going on; someone would talk about drugs they had on them. 'Want to share? Anyone buying? Know about any parities? Heard someone got busted.' And in the swirl of conversation, Pete would find any artificial topic he could come up with in order to be included. When what he really wanted to do was to put his head on Josh's shoulder and ask him, 'When can we be alone together?'
After Josh exchanged phone numbers with her, after he had danced with her and her friends numerous times, he took Pete to his home. His home where Josh's father, Daniel, waited while watching television.
No judgment here, not even a need for tolerance,. There was nothing to tolerate. There was only acceptance from Josh's father, Daniel, who was glad his son had a nice, if some what timid boyfriend. Through Daniel had to admit, he always thought his son would hit on the more athletic, clean-cut type.
When Daniel first saw Pete in a pair of filthy CCS armed forces technical cargo pants and a huge Hawaiian shirt worn over a long sleeved T-shirt, he wanted to yank up Pete's sleeves to check out his arms for possible needle scars. Actually, he would have found some scars on Josh's arms months ago. Josh had indulged in a little horsing around with some crack cocaine.
Daniel was a stockbroker who was good at running up numbers: selling high, buying low. He and his ex-lover, Louis, Josh's parents, adopted him when he was twelve. Josh had been living up till then with Louis' sister, Sally McGovern. Josh had no idea who his real father was. Sally had told him a glorious story about how his father was a fighter pilot in the Vietnam War. Or was he a medic? How about a grunt in the infantry? Who the fuck cares as long as you know son, that your father was, well, he was just glorious.
Sally moved him from trailer park to trailer park. Squalor to squalor. Josh was always the kid in school no one wanted to talk to because of his ill-fitting clothes which smelled up the room. Loneliness and rejection were the bylines of his life till his uncle Louis took him away from all it all after his mother's death. She had driven her car head on into a semi truck while she was driving the wrong way on the interstate. Life after her death was a whirl of shopping trips. Josh remade himself. Any dream though of his newly acquired twenty-seven year old dad being a good buddy to him quickly died a horrid death. His dad was a professional mercenary who was as strict as a prison guard, or so Josh thought.
Josh lived with his dad and his partner Daniel for five years, till his dad noticed a lithesome young actor in his twenties, Leo. All of which happened to break up their cozy, little home. It was still a cozy home, abut, a somewhat lonely home, now that dad was missing from the daily routine, and from much the ritual of their life. But they survived Leo. Still a family. Just a different sort of family. An inferior sort of family, Josh would think privately. He had lovely, if unfair dreams, involving Leo and semi trucks.
His father and dad appreciated the fact he did not want to live his life openly gay in middle school or high school. He got enough grief at first for having two guys for parents. He desired nothing more after living with his drunken mother, and moving from trailer court to trailer court, going to a different school almost yearly, than to be accepted for once, just for once, by the up-scale kids. The kids he always admired. The jocks, the golden boys and girls in school who everyone liked, envied, or resented. He was a star enough athlete who focused his talents on football, to be suitably popular enough. He was known as a kind of a bastard with the girls. He always targeted girls who were kind of popular. Parasite girls, he called them, girls who hung out on the fringes of the groups of the truly popular starlets at school. He'd date them, use them, drop them, and then make excuses for the lengthy periods of time when he wasn't dating anyone else after he dropped so-and-so. ' Hey, I'm a player, what the hell do I need with a steady girl friend, get real,' he would tell his friends.
Once they were up stairs Josh started to undress Pete. Josh was always slightly doped up from the pot which Pete always abstained from. "Wimp," Josh laughed, telling him it would help loosen him up. He also was always slightly drunk from the sixpack of Coors he handily kept in a cooler in the back seat of his 1985 Jaguar. Luckily, his father tolerated pot, having been a child of the Eighties. Josh mauled Pete with a serious roughness while the whirlpool bath was filling up. It always made Pete's heart slightly skip with embarrassment, knowing Josh's father was downstairs while they were passionately playing and taking a bath together.
The problem was Josh kept trying to push him into doing things he wasn't comfortable to do yet. He was even rough. Josh liked to wrestle more than he liked to cuddle. Sometimes he was even got a little angry when Pete went all nervous and stiff when he would probe him with a finger. "Just a finger come on, Pete." Always the gentleman, he'd remove the offending digit, going back to doing what Pete was comfortable with during their love making.
It was more than comfortable, it was fantastic for Pete, and he hoped for Josh too. But, he could tell from Josh' demanding hands, mouth, and cock after it was over; he wanted more than just another hand or blow job.
So, Pete in a fit of nerves told Josh. "It's over. I mean kind of."
"What are you talking about?" Josh said, while he was busy licking at Pete's wet ribs.
"Josh," Pete said, his eyes starting to feel moist. "I think we should see other people."
"Exactly who do you mean by other people?" Josh said, stopping at his rib just below his nipple.
Stop the foreplay for a momentous interrogation! "Exactly," Josh said, getting out of the bath to dry himself off, "Who are we talking about here? Are you seeing someone else? Or do you want to meet someone you've been looking at? Well? Cough it up, Pete."
"No one," Pete said, giving negatives to all of Josh's questions.
"Fine. Honest, truthfully, I think your right," Josh said, watching Pete get out of the tub, stopping Pete's hand before he could get a towel to cover himself with. "I agree. We should be able to see other people while we're seeing each other."
"It just seems like," Pete said, feeling awkward, going for his damp shirt laying on the tile, "Like you want to see other people."
"Sure," Josh said, relieved. He did look at other people. He wasn't even above touching a cute guy he met while going to clubs with his honorary "uncle" Andre, a friend of his Dad's. Christ, he saved the fireworks for Pete. "Listen, lets discuss this while we're watching "Jack Ass" I'm tired. You want to?" Josh said, going over to his bed, turning on with the remote control the television which was hung over it.
"Sure," Pete said laying himself down next to him. They both didn't watch the antics of some comedian on MTV. Instead they laid together wrapped skin-to-skin. Josh letting Pete know all about it: His dreams of the day. " Parachuting, Pete. Lets's take lessons!"
Josh also told him about what happened in school. How he wanted to go to Japan, taking him of course.
Pete listened, interjecting his own thoughts and ideas.
"Christ, Josh, I have to go home. Really, yes, really," Pete said, going to the bathroom to gather up the rest of his clothes. Both of them kind of avoided talking about their kind of break up.
So after their kind of a breakup of last night, Pete was now strolling to the skateboarding park on Anna Street. He noticed a bunch of dudes all dressed like himself, but no Josh. He had called Josh to ask him if he wanted to meet him at the park, but no Josh. His mouth went dry.
"What you doing?" said a voice clear out from behind him.
"Josh," Pete said, tuning around to be face to face with his kind-of-ex lover. Such an attractive ex-lover too, with his arm wrapped around a young girl's' waist.
"Hi, my name is Bambie." Pete could have sworn she said while the blood rushed to his ears.
"So Josh," she said, feeling she gave Pete enough notice, "You are serious about going to the rave with me tonight?"
"No, I'm lying. What do you think? Course you got to dig out a girl for my man Pete here. Know anyone who owes you a favor? I was seeing someone with light brown hair about shoulder length, no taste or style in clothes. About five feet and six inches tall. Nice person. Really cute."
Pete waited for the punch line. Waited for Josh to say, and this someone's name I was seeing, his name is Pete.
"What can I say?" Josh grinned, "I've been dumped. I guess this person wants to see other people. We're just friends now."
Pete turned on his heel, walking away.
"Excuse me for a moment, I have to ask Pete abut scoring a bag for tonight," Josh said following him.
"Hey being friends and seeing other people was your idea. Right?" Josh hissed.
"Right. Whatever," Pete said coldly.
"What I do with girls is pretend. What I do with you is real. Got me? I love you," Josh said, drawing two plastic cards out of his pocket. "Present for you."
Pete took one of the cards. "Fake ID's," he breathed.
"After the rave you and I are going to Oz's. Want to watch some go-go boys tonight?" Josh grinned.
"Josh, your father will kill you. Your dad will pistol whip you. If I get caught my parents will be furious at me," Pete said nervously.
"The ID's are courtesy of my "uncle" Andre. Don't wimp out. Hey, I agree with you about seeing other people. We can still have fun together. Right?"
"I now think we, as long as you're going to be doing it with other people, we shouldn't be doing it to each other anymore," Pete said looking at the ground.
"Agreed," Josh said seriously. Fingers crossed, Josh thought of all the seductive ways he was going to get his good friend laid out on his back tonight. His favorite fantasy for the night was where he would say: Hey, Pete come over to my place and let's go swimming. I got a spare suit. Well what do you know. I haven't got a spare suit. Hey , no problem. We're just friends. We can skinny dipping, right? It's not like we're going to do anything.
He had a definite strategy involving dancing all night long at Oz's with Pete and convincing him to try a little ecstasy drug. Seducing Pete all over again, all night long. The boy was in the bag, Josh thought happily.
Pete put his skate board, a Turtle Boy 2001 from Toy Machine on the pavement. Kicking his left leg, building up speed, studying himself on the board, he skated away from Josh. A kid in a pair of Zero cargo pants and a huge restraint shirt, looked out at him from under his dirty beanie. "Faggot," he swore under his breath.
Sticks and stones, Pete thought, kicking up more speed, building up a momentum. He went into a crouch, skating up the vert ramp, carving out a front side grind. He grabbed the nose of his board, jumping up, then landing on it after twisting it to the side. He piloted himself into a front side float position. Every muscle in his body went tense and strong with excitement and freedom. All his problems with Josh, the kid, and school evaporated as he flew. It was like he was the only person in the world and in the sky! He ended with a perfect landing.
The kid gawked at him. "Not bad," he said in an offhanded way.
"Practice," Pete said pleased. He tuned to see how much Josh appreciated his feat. He could go pro, if he wanted to, he was that good, but he wasn't into skateboarding so much that he wanted it to be his life. It was an escape from life. A way to show off only to himself what he was made of. And if people happened to watch him: Hey, great.
Josh was watching Pete's trick till Bambie blind sided him with a question right in the middle of Pete's front float.
Whoops, total embarrassment, thought Josh, seeing Pete's disappointed face. Time for a recovery. "Hey, not bad, Pete. Can I try it?"
"It's not as easy as it looks," Pete said.
"Right, get out of here. You're kidding, right? We're talking kid stuff here. I used to skateboard a little bit when I was ten. Look at your skateboard. It's so cute what with your little blue turtle on it. Come on. Give me a break and hand it over."
"Just go easy. All right?"
Josh watched the kid going doing a grind down a stair rail.
"No, problem," Josh said winking at Bambie.
Taking the board up the stairs, he got up on the rail with the board. Balancing himself, he placed the skateboard sideways, then he got on it. He piloted himself down the rail.
Crouching down, his arms out stretched, leaning way too far forwards, he stared to hurtle down the rail too fast. The skateboard skidded across the metal. It flew off at the end of the rail, sending Josh plowing to the pavement. The back of his head almost hit the edge of the end of the rail
"Are you all right!" Bambie shreaked, running to him.
"One word, one little word from you Pete, about how I told you so. Even the slightest hint of one word!" Josh growled, rubbing his tail bone.
"Want me to take you home?" Bambie asked hopefully.
Can you just like disappear, Josh thought to himself about her.
"Hell no," Josh said stubbornly, going up the stairs, "I'm going to do this till get it right."
The kid who had watched Pete, skated over to him. They were standing alone together. "You've got a real strange friend there. You're gay, right? Everyone in my school, and at the park says so."
"Yes," Pete said, watching Josh perch himself on the stair rail.
"I didn't think gays would want to skateboard," the thirteen year old kid said, chewing up a wad of gum. Kind of looking at Pete. Kind of looking curious, and knowingly up at him.
Pete smiled back at the boy. He understood where the kid was coming from. What the kid was trying to hint to him about himself. He felt the same way about himself when he was thirteen. Kind of like he knew himself, but really didn't know himself. Didn't know what to expect of himself, not really, not completely, not yet. Not knowing should think of himself apart from all the stereotypes he heard about gays when he was growing up. He watched Josh maneuver his board awkwardly down the rail. Losing his balance, Josh jumped off the board halfway down from his destination before he fell down.
He watched Josh go up the stairs again determined to try to do the trick over and over again till he perfected it.
"Hey kid, faggots do too skateboard," Pete said grinning at the kid who looked up at him a little cautiously. The kid then grinned shyly back. Taking a hold of the hem of the kid's beanie, Pete yanked it down over the kid's eyes.
"I'm going to get this right," Josh yelled down at Pete.
I'm sure you will someday, Pete thought, smiling and laughing at him.
the end any comments would be nice, wanna see pete and Josh go to: http://unotime-eleni.net/drinkmythirst/kris-characters.htm
wanna read a story about Pete and Josh in highschool? Try Real world or What I want http://louis3004212.nstemp.net/stories/want/want_1.html http://louis3004212.nstemp.net/stories/real/real_1.html Pete and Josh after they become partners, Renaisance http://louis3004212.nstemp.net/stories/renai/ren_1.html and Dead boiz http://louis3004212.nstemp.net/stories/boiz/boiz_1.html
happy reading!