The usual warnings and disclaimers apply - this is entirely fictional, and if it's not legal for you to be reading this sort of story wherever in the wide world you may be, by all means don't read it. I appreciate all comments and critiques, however few they've been for this one (I hope that picks up as the story gathers momentum). My other Nifty story, "Seal Rocks," is also here in the HS section; the final chapter of that story posted on April 12 of this year. I hope you (or someone, anyway) enjoys the story here.
When the World Changed Part 5
The next day, Saturday, was impossibly long and exhausting. Mr. Glendon had decided that the boys in general were out of shape and needed to work. They had three practices that day - the first an hour long conditioning workout including a mile run, at 7 AM, a second two hour workout in full pads with hitting from 10 until noon, and another practice in half pads (shoulder pads and helmets only) from three on. Brady endured better than most, but by about 5 he too finally gave in and dropped to his knees between plays on the sidelines, dry heaving painfully. Mt/ Glendon seemed to take this as some sort of signal. He let Mr. Duquette, an assistant coach and English teacher, assist Brady in getting down some water, and addressed the slumped group before him.
"This is a small school, gentlemen. Our whole student body will be a little over 450 boys this year. There are 119 in your class. We play some of the major prep schools in the area - Germantown, Lawrenceville, Hill, Penn Charter - and they're all a lot bigger than we are in terms of numbers. That inevitably means they'll have more boys out for sports, and so more depth, and more talent position by position. We can only compete with them by being tougher. That's what Coach Drake" - the varsity coach - "has always preached here, and over the past fifteen years he's turned out some damn fine football teams. Boys who've gone on to play in college, four boys to the NFL, AFL, or Canadian league. That's a remarkable thing for a prep school, any prep school, let alone one of this size. And that gets born here, on these fields, on days like this when it's sticky hot and you want to fall over and even the fittest of you"- here he indicated Brady - "start to falter" He looked over them all, then at last at Brady, with hard and piercing eyes. "And the question is, how do you react? What do you do when it gets tough and you want to quit and you feel awful and things are going badly. What will you do?" He looked again at Brady. "Conover, what are you going to do?"
Brady took a few seconds to speak - he was burping terribly, trying to hold down the small gulps of water he'd taken. "I'm not quitting, sir," he finally managed to croak.
Mr. Glendon pointed at Brady. "Who else? Who else isn't going to quit?" A modest cheer went up from the boys, who weren't much in a mood for a rah-rah speech and truthfully felt very much like quitting, at least for the afternoon. Brady heard Doug, who'd cramped up several times that afternoon, trying to yell lustily. He couldn't see him, though; his peripheral vision was still grey and fuzzy. He wished he could see Doug.
"That's right!!" shouted Mr. Glendon, clapping his hands and moving among them. "Now let's show the varsity boys over on the main field that we're as tough as they are! Conover, take the team in a lap around the track where the varsity is practicing, then on onto the gym and shower. You're all off tomorrow."
The last bit of news got a real cheer from the group. Brady, wondering in the back of his mind why Mr. Glendon had told him to lead the lap, pulled himself slowly to his feet and strapped his helmet on. I can make this, he thought. One lap. He felt the other boys grouping around and behind him.
He was shoved aside. "I'll lead the team," grunted Ian McShane. He had sat out much of the afternoon practice, complaining of a sore leg. He glanced hard at Brady, the same sort of nasty look he'd given two days earlier in the foyer of Geiger, but now with some real feeling behind it.
"If I wanted you to lead the team I'd have said so, McShane," Mr. Glendon snapped. "Besides, your leg's bothering you, isn't it?"
Ian stared another long moment at Brady, then stepped back. As Brady started (unsteadily) to run, he felt Ian's foot hit his shin, trying to trip him. He threw his arms out, kept his balance, and shot a leg backwards in Ian's general direction. Though he missed, the message was delivered. The boys started clapping rhythmically as they ran down a short slope to the track that surrounded the main football field, where the varsity boys were practicing. As they turned onto the backstretch, he heard the varsity team take up the same rhythmic clapping, and heard Coach Drake's distinctive clipped New England accent. "There go the frosh, and they're in better shape than you boys! Look at that! Maybe I should play them in two weeks against BMI and not you!" Brady felt a rush of pride, refreshing him, and he led the freshmen in a mad sprint down the backstretch toward the ramp up to the gym. He felt horrible, but he couldn't help smiling.
When he was in front of his locker, seated on the wooden bench, with his helmet off, he finally lost it. He dropped to his knees, head against the locker, and dry heaved for what seemed hours. Someone was rubbing his back and neck with paper towels soaked in cold water, but he had no idea who. He wanted, for a long time, to just die. When his stomach finally gave him some respite, he pivoted to sit, slouched, eyes closed, against his locker, gasping.
He opened his eyes to see Doug sitting on the bench in front of him, a wet towel in his hand. His shirt was off, and his smooth chest glistened in the light. "Bray, are you gonna be OK?"
Brady nodded slowly. "Yeah." It took a few seconds for him to form another coherent thought. Wow, he almost said, you're gorgeous. "That was awful."
Doug wiped Brady's face with the towel. "Jesus, Bray, you were going so hard. I thought you were gonna kill yourself."
Brady shook his head. "It's no fun if you don't try." His brothers had taught him that. He took a deep breath. "What time is it, I need to clean up for dinner." He moved to stand, accepting Doug's help. Doug's hand in his, helping to pull him up, rejuvenated him a bit. He leaned against the locker to pull off his soaked gym shorts.
"You alive, Conover?" Ian McShane's voice sneered from the end of the row. "Got any more Gung-Ho crap for us or are you just gonna go back to the farm now and be good little white trash?"
He felt Doug surge past him. "Fuck you McShane, I didn't see you doing anything today but dogging it."
"You'd know all about dogs, wouldn't you, Garretson. Does your dad fix 'em or fuck 'em?"
"Go back to your little private throne, dickhead."
"Real clever. You two homos deserve each other." Brady turned his head to see the sardonic smile on McShane's face as he walked away.
Doug's dark eyes were blazing. "Do we have to deal with this shit? It's been like two days and already I wanna kill him," he said in a fierce whisper.
Brady shrugged, smiling. At least he wasn't the only one who disliked McShane - or who McShane seemed to dislike, for that matter. "Fuck him, he'll just have to live with it. He's just all high and mighty and stuff." He took his towel. "I need a shower really bad, I'll worry about him later."
He and Doug again were later in and out of the shower than most of the others. Brady again checked out Doug's penis, and was relieved that the few other boys in the shower with them also seemed awestruck at the sight. That, of course, gave him an opportunity to look openly at Doug much of the time. Doug started chuckling about all the attention as they dried off afterwards. "I'm gonna be famous for one thing at this school, no matter what I do."
He turned his back to Brady for a moment. Brady noticed a patch of wet skin down the center of Doug's back, between his shoulder blades. Without thinking he reached out with his towel and wiped it dry.
Both boys froze for a moment. Brady felt sick again. Oh Christ, he thought, what did I just do. What am I gonna do.
Doug turned and looked at him, his expression cautious. "Thanks," he said evenly.
Brady gulped. "No big deal. You were, y'know, wet. And stuff." He wanted to turn back to his locker and get dressed in some casual manner, but couldn't seem to move.
Then Doug smiled - his big daybreak smile - and all Brady's trepidation melted away. "That was nice, I appreciate it."
Brady felt his heart leaping. Any vestige of fatigue fled away. "Well, you know, you like helped me out when I was being sick and stuff, so I sort of owed you."
Doug smiled again. "I was worried, you were really.messed up it looked like. Has that ever happened before?"
"Never," Brady said. "It was like my stomach was trying to find something to puke out and couldn't, so it just kept going."
"You OK now?"
Brady smiled back at Doug. "Yeah," he said, unable again to look away. "I'm good, now."
They could hear the varsity boys starting to trudge into their separate locker room down the hall. Brady dug into his pants, which were still hanging from a hook in his locker, for his watch. "We got twenty five minutes."
Doug shrugged. "No problem, I got my jacket and stuff here.:
"Me too."
"Cool. Far out."
They dressed wordlessly, smiling now and then at each other, and walked to the dining hall together. Ian McShane, who'd stayed behind to talk to his older brother, followed about a hundred yards behind, watchfully.
Saturday night turned out to be a lot of fun. The prefects, Cureton and Luce, set up their stereo in the hall, David brought an immense pile of records out of the room, and Mr. Billips even sprung for some soda, and potato chips. The boys talked, pretended to dance, argued vehemently about the Viet Nam war and whether the Who were better than the Beatles, until lights out. Brady was getting to know the other guys on the hall, and most seemed really nice. A few, who'd left the previous night to hang out with McShane, seemed standoffish towards him, but he didn't particularly care. Even David seemed much less morose than usual. That night, in bed, in the dark, Brady heard David fondling himself, and he fell asleep laughing quietly at the notion.
He went back to sleep Sunday morning after breakfast since there were no events until the Opening Convocation at the school chapel (which was actually bigger than the church he'd gone to in Cullingstown) that afternoon. His legs were sore and tingly; it felt wonderful to rest. David's decision to play especially loud music did little to disturb him, and he dozed until almost 11.
The shower was bracing on his sore limbs. He examined the purpling bruise under his jaw for several minutes after drying off - he was alone in the bathroom and so felt less self conscious about such vanities. When he trudged back into his room, David was gone, and Doug was laid out on his bed, on his stomach, looking over an album cover. Brady smiled. "Hey."
"Hey," Doug responded, rolling onto his side and smiling back. "You sleep a lot, man. I was down here at like 9 and you were so out of it. How do you sleep when Davey's playing all that stuff?"
"Davey? Does he know you call him Davey now? He'll stab you with a fork or something."
Doug shrugged. "I dunno. I haven't like used it in front of him - not yet, anyway. I give people nicknames a lot. Just what I do. Sorry - Bray," he added, grinning and leaning forward a bit.
"You are a dead man," Brady laughed, lunging at Doug on the bed. They wrestled for several minutes, giggling childishly. Brady realized that he was only wearing his bath robe, and that he was starting to thicken. The knowledge distracted him, and Doug quickly rolled him on his back, pinning his hands up about his head. Doug's forelocks were hanging messily over his eyes, his chest was heaving slightly from the effort. Brady realized abruptly that he needed to get Doug off his lap, as he was hardening rapidly. "You give?" Doug asked, a triumphant tone to his voice.
Brady swallowed, feeling his cheeks redden, and nodded. They stared at each other for a long minute. Brady felt Doug shift his weight against his crotch. He has to feel that. Brady thought. How can I explain this one?
Doug was still smiling at him. He shifted a little again, rubbing the robe fabric and his body against Brady's erection, and despite himself Brady gasped. He stared back into Doug's eyes, terrified. "I - I need . . . I - " He squirmed, desperate to get out from under Doug.
Doug suddenly looked embarrassed, and stood up quickly, turning away from Brady. "Sorry," he whispered.
Brady pulled his robe tight, breathing heavily, and sat up, scrunched over in an effort to hide his tumescence. Please don't let him be mad. Maybe he didn't notice. "Sorry," Brady managed to croak out. "I - I was, um, cramping up, and all, there - had to, y'know, stretch."
Doug was studiously looking out the window. "You OK now?"
"Yeah, sure, no problem," Brady answered, trying to be as breezy as he could. He started rubbing a calf as Doug turned to face him again, and action that both fit the cover story and bent him over enough to hide his crotch from view. He had never felt so terrified.
Doug regarded him a moment, then smiled - a softer, lower key smile than his day break special, but still one that made Brady's heart leap. "That's good, you had me worried there for a sec. You got all freaky for a minute."
"Um, yeah, well, cramp. Like I said. You know."
Doug nodded. "I'm not surprised you got one after how hard you went at practice yesterday." He started to chuckle. "Bet McShane's leg is all better, though."
Brady straightened up, laughing. He had subsided enough to be inconspicuous, and their shared dislike of Ian was enough of a bond alone to dissolve any remaining tension. Doug was holding an album cover in front of himself, about waist high - an odd, awkward gesture. I guess he was reading the liner notes or something, Brady thought.
"So anyway," Doug said, a little color in his cheeks, "we better get dressed. Lunch in like half an hour."
"Right. Um, I'll come up for you when it's time to go."
Doug shrugged. "Nah. I'll hit you up, it's on the way downstairs anyway, right?" He turned quickly, and only tossed the album cover to David's bed as he opened the door to leave.
Brady sagged back onto the bed after the door clicked shut. Oh shit, he knows. He felt it. He thinks I'm a homo. I got hard against him. Oh shit . . . He wanted to cry, but that would have been even more queer, so he held it in - something he'd been able to do for so long, on so many subjects, that it came naturally to him. When David entered the room a few minutes later, Brady was dressing with a studied nonchalance.
He dreaded seeing Doug at lunch time, even though he craved the sight. He was scared Doug would show some sort of contempt for him, accuse him of being a fairy or something. But Doug poked his head in their room as if nothing was wrong, and their walk (with David, Dunc, Jerry Goldman, Johnny Ruiz, and Nate Dexter) was relaxed and funny - the group was getting along well. He didn't notice, Brady thought. I'm still safe.
The Opening Convocation was long, hot, and stupefyingly dull. The school chaplain, Mr. LeMaster, was even worse at sermons than he was at the mealtime prayers he gave daily. Brady was sitting next to Nate Dexter (assigned seating was alphabetical), and the two alternated between fighting to stay awake and making subtle jokes. Brady noticed Doug, sitting further down the pew from them, lean over once or twice and smile towards them.
They were trudging back down the walk from the chapel after the benediction when a voice called out. "New Boys!!"
They turned to see a somewhat darker haired, bigger version of Ian McShane striding towards them, s nasty smile playing about his face. "Oh, crap," muttered David, "here comes Stud Douggie."
"New Boys!!" he repeated loudly. "Not you, pencil dick, I got other business with you." He strode up to Brady. "You the hillbilly who's fucking with my brother?"
He was an inch or so taller than Brady, and clearly bigger - a filled out manchild, while Brady was, for all his sinewy strength, still scrawny and not yet quite fourteen. Brady evaluated Doug McShane quickly, and decided he was a particularly ugly piece of work. He stayed silent, conscious that most of his friends had backed away from Dougie's advance. All except for Doug, who remained at Brady's left shoulder.
Douggie cocked his head and shoved Brady's shoulder. "What, they don't teach you to talk on the south 40? How about 'Moooo,' you talk like that? " Brady for the first time noticed a couple of other older kids behind Douggie, as they snickered at the supposed joke. "You need to do some chores, New Boy! Teach you some respect. Now, how about -"
"Can it, Douggie, you're a junior, you don't do shit with New Boys. That's a senior prerogative." A clipped voice from Brady's left, level toned but with a huge air of authority, made Douggie immediately back off. Brady turned to see a short, slender guy - a senior, from the looks of it, with a visible beard shadow on his chin and a decidedly mature air about him - striding across the lawn towards them. "You already got stung yesterday for trying this crap, if I sting you on it again they'll take you to DC over it. Not that you're unfamiliar with that process." He stopped in front of Douggie, standing between him and Brady. His hair was very black, longish. It blew slightly in the breeze. "Go be an asshole someplace else."
Douggie McShane's face flushed. He stared hard at Brady a moment, then turned and stalked off. "Fucking pussy," he muttered as he walked away. Brady felt himself exhale as the senior turned to face him. He had startling bright blue eyes, a thin nose, and a firm chin. "You must be Conover. I'm Bill Fieldstone, glad to meet you." He smiled slightly as he extended his hand. Brady took it, surprised by the strength of the grip, and tried not to stare too much at his eyes. It wasn't easy. "Sorry about that guy. I'm sure Tanner's told you all about him already."
"Um, yeah, well - you know, I'm sure he's OK and all." He didn't want to offend anyone right at that point.
Bill chuckled. "That'd be news to me." He introduced himself to each member of the group, very formally, saving David, Jerry, and Johnny Ruiz for last, since he clearly knew them already from last year. "I meant to say hi to you earlier," Bill said, returning his gaze to Brady. "Us Bevans men have to stick together, after all."
Brady was confused - it seemed his entire life had devolved to some sort of confusion over just about everything. "Huh?"
Bill laughed. The Bevans Scholarship. I won it three years ago. You're kind of like my little brother now."
"Oh, OK, sorry," Brady breathed, relieved. "I - I hadn't thought of that. So there's one in each class?"
"Should be," Bill answered, now a bit grim. "The winners in the junior and sophomore classes didn't last."
Brady found himself gulping. "Th - that's too bad."
"Yeah, it is. Happens, though. Plus that means we don't have to worry about the endowment running out of cash, right?" His grin was as mesmerizing as his eyes, and Brady grinned back without being aware of it. "You in Linsley?" Brady nodded. "OK, I'll stop by in a bit with some info on old Edgar. You'll need to know it starting Tuesday."
"What's Tuesday?" Duncan Hennessey asked, looking a bit nervous.
"Classes, and New Boy Rules," Bill answered, smiling again. "They'll go over it all tonight at assembly. Don't worry, no one's gonna paddle you or brand you or anything like that. It's sort of s school spirit thing, that's all. And if any of the seniors give you too much grief, let me know. I'm running the program this year, so I can get them off your back." He focused on Brady with this last assurance. "OK? OK, then, see you later, Conover." He strode off with the walk of a man certain of his place and purpose.
Brady turned and glanced ta the group. David was shaking his head slightly, a wry smile on his lips. "Wow," he said.
"What? What's wrong?"
"Relax, Conover, nothing's wrong," David answered. "Just that Fieldstone is such a piece of work."
"What do you mean?" Doug asked, before Brady could formulate the question.
"He's like the Mr.-Fix-It for the whole school, or that's how he thinks of himself. Bit of a suck-up, too, if you ask me. I didn't know if he'd still be like that after he lost Senior Class President to Voorhes, but it's like he just dialed it up another notch. Must be fun being a senior, huh?"
Brady frowned. "He seemed like a good enough guy."
"Oh, he is, don't get me wrong. Especially when he likes you, he's a great guy. If you get on his bad side, not so much, though."
Nate Silver piped up. "Did any of you guys -" indicating David, Johnny, and Jerry - "get on his bad side last year?"
"Nope," Johnny Ruiz answered. "Not that I know of, anyway." He glanced at David and Jerry, who both shrugged. "He was really nice to the eighth graders. One time in New Boy Rules, this one guy wanted me to shine like twenty pairs of shoes, and Bill got me out of it."
"LeMay?" Jerry asked. Johnny nodded. "What an asshole. I hope he flunks out of Dartmouth fast."
They had reached Linsley. Doug plopped down on the steps, loosening his tie. Brady followed suit, as did most of their group. The sun was flitting in and out of high puffy clouds, and a few very red leaves were tumbling across center campus in the light breeze. Brady could see similar groups of people in front of the various dorms, to either side of him, and across center campus in the senior dorms. Ian McShane turned hard left to enter Linsley through a side door. Three or four kids followed him, all glancing at the group on the front steps with barely concealed disdain.
They sat on the steps for a good hour or more, talking about everything and nothing. Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance, but the skies remained broken and blue above them. Brady took a deep breath in through his nose. Someone was harvesting late hay, he realized, and there was a dairy farm close by. I guess I am a bit of a hick, he laughed to himself.
He looked about, and saw Doug smiling at him. "Big dairy around here, huh?" he said. The two stared at each other a moment before dissolving into laughter. The others, all city kids, had no clue.
At that moment, everything in the world seemed very much all right.
Brady excused himself eventually to go inside and piss. He debated changing into more casual clothes, but decided he'd need to be in jacket and tie for dinner, so why bother. After emptying himself, though, he slipped into his room. His wrestling match with Doug has been playing at the back of his mind, and he felt a desperate urge for release. He could hear the faint buzz of conversation coming from the group on the front steps below the window. Every time Doug said something, Brady picked out his voice immediately. He sat sideways on the bed, propped up against the wall, his pants and briefs down almost to his knees, his shirt tails gathered up above his waist. He wanted to take his time, but every thought of Doug touching him filled him so that he soon found himself stroking as fast as he could, his face scrunching up, his body coiling. Doug's face had been so close, his breath warm against his throat, his lips full and soft. Brady even imagined that Doug had been hard too, and had been grinding himself subtly against Brady. Someday maybe they'd do it for real. Doug would rub against him, and they'd kiss too, and . . . Brady lost it entirely at that point, spasming with a low guttural noise and shooting all over himself. As he sank down, his eyelids fluttering, he dimly realized he needed to change his shirt
As he finished clambering into a pair of jeans and a pullover, Bill Fieldstone knocked. He was still in jacket and tie, with the tie carefully in place. He smiled at Brady. "First bit of information you'll want, you're living in Edgar's old freshman room. Somebody had a sense of humor."
"Really? How did you know?"
Bill sat on Brady's bed and beckoned him to join him. "Pat Chauncey gave me all this when I was a freshman, it's all been sort of handed down to all the Bevans boys." He held a worn set of papers that detailed Edgar Bevans' career at Wilson - his athletic exploits (he was apparently a good running back, and hit over .400 his senior year), room assignments, roommates, cum laude certificate, a copy of his commission in the AEF, and an article on his death at Belleau Woods. He apparently led a charge on a machine gun nest and managed to overrun it before collapsing from at least seventeen gunshot wounds). This last bit of information stirred Brady's sense of worry for Trent. He wasn't trying to overrun machine gun nests, was he? Bill noticed his sudden detachment. "Something wrong?"
"Um, no. I just - my oldest brother is a lieutenant in Viet Nam right now. This stuff - about how Bevans died, and all - it sort of hits home."
Bill nodded sympathetically. "Sorry if this upsets you." He rubbed Brady's back, his hand surprisingly large. Brady looked around the room, imagining Edgar Bevans' ghost leaning casually against the wall by the window, looking out at center campus over fifty years ago. The trees would have been just saplings then, he realized. It must have looked so different.
"It's OK," Brady answered after a long minute. "He'll be fine, no one'd dare go after him, he's too tough." Edgar Bevans' ghost smiled ruefully at that.
Bill leaned over the papers in Brady's hand, rifling through them and pointing out what he regarded as important details. It seemed to Brady that he made an inordinate amount of contact with him doing so - or maybe Brady wanted to feel that. Bill was almost too earnest, quick to smile a soft seductive sort of smile whose quality he seemed not to realize. Brady found it hard to look at the papers and not Bill.
David pushed his way into the room. "Oh, hi Fieldstone." He frowned a bit. "What brings you up here?"
Bill stood quickly. "Just bringing Brady up to speed on his named benefactor and all." He gestured to the papers he'd handed Brady, who helpfully held them up to illustrate. He felt like David had caught him doing something vaguely naughty, but he couldn't quite figure out what.
David stood a moment, regarding the scene. "Whatever," he finally said, turning. He tossed his keys onto his desk, flopped onto his bed, and rolled to face away from them.
Bill glanced at Brady and shrugged, smiling slightly. "Guess I can head out and let you read that stuff on your own. Hope it helps."
"Sure, thanks. Thanks a lot." Brady felt his unease growing by the second. Bill strolled out of the room as if nothing was wrong, but Brady felt exactly the opposite. He waited until the door had closed. "Is there a problem with him giving me this stuff?"
David rolled over to face him for a long second. He started to laugh. "You can't even tell, do you?"
"What?"
"Never mind. No, Bill's cool. Just have him flirt with you someplace else, OK?"
Brady felt his mouth get dry. "Whaddya mean, flirt? He - he was, just -"
"Flirting," David said, completing the sentence. "He's queer. Well, probably, anyway. That's what people say. You get that feeling about him. That's why he lost the senior class president thing. I mean, who's going to vote for a faggot, right?" His tone was bitter.
"I - how do - what people? What feeling? He was, like, nice, and all . . . " Brady was in a panic. Was he that easy to read? "I didn't, like, get any feeling, or anything . . . "
"Relax, I'm not saying anything about you. Just Fieldstone. He sort of came on to a guy last spring, a little, and it got out. I just don't want you getting all crazy about it if he does that to you. I know how jocks are about all that homo stuff."
Brady blinked a couple of times, trying to summon a bravado he didn't much feel. "Well, uh, yeah, but, um, I wouldn't like tell on him or anything. If he did that to me, I mean. Just, y'know, say no and walk away. I - I'm not, like, looking to mess somebody up, or anything."
David looked at him for a long moment. "Right," he said. He rolled back to face the wall. "That's really white of you, to be so kind and all."
Brady started to reply, realized he had no idea what to say, and gave up. He dropped the Edgar Bevans crib sheets on his bed and walked out of his room. He needed air, he needed some safe haven, he needed his mother and his brothers. He was overwhelmingly homesick. It was all too complicated. He just wanted to go to school and play sports and have friends and not have to worry about things - what other people thought, what they were trying to do, what he needed to do to protect himself. He needed to trust someone, to be able to rely on one person.
So, of course, he went upstairs.
Doug was changing into slacks and a T shirt. Dunc was nowhere to be found. "Hey," Doug said as he opened the door, pulling the pants up, "what's happening? You wigged out on us there."
"Sorry," Brady said, trying to control his emotions. "I sort of got distracted. Other stuff, and all."
"Got it," Doug nodded, turning away and buttoning the waistband of his slacks. "Happens. Lots of stuff to absorb around here, isn't it?"
"Yeah, there is." Brady felt a rush of relief to hear Doug say something similar to his own thoughts. "It - it kind of gets to me, every once in a while. Like it's all too much too fast, and stuff."
Doug smiled. "I know. I try to ignore it, but it's really crazy," He flopped down onto his bed and sat against the wall. "I think once we get into a routine - classes and all - it'll be better."
"I hope so," Brady said, stepping tentatively toward Doug, who smiled a little and scooted over to give Brady room to sit next to him. Brady did so, leaned back against the cool plastered wall, and closed his eyes. "I'm tired."
Doug's hand patted his knee. "It's OK, Bray," he said, his hand now resting in place. "You take stuff all too much to heart, you gotta relax a little. It'll be OK."
Brady opened his eyes and glanced at Doug's hand on his leg. It felt solid, warm, comforting. "So, what, you're like my shrink now?"
Doug laughed. The sound was melodious. "Yeah right, Dr, Garretson the Freudian genius." He leaned toward Brady with an exaggeratedly serious expression. "Tell me about your childhood." Their shoulder touched.
Brady found himself grinning. "What do you want to know?"
"Evrything."
"Oh shit, now I'm in trouble." They laughed. "Would you believe I'm an adopted Korean war baby or something? That'd spice up the story a little."
Doug looked his over a moment. "No, you're way too white. I've seen those ads."
Brady leaned towards him, laughing. They bumped against each other and grew quiet, making occasional eye contact. "I - I'm, glad - that we met up, you know?"
"Yeah," Doug said quietly. "Me too." They looked at each other a long moment. Doug abruptly moved away, standing up and making a show of picking some clothes off the floor, his back to Brady. "I mean Dunc is cool and all, he's gonna be a good roommate I think. He's just not into sports or anything, and he's from Wilmington and lives in this big house and all. We're, I don't know, different." He paused a second and looked back over his shoulder at Brady. "It's nice to know I'm not the only hick."
Brady laughed - partly to cover his confusion over how Doug was behaving. "Am I that much of a hick?
Doug laughed and turned to face Brady, the clothes in a small clump he held in front of himself. "McShane thinks so, that's for sure."
"I could give a rat's ass what he thinks."
"I know. Me too. But you know he's gonna rag on us all year over that sort of crap."
Brady shrugged. "I don't care about that either. And who knows, maybe he'll come around from us all being on the team together. He seems to put a lot of stock in that whole thing."
"Yeah, as long as it's him being the big shot he does." Doug threw the clothes into a hamper inside his closet and faced Brady. "I think it's gonna get ugly with him at some point."
Brady nodded. He didn't want to get into any sort of confrontation with anyone. The prospect didn't exactly scare him, but it was depressing somehow. He looked up and the Raquel Welch poster caught his eye. "Maybe you can offer him Raquel as a peace offering or something."
Dough laughed, stepping over to the poster above Dunc's bed and pretending to squeeze Raquel's cleavage. "No way, we're keepin' her all for ourselves. Too good to look at, right?" The leer on his face was deliberately exaggerated, but it crushed Brady again nonetheless. Why do I even bother, he thought. He looked down at his hands.
The silence grew uncomfortable. "So - so what's Davey like?" Doug finally asked. "Is he an OK guy?"
"Sure," Brady answered, relieved to have the subject changed. "He's kind of morose a lot, cynical and stuff. I don't think he much likes it here, but I dunno if he'd much like it anyplace else either. It's nice to have a roommate who was here last year, though - to ask about stuff and all."
"Yeah, that's cool," Doug said, plopping down on his desk chair backwards, folding his arms atop the chair back and facing Brady. "Dunc and I got no clue most of the time, it's kind of embarrassing."
Brady nodded. "Ask David, he's at least willing to tell me stuff. He sort of acts like I'm a total doofus for not knowing when I ask, but he tells me stuff."
Dunc barreled into the room, carrying a guitar and some sheet music. "Hey," he said, sitting down on his bad and bending deeply over the music, his hands groping about the guitar's neck.
Brady and Doug regarded the scene for a few seconds before Doug spoke up. "What's happenin', Dunc?"
"New Yardbirds stuff," he muttered. "Jeff Beck riffs. Well, not new new, but the first time I've been able to get a chart of the solos. This guy who's a junior, Thatcher, turned me on to them. He can even play them a little." He moved his hand up and down the neck. "Oh, wow, that's so cool."
Brady was curious. "Can you play it?"
Dunc looked up, incredulous. "This?? Hell no, I'd have to work for like a month It's Jeff Beck, man, it's so solid. I'm just not that good yet. It's hard enough to find someone who charts it. that's the only way I can get it. Even Thatcher says he has trouble with some of it."
"Oh." Brady had no idea who Jeff Beck was. He glanced at Doug, who smiled ruefully and shrugged.
The two left Dunc to his musical study and wandered the hall aimlessly. Doug seemed to have made friends, or at least mastered the names, of everyone on the hall, and made sure to introduce Brady to all of them. Except for a few guys he'd become noddingly familiar with from being on the freshman football team with - the guy who appeared already to be a lock for starting quarterback, for example, a gangly redheaded kid named Evan Creed - Brady was lost. He envied Doug's facility with names, not to mention his easy confidence in getting to know people. He wondered just a little if his feeling of being close friends with Doug weren't just his own invention, if Doug was like that with everyone. The idea depressed him.
That evening, at yet another assembly, New Boy Rules were finally laid out. The Senior Class president, John Voorhes (a tall guy who was reputedly the best freestyle swimmer in the MidAtlantic region, and bound for Yale) ran the assembly. Without Dr. Leeds and the faculty in charge, things were considerably more raucous. Voorhes had to pause often to make himself heard. A lot of upperclassmen were there, sitting in the back and in the balcony, jeering and making comments.
Each new Boy (and Brady saw for the first time, ot his surpriose, that many New Boys were sophomore, or juniors, and even a few seniors) got a copy of the school student handbook, to be tied by string to a belt loop on their pants. Each got a single gold and purple sock - lumpy, misshapen wool things that looked like they'd been salvaged from someplace indeterminably nasty - to wear. And each got a beany cap, bright purple with a gold W emblazoned in front. New boys would wear these items daily until the varsity football team scored its first touchdown of the year. Until then, seniors could order the New Boys to perform minor tasks or tricks - carrying the senior's books to class, or skipping down the sidewalk singing the school fight song - at will. New Boys who refused would be "dealt with," as Voorhes ominously intoned (to much jeering and hooting from the returning boys) at The Inquisition following the end of New Boy Rules. That sounded ominous, and Brady made a mental note to ask David about that.
Fieldstone then stepped to the podium, greeted by a fresh shower of verbal abuse (Brady listened carefully for jeers related to his supposedly being queer, but couldn't make out any). He smiled placidly, waited for the din to abate, and spoke in greater detail about the contours of what could and could not be demanded: no dangerous activities, nothing physically demanding or threatening, nothing that would be a violation of school rules or disrespectful to faculty. "This is hazing, guys, but it's not meant to be damaging. It's just meant to be fun, and to get you to know about the School and its traditions, and to get you to know your seniors. Wilson carries on, from class to class, and will long after we've gone on. The way it does that is by making us all part of the tradition. New Boy Rules is where that starts. We've all done it. My freshman year, I skipped all the way from Geiger to the infirmary singing the fight song wearing a baby bonnet."
The crowd hooted its approval of the image. Someone shouted "Bet you looked good!"
Fieldstone laughed. "I was a cute little bundle, you bet. The point is that we've all done it - we've all done silly stuff like that, and we've all seen every one of our classmates do it, too. We share that. It bonds us. It makes us a School. It makes us Cavaliers!" He stepped back, Voorhes and the other seniors on the stage fell into a line with him, arms linked, and they began singing the fight song. The crowd erupted into cheers, stood, and sang along - loudly, off key, raucously, shoving and laughing at each other, arms thrown over shoulders, swaying and leaping. The New Boys found themselves waving their garish socks and beanies in the air like flags.
Brady felt a thrill run through him. He glanced to his left, and saw Doug laughing and singing as well. Their eyes met, and Doug winked and held out a thumbs up sign. Brady returned it, the feeling deepening in him. He was part of something bigger than himself, something grand and noble and stretching through time. He imagined the ghosts of all the past students, living and dead, who'd stood in the hall just like he was now, singing and cheering along with them, proudly hoisting the trophies that now mouldered in the case by the dining hall. They had all once been shiny and new, full of pride and promise. Edgar Bevans, all of them, a hazy grey line reaching back into history.
He was so proud he felt like he might burst.
Few guys got to sleep at lights out that night - the buzz from the assembly was too strong. Cureton and Luce let them stay up and wander the hall, talking excitedly among themselves, until after 11. Brady, despite feeling tired, couldn't get close to feeling sleepy. He pestered David with questions about New Boy Rules, things he'd be required to do. David was singularly unenthusiastic on the subject. "I really didn't enjoy it, OK? Can we just drop it?"
"Why, did guys pick on you or something?"
David made a disgusted face and turned away. "What do you think? I'm a shrimp, I look like I'm ten or something. I'm not the big hotshot jock scholarship award guy or anything. Guys like you coast through this shit, all right? You got no idea what it's really like." He rolled in his bedclothes away from Brady.
"David, I'm sorry. I really am. I didn't, you know, mean to bring up bad stuff or anything."
"Just forget it, OK?"
"OK." Brady turned out his light. "But I really am sorry, you got to know that."
David turned back to face him from across the room. By the dim light of David's bedside lamp, Brady could see his eyes glistening. "I don't get you. You can't be for real."
"What? What'd I do?"
"I don't know if the fucking Andy Hardy act is for real or if you're just shitting me. And I'm not sure which would be worse."
"Who's Andy Hardy?"
David started laughing, rolling onto his back and clutching at his stomach. "Holy fuckin' shit, it is for real!"
Brady felt himself wanting to laugh as well, but he wasn't sure how David would take it, so he managed to keep himself under control. "Well, sorry, I just didn't know."
"Do you apologize for everything?"
Brady was taken aback. "Huh?"
"Everything you do, or say, if you have the slightest worry the other person might not take it exactly the right way, you apologize, What's your deal with that? Are you that scared? You got no reason to be, you're already a big guy around here - with the freshmen, anyway. Why do you like measure everything so carefully?"
Brady didn't like that question at all. "I - I don't, like, measure anything. I'm just, you know, me. And all." He managed not to say "I'm sorry," though he felt the urge to.
"Whoever 'you' are under all that hiding." David sighed. "I can't read you. I usually can read people. But you're really wound pretty tight, aren't you?" He paused a long moment, as if weighing his next statement. "I guess that happens, losing your dad and all. Maybe I'm the one to be sorry."
"You? Nah," Brady answered, perhaps a little too quickly. "I don't even really remember him" He paused, realizing he needed to, or at least should, say something further. "I sort of remember him talking to me, a couple of times. And I remember hugging his pants leg. I don't remember his face."
"That's weird. No, not weird, but I mean different, or something. You know."
"Yeah." Brady hesitated for several seconds. "My mom never got over it, I think," he said in a whisper, feeling himself tear up. "She - she drinks. At night, when she thinks I'm asleep."
"What about your brothers?"
"Dunno. We never really talk about it." He was crying now, staring down at his pillow, the tears plopping softly onto the case. "Sometimes I wonder if Trent is trying to kill himself, like it'd make the hurt go away. Or maybe he wants to kill everything else, for like vengeance or something. I dunno. He can get so mad at stuff so easily."
"At you?"
Brady sniffed. "Yeah, sometimes. A lot, actually." How had he let this conversation go in this direction? He'd never said any of this to anybody before. He'd never even thought about Trent that way until just now.
David's voice was soft now, gentle in tone even as the questions cut closer to the bone. "So he's making something up to your dad. What about you? Working all that farm crap and stuff when you're just a kid - why'd you do that?"
"So we could eat." Brady felt a flash of jealous anger flare in him. This kid had no fucking clue what life was like. "So we could pay the rent to live in our little shithole of a half- house and I can sleep in an unheated room and try to spend time at other kids' places because their houses are warm. So maybe I can get out of it all someday." He wiped his face with a forearm. "You don't worry about stuff like that up in Westchester or wherever."
He started at the touch of David's hand on the back of his head. "Bray, I'm sorry, man. I didn't mean to get you upset."
Brady shook his head. "Yeah you did. You didn't wanna talk about stuff you didn't like so you turned it around. You'll make a good shrink someday."
David chuckled. His hand was soft in Brady's hair. "No thanks, my dad's a shrink already. And I gotta tell you, he is really fucked up."
Brady started laughing at that, long gasping laughter that masked his urge to sob, and when David sat beside him he pressed his face for a long minute into the front of David's pajama shirt, feeling how truly frail and thin the boy really was for the first time. David was laughing, too. He looked up, blinking his eyes clear. "Since when do you call me Bray?"
"I heard Garretson call you that. Am I not in the secret club or something? Right now it looks to be just you two, but I wouldn't mind signing up."
Brady smiled. "It's OK."
"I mean you guys are like joined at the hip already, I don't wanna bust in on your private world."
Brady tensed up. "No, no, it's cool. We're just, you know, friends. On the team together and stuff." His eyes were resolutely focused on the floor.
Brady could feel David's gaze. "Right." David stood and returned to his bed. "You can make really intense friendships in a place like this, where you're thrown together so much. Enemies, too."
"Like McShane?"
David sat back on his bed, hands folded between his knees. "Is McShane your enemy?"
Brady laughed. "I think he's sort of made that decision for me, hasn't he? Him and his brother with the bad skin." They shared a laugh over that. "We got that in common, right? McShane hates us both."
"Yeah, you got that right. He definitely hates me."
"Why you, though? It's not like you beat him out for starting linebacker or anything."
David laughed again. "McShane doesn't like people with spines. He and his brother, they like being big shots and pushing people around. If we were in like second grade they'd be the guys stealing your milk money."..
"I got that," Brady nodded. He hesitated. "Did they fuck you over during New Boy Rules last year?"
David regarded him for a long moment. "You're good - you learn fast." He smiled ruefully. "There are always guys like them around, and they always band together, OK? Douggie wanted to pick on anybody he could, any way he could. And Ian didn't like that I wouldn't take shit from him."
"What happened?"
David shrugged, his face clouded over. "Bullshit stuff." He drew in a long breath. "Nothing you'll have to worry about."
"Come on, that's not an answer."
"It's my answer, OK? Just understand that Stud Douggie has some seniors who like him and who'll do stuff he asks them to do - especially during New Boy Rules."
Brady decided to persist. "What did they do to you?"
"Nothing, OK? No big deal." He turned away from Brady and shut off his light. "Go to sleep, you got extra practices tomorrow again, don't you?"
"Yeah," Brady said with a sigh. The prospect wasn't appealing, and running a mile at 7 AM was even less so. He fell into bed, vaguely apprehensive at what the morning workouts would be like - and at what David had so conspicuously declined to answer.
He was surprised at how good he felt through even the worst of the three practices on Monday. It was as if his body had already adjusted to the new demands. He'd always been able to run forever, so the mile didn't faze him very much, and the rest was made easier by the markedly cooler weather that had blown in, along with some occasional cool showers. Doug also seemed reinvigorated, keeping up with him for most of the run. McShane, he noticed, hung back during most of the conditioning work, preferring to participate fully only when hitting was involved.
Brady spent much of the day working with Evan Creed and Mr. Duquette on tight end pass patterns - mostly delayed release plays on quarterback bootlegs. Evan had a strong arm, and Brady and he were soon working well together. The other receivers already were raving about Evan's ability.
"That'll do for now, boys," Mr. Duquette finally announced at around 5. Let's join the rest of the team for some last work." They group ran over to where Mr. Glendon was working on various line blocking patterns, walking through pull blocks and other arcana while some kids holding tackling dummies played the role of a defensive team. With the backs and receivers now also present, Mr. Glendon soon assembled a full offensive team to run plays. Brady was at tight end, Doug was center. McShane was a guard, and looked very displeased about it. "He wanted to be a running back, but Glendon hauled him over to play guard," Doug whispered. "He actually tried to argue about it."
"That figures," Brady whispered back. "No glory in the trenches, right?"
The team in much higher spirits when it again ran around the track, past the varsity team, and into the locker room several minutes later, with Evan this time in the lead. Brady and Doug stripped quickly and joined the mass of people in the large shower room, where Doug's particular attributes again made him the source of not so subtle stares and some open astonishment. Brady noticed some welts on Ian McShane's back that seemed an odd result of practicing football, but thought little of it. The last thing I want to do is stare at that prick in the shower, he thought. And, to be sure, there was plenty of laughter, horseplay, and obscene commentary from just about everyone to keep his attention well distracted, even from Doug's glistening smooth body.
But Brady drank that sight in at every opportunity.
The dorm that night was edgy. Classes would start in the morning, and New Boy Rules as well. Brady considered bringing up that subject again with David, but thought better of it. He scanned his textbooks (the Spanish one in particular was daunting - it talked about tenses and conjugations he'd never heard of in his life), let David play whatever he wanted ("Rubber Soul" and "Fresh Cream" werethe main entertainment that night), and wondered what morning would bring. .
David fell asleep quickly, but Brady stared at the dark ceiling for what seemed hours. He was frightened, excited, anticipating. His mind ran over all that had happened since his mother had dropped him off four days earlier. Such a short time, and so much. He'd tried to describe it all to her in his nightly phone calls, but his rendition felt hopelessly inadequate (quite aside from their edited state - he mentioned nothing about Ian McShane, or Doug for that matter). He wondered how he could tell his mother about Doug. He's my new friend, he thought, it's easy. Just tell the truth. Well, most of the truth - not the parts about how he's so cute and tan and smooth limbed, and how his hair hangs over his liquid eyes and his smile makes me want to jump up and down for joy . . .
This train of thought inevitably led him to touch his growing hardness, and for the first time he openly fantasized about having sex with Doug. Exactly what "having sex" meant was still a vague concept, to be honest, but he knew he wanted to lie with him in the clearing or in his bed, naked, and kiss him and touch him and feel him roll against him and press his hardness into his belly. He wanted to feel Doug's huge cock in his hand, make it spasm and shoot all over him. He wondered what it would be like to taste Doug's come - on his skin, directly into his mouth. He imagined kissing Doug as deeply as he could, melting into his body, becoming one. He wasn't even consciously aware of his impending orgasm until it overtook him and sent him flying, eyes wide, mouth agape, into that realm of pure sensation that only the hardest climaxes can bring. He had no idea where or on what he shot, and he didn't care. He lay panting afterwards, trying to focus his eyes in the blackness, to slow his pounding heart. But Doug's not like that, a scolding voice rose in his head. He doesn't want that, he doesn't want you. He wants Raquel Welch or Barbarella or some other girl with big boobs and long hair. He'll never want you like you want him, you'll never have that happen.
The realization was devastating. He'd known it all along, of course, but had never articulated it to himself - just as he'd never previously specifically admitted his desire. He was caught, hopeless, forever unable even to hope of attaining the one thing on earth worth having for himself.
He slept then, a bitter and lonely sleep that, he realized, was what he had to look forward to for the rest of his life. He couldn't cry - not for himself, not for anything - but he yearned to, all night long.