The Battle for Jericho Page 6
Hutch reacted as if the sheet of paper was a gun. His face paled so quickly I thought he was going to faint. He raised his hands and braced himself against the post as if a tsunami was smashing down on him. He was speechless. His arms and legs actually started to tremble.
Then I did hit him, but not out of anger. He started making these strange choking noises, and I slapped him soundly on the back because I was afraid he was about to have a fit or strangle to death or something.
Hutch pushed away, holding out one arm to ward me off. “You can’t tell anybody.”
“What?”
“Jerry, please. Don’t tell anybody. Okay, man? My mom and dad will literally kill me.”
“Hey, Hutch, calm down. I’m not gonna say anything to anybody.” My anger quickly vanished, replaced by regret. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out or anything. It’s just that… why didn’t you tell me? Huh? I thought we were friends.”
“Tell you I’m gay? After hearing the way you put down ‘fags’?”
“But that’s what’s so weird. You put down fags too. Sorry, I mean, gays.”
“That was just a cover. I had to say something to keep you and all the other dudes from getting suspicious.” The strength seemed to flow out of Hutch’s legs. He sat down heavily on the concrete floor of the basketball court. “I got caught at Holy Madonna in the restroom, kissing this other guy. They kicked us both out.”
“But… the marijuana—”
“My dad came up with that story. He’d rather people think I’m a junkie than a faggot. It was awful, man, when I got home that day. My mom was so mad she went wild, screaming all this hateful stuff at me. Dad beat me with his fists, like he thought he could pound me straight or something. The only reason he stopped is because my mom came at me with a baseball bat and he had to hold her off. They said if they find out I’ve been with a guy again, they’ll kick me out of the house.”
I was stunned. My eyes went round, and I don’t think I blinked for nearly a minute. It took that long before I was able to speak again. “Damn, Hutch. That’s messed up. But after all that, you go and join some kind of gay society? You’re still messing around with other dudes?”
“You can’t understand this, Jerry. You don’t know what it’s like. You think your parents are tough? I don’t even feel like I can breathe around my mom and dad. That’s how bad it gets. They stuck me in those Catholic schools. Hell, we’re Methodists. Why send me to Catholic schools when I just want to go to regular school like everybody else? And ever since I got caught kissing that guy, they’ve been in some kind of denial. They want to believe I was just experimenting with the whole gay thing, like it’s something that will go away if I don’t touch another dude again. They want to control my every move.”
I scratched my head, a skeptical squint on my face. “Okay. I get the whole rebel-against-my-strict-parents thing. But I still don’t understand why you’d go and join some kind of gay club when you don’t want anybody to know what you’re into. Why not keep a low profile until you graduate and get out of your folks’ house?”
“I get tired of feeling so alone, man,” Hutch said. “At home, at school, I can’t really be myself. Nobody gets me. Nobody understands. Sometimes it feels like I’ll go crazy holding everything in. Sometimes I just need to have somebody I can talk to who won’t put me down for what I’m feeling, for who I am. That’s why I joined the MLGBT Teen Society. I can hang out with other kids like me.”
“It still seems like you’re taking an awfully big risk, man, joining up with a gay club and letting them put your name on some membership list.”
Some new thought seemed to hit Hutch. He gave me a suspicious look. “That list is supposed to be private. How’d you get it?”
A little uneasy grin tugged at the corner of my mouth. “I sort of stole it.”
“From who?”
“Never mind who.” I was already in enough trouble with Dylan. I folded the list and tucked it into the inner pocket of my jacket. Then I sat down in front of Hutch, crossing my legs under me. “I still wish you had told me you’re gay, man. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have said all that bad stuff about homo—”
“Dude, you don’t have a clue what it’s like,” Hutch broke in, “always being afraid that somebody’s gonna find out. I didn’t know if I could trust you. This is a small town. You know how it is around here. Word gets out about me and I’ll not only get my butt kicked at school, I’ll get crucified at home and thrown out into the street.” He reached over and grabbed my wrist. “I’m begging you, Jerry. Please. If you’re really my friend, please don’t tell anybody about me.”
Hutch looked desperately afraid, and for a second, I worried that he was going to crack and break down right in front of me. “Hey, cool it, man. Take it easy,” I said, raising my hands in a calming gesture. “You don’t have to pour it on so thick. I am your friend, and I’m not saying anything to anybody about this. I get it, Hutch. I’m down with the cause now.”
Hutch sort of froze, the panic bumped off his face by confusion. “Down with what cause?”
“You know. The homosexual agenda. I’m on board with you.”
I could see him hesitate, still confused, weighing his response in his head before speaking. “Jerry, are you telling me that you’re gay?”
“Well… yeah. I am.” Sort of. I was a homosexual work in progress.
Now Hutch looked surprised. “You’re gay?” he asked again, his voice weighted with doubt.
I nodded. “Believe it, man.”
There was a long silence, in which we exchanged penetrating looks. Finally, Hutch seemed to relax a little. “Maybe I should get mad at you now, huh? Why didn’t you tell me about you before now, friend?”
“Hey, this gay thing is all new to me.”
He shrugged as if he understood, and the issue was no big deal. “I know. It’s kind of scary when you first come out to yourself.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” I said with a little laugh.
“Well, when did you first accept being gay?”
“Sunday.”
“Yesterday?”
“Yeah. Yesterday.”
“Wow. Does anybody else know, besides me?”
“No.” Something in the back of my mind kept me from telling him about Dylan.
“So, you haven’t told your girlfriend yet?”
“My who?” Yes, I realize that was a dumb response. But at the time, the last thing I wanted to think about was any girl.
Hutch smirked. “Your girlfriend. The lovely Lissandra. The one you can’t keep your hands off of. Remember her?”
“No. Let’s talk about something else. Are you, like… dating anybody?”
He shook his head sadly. “I want to. The MLGBT Teen Society throws a party once a month. I’ve met some nice guys there and made some really good friends, but I’m not ready to go out with another dude. I’m afraid somebody from school or church will see us and spread the word.”
I got a really strong urge then to put my arms around Hutch and give him one of those long, tight, rocking-from-side-to-side hugs you got from your grandmother when you were a little kid and you fell down and scraped your knee. He looked so lonely, and I could only imagine how painful it was for him knowing that his parents hated him so much they were ready to toss him out like trash if he set one foot over the line they had drawn around his life. Hell, my parents were as religious as anybody else in town, and I’d done things in the past (and would most likely do things in the future) that made them want to strap me on the nosecone of a rocket and fire it off to the moon, but I knew without a doubt that they loved me. They’d never beat me with their fists or kick me out of the house, no matter what I did with another guy. I wanted to hold Hutch. I wanted to protect him somehow from all the pain in his life.
I didn’t touch him, however. I was afraid to. Instead, I flashed a big, hearty grin at him. Excitement flashed through me, and I said, “Maybe you and I should give it a shot.”
“Dating.”
“Dating?” A second later, the puzzled look on Hutch’s face gave way to something like shock. “You mean… like, date each other?”
“Sure. Why not?”
There followed another moment of silence between us as we looked at each other. We were sharing the same thought. That became apparent when Hutch said, “Wow. This is weird. I don’t think I can do this with you, Jerry. You’re my friend.”
“Yeah. But that kind of makes it easier, doesn’t it? I mean, I already like you. And you like me, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I do.” He looked away, smiling. “Actually, I had a crush on you once.”
My face seemed to catch fire. “You did?”
“Yeah. Back when I first met you. I thought you were kinda hot.”
Now my head swelled up like a blimp. It’s a wonder I didn’t float away. “You did? Seriously, you actually thought I was hot?”
“Yeah.”
“I never knew that. You never acted like you… liked me.”
“Duh, dude. Remember the whole in-the-closet thing?”
“So… do you still think I’m hot?”
“Well, not as much as I did when we first met. You’re still good-looking and everything, but I think of you mostly as just a friend now. It’s Mac who really turns me on these days.”
That let the air out of my ego. “Mac?”
“I didn’t think too much of him at first. He’s nice enough, except he’s got kind of a mean streak too. But, God, it’s hard to ignore all those muscles he built up over the past few months. I can’t even get within ten feet of him in the showers now. If I did, it’d be boner city.”
Musclehead Mac had stolen the spotlight once again. Jealousy thumped me over the head like a brick. I folded my arms across my chest the way Lissandra does when I piss her off. My face slumped into a pout. “Then maybe you should ask him out, since he turns you on so much.”
Hutch didn’t seem to catch the sudden change in my mood. He laughed. “Yeah, I’d do that if I wanted to get my face punched in.”
The wind had picked up, making it feel even colder. The moon had disappeared behind a thick spread of gray clouds, and the night had gotten darker. It all made me want to be home, in bed, tucked under the covers. I shuddered.
“You look cold,” Hutch said. From the way he was looking at me, I could tell he wanted to do something like huddle close to me or put his arm around my shoulders. He didn’t make any move to get closer to me, but his look gave me that weird feeling again.
“Yeah, it’s freezing out here,” I said. “I think I’d better get on back home.”
“Well… okay. I have to get home too. Mom only gave me a half hour. I told her I was meeting you to get some homework for tomorrow that I missed. If I’m not back, she’ll send Dad to get me.” He stood up. “But I think I’d like to give that a try, the two of us dating. We’ll have to be careful about it. We are friends, though, and that’ll give us some cover. Nobody should get suspicious about seeing us hanging out. We’ll get together tomorrow, after school.”
“Where?” I asked, getting to my feet.
“Don’t worry. I’ll find a place. Mom’s letting me use her car this week to reward me for getting an A in Trig for the first six-week grading period. We’ll ditch Mac, tell him we have to go to church or something. You know how he hates going to church.”
“Hey. I just thought of something. Why’d your mom let you come out to meet me this time of night if your folks are worried about you gettin’ busy with other dudes?”
Hutch laughed. “Man, they figure you’re safe. You’re the only guy whose house they’ll let me go to. They know your family’s into the church and that you have a girlfriend. They figure there’s no way you’d ever be gay.”
“Shows you what they know.”
Chapter 8
“WHAT’S up with you and Hutch?”
Panic bloomed in my chest. I was sitting at a table in the school library on Tuesday afternoon, trying to plow my way through the first three chapters of Moby Dick for English class tomorrow. It was study period, and I’d gone to the library because it’s quieter than the study hall, where there’s usually more talking than studying.
Mac plopped his backpack onto the table and sat down next to me. He pulled out a notebook and started flipping through it as if he was looking for something, but it was obvious he was actually waiting for my answer.
It should be equally obvious that I’m not much of a quick thinker in panic situations. “Uh… what? What did you say?”
“You heard me, man. What’s up with you and Hutch?” Mac made a quick glance across the sprawling room at the librarian’s desk. Her eyes were glued to her computer monitor, and apparently she couldn’t hear us. Otherwise, she’d have already been staring in our direction. Mac looked at me. “You two mad at each other or something?”
“What’re you talking about, Mac?”
“You barely said ten words to him all day. You wouldn’t even look at each other in the cafeteria. Did he do something to you?”
“No!” The librarian shot me the evil eye. I pulled back, hiding behind Mac. Lowering my voice, I said, “No, man, me and Hutch are cool. I just have a lot of things on my mind….”
“Like what?”
“Uh… just stuff, man. It’s nothing.”
“Yeah, okay.” Mac scowled, angry with me. “You act like you’re losing your freaking mind sometimes. But you don’t wanna talk, hey, that’s fine with me.” He turned his attention to the notes he’d taken in his French class.
I went back to my book, but I couldn’t concentrate now and just stared at the page, the words blurring. Mac’s anger stood like a wall between us. He was just trying to be a friend to me, and I hated myself for making him feel shut out. That made what I had to do next even harder. “Uh… about this afternoon, man. After school, we… Hutch and I—”
“I’m not riding with Hutch today. Gina Marie’s got a rehearsal with the Glee Club after school, and I’m gonna hang around for that. I wanna try and hook up with her.”
“Okay, cool. Good luck with that.”
HUTCH and I had come to some kind of agreement that day. We must have done it telepathically, because we sure didn’t talk it over. Things were different between us now that we knew we were both members of the same club, and I had a nervous feeling that the difference would be obvious somehow to everybody else who saw us. The way I felt about Hutch had changed. Knowing that his parents had beaten him for going gay, knowing that they were only a heartbeat away from throwing him to the wolves, I got this little ache in my heart every time I looked at him now. I wanted to stand by him, be there for him, the way I supported Lissandra when things got crazy in her life. I wanted to hold his hand.
But I couldn’t let anybody at school catch me looking at him that way. That wouldn’t be good for either of us. So I kind of ignored him at school, and he did the same to me. The idea was to keep anyone from suspecting there was anything unusual going on between us. Ironically enough, as my conversation with Mac in the library demonstrated, Hutch and I wound up drawing the very kind of attention to ourselves we were trying to avoid.
After the final bell rang, I said my see-ya-laters to the friends in my economics class and went down to meet Hutch in the student parking lot beside the school. He was already there, waiting for me. I made it a point to smile and loudly greet him with, “What’s up, dude!” the way I always did with my friends.
There was just a flicker of nervousness in Hutch—he sneaked a sideways glance to either side, perhaps checking to see if we were getting any suspicious looks—before he returned the smile. “Hey, Jerry. Let’s roll.”
Hutch and I climbed into his mom’s canary yellow Acura sports coupe (in my family, it was my dad who had the midlife crisis and splurged on an expensive shiny sports car), and he picked up Highway 22, heading west toward Nashville. We didn’t look at each other, and we didn’t ta
lk.
He was like that in school—quiet, laid-back. Very friendly once you got to know him, and he would definitely stand by you when you needed it. But he wasn’t the kind to draw a lot of attention to himself. He was one of those people you’d see hanging around in the background, like an extra in a movie scene who’s there to dress up the action without being a part of it. I played soccer with him and some of the other guys at the park, and Hutch was good enough at it that he could have made the team at school, but he wasn’t on any sports team, nor did he come to any of the games. Until now, his only passion had seemed to be video games, which he lived and breathed pretty much twenty-four hours a day. Sneaking glances at him as he drove, I wondered what else there was to him, what other secrets he might be hiding.
I don’t know about Hutch, but I was as nervous as I’d been heading out for my first date with Lissandra. The current apprehension was different, and worse. Back then I’d been afraid of doing something to embarrass myself or offend Lissandra. Now I had no idea where Hutch was taking me or what would happen when we got there. Add in the certainty that whatever happened between us would leave me up to my eyeballs in shame, and you get a level of anguish that makes a person rend his garments as he hurls himself screaming off the nearest cliff.
I, however, didn’t rend or scream or hurl, although I do believe I threw up ever so slightly into my mouth when Hutch accidentally grazed my knee while changing radio stations. Relax, Jericho, be cool. I sat in my leather bucket seat, as prim as the old ladies on the Mothers Board at my church, backpack on my lap, arms folded across my chest like armor, hands tucked firmly in my armpits, staring straight ahead as I went to my heterosexual doom. Storm clouds should have been brooding over us, the wind howling like a lost wolf. The afternoon was a bit cooler than yesterday, but the sky was bright blue and sunny. Damn it, even the weather was mocking me.
Maybe you shouldn’t be doing this. Maybe you’re not ready. The thoughts kept swirling in my head. I have to confess here that I had checked out Hutch’s body a few times when he was naked in the locker room after gym class. Just to see how I stacked up against him. You know? Body-wise, I’m just not in his league. As I pointed out before, he has a nice build, not as ripped as Mac’s, but nice. And his butt’s nice too. It’s paler than the rest of his body, sort of round but not the kind of round you see in a girl’s butt, and you can see the muscles flex in it when he walks….