The Battle for Jericho Read online

  Jesus. This can’t be happening. Tell me I am not sitting here thinking about another guy’s booty. I freaked a little at that, but it wasn’t the first time I’d thought about Hutch’s naked body. Damn it, I’d even scoped out the bare bodies of some of the other guys in our gym class, just taking mental notes to see how I measured up, of course. I would have to stop doing that. Images of the naked boys I’d seen in the locker room flitted through my head now like a slideshow. Clearly, I was already getting in too deep. It was one thing to join the gay team and maybe fool around a little bit with a guy here and there. It was another thing altogether to dive so far down in the homosexual ocean that you never come up again.

  “Hey,” Hutch said. “You okay over there? You’re thinking so hard, it’s giving me a headache.”

  “I’m cool, man.” My body had been twisted around itself so long that the circulation had been cut off to my extremities. My fingers and toes were all tingly dead from the lack of blood. I uncoiled slowly and stretched out my limbs, shaking my hands to get the juices flowing again. “Where in God’s name are we going, by the way?”

  “We’re almost there,” he replied.

  “You know, I’m kind of surprised your mom is letting your drive her car just for getting an A in some subject. From what you told me yesterday, it doesn’t sound as if your folks like you very much.”

  Hutch looked bitter. “They don’t. But this is their way of giving me another reason to stay on the straight and narrow. I’ve been very careful, and as far as they know, I’ve been doing, and not doing, everything they wanted. They’ll never buy me a car of my own, and I can’t save up money to buy one myself. They won’t let me get a part-time job because they think there’ll be too much temptation out there for me to resist. So believe me, them giving me car privileges is worth toeing their line.”

  “I feel so bad for you, man.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” he said, keeping his eyes on the road.

  About ten miles outside of Webster’s Glen, we crossed the border of Benton, our sister town. Benton was a bigger municipality, large enough that it had its own police force and didn’t have to rely on the county sheriff for law and order the way Webster’s Glen did. At the border of Benton, Highway 22 officially became Poplar Avenue. Six blocks past the border, Hutch wheeled the car into the parking lot of Poplar Court, an upscale outdoor mall that my Dad swore charged people for window shopping. “This is it,” Hutch said, parking in front of a small shop with a red and black “Madison’s Deli” sign over the door. “Come on.”

  A deli? Our first date was going to be at a deli? Where anybody could see us? True, we weren’t in Webster’s Glen, but plenty of people from there came here to shop. There was a pretty good chance that someone we knew would see us. After what I’d put Dylan through, I sure as hell didn’t want to risk stirring up any trouble between Hutch and his parents. I started to protest, but Hutch was already out of the car and striding for the deli’s entrance. Pitching my backpack into the rear seat, I climbed out and went after him.

  The interior of the place was pretty fancy for a sandwich shop. The walls were painted an elegant pale blue, all done up with beautifully framed landscapes. The tables were covered with white linen cloths. The customers scattered across the dining area were talking quietly among themselves as they ate. Hutch breezed his way through the room and past the glass counter at the rear, where a small, slender young woman with short red hair stood dressed in black slacks and a white blouse.

  “Hey, Jen,” Hutch greeted her as he passed, giving the woman a casual wave and a big smile. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at me. “We’re reporting for duty.” That must have been some type of code Hutch used with this lady. I got the impression it was his way of letting her know he was coming to do the unspeakable with another guy.

  “Good for you,” Jen replied. “Grab a broom while you’re back there. I haven’t had a chance to do the sweeping.” Then she looked at me and smiled warmly. “Welcome.”

  I managed a smile in response as I followed Hutch down a long, narrow hall. A kitchen loomed ahead, but just before we reached it, Hutch stopped at a door labeled “Janitor.” He pushed the door open and led me inside.

  The space was tiny, maybe six by six. The walls were lined with the usual janitorial aids—mops, brooms, shelves of bottled floor cleaners, powdered bathroom sanitizers, and other cleaning supplies. Hutch locked the door, and then he turned slowly to face me.

  “Jen’s a sponsor with the MLGBT Society,” he said quietly. “She owns the shop, which she named after her daughter, and she sometimes shuts it down and lets us gay kids throw the monthly party here. She also lets me sneak in guys I’m interested in for some private time. It keeps me from getting caught again.”

  “Yeah, okay,” I mumbled for lack of anything else to say. I brought my arms up and wrapped them around my chest again, as if to protect myself. Suddenly, I was very interested in the brand of industrial-strength dishwashing liquid Jen used.

  “Jerry. Relax.” Hutch gave me a smile that almost masked the slight tremble in his lower lip. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead.

  Jealousy came back to say hello to me. Why in hell was I feeling jealous? “So, just how many guys have you brought in here?”

  “You’re number three.”

  Now I started to feel a little angry. “You get busy with those other two dudes?” My emotions were all over the map, it seemed. Anxiety peaked in me suddenly as a new thought crossed my mind. “Hey, man, I don’t think I’m ready to do anything like… going all the way….” I hadn’t gone all the way with Lissandra yet. We’d come close, lots of times, but we’d never crossed that final line. I think she was willing to take the plunge, but I’d always pulled back. It had to do with the stuff my mom and dad and the preacher at our church always pounded into my head: Save sex for marriage. Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder. (Go ahead and groan at the last one if you want. God knows I did the first time Dad tossed that line at me.) Also, Lissandra had told me that her dad said he would shoot the ass off any guy who knocked her up without benefit of matrimony. She said he was joking, but Mr. Ackerman owned five guns, and you have to take a guy who owns five guns very seriously. Boil all of that stuff down, and what you get is that I just wasn’t ready to have sex yet, straight or gay.

  Hutch gave me a frustrated smile. “Jerry, would you relax already? I didn’t bring you here to have sex. Sit down.” He gestured toward a big plastic drum of floor cleaner as he seated himself on a wooden crate in the corner.

  “Well, what are we doing here?” I asked as I sat down.

  “I want to see if there’s any chemistry between us, man. Just because two guys are gay doesn’t mean they’ll automatically make a connection. I haven’t been turned on by you since that crush I had went away, and there’s no point in us dating if there’s no spark.”

  Well, damn it. That hurt. It felt as if he was already rejecting me.

  “But first,” he went on, “I want to talk about Lissandra.”

  “What about her?” I asked suspiciously.

  “I don’t want to get caught up in the middle of anybody’s relationship. With the three of us at the same school, this could get ugly and very public, and I don’t need that. So before you and I do anything, I need to know what you’re gonna do about your girlfriend.”

  I couldn’t deny that I was still very attracted to girls, and to Lissandra in particular. I had called her this morning just before I left for school, and even though that damn cold had her voice rumbling deeper than mine, the contact excited me. I missed her, and I really wanted to be with her again. But I had made a commitment, and I knew what I had to do. “I’m breaking up with her.”

  “Do you mean that? Are you sure? I’ve seen the way you look at Lissandra in school. I’ve seen the way you two go at each other between classes. You’re crazy about her, and she feels the same way about you. Everybody can see that. I don’t think you’re really gay—”

&n
bsp; “Yes, I am,” I snapped anxiously.

  “I think you swing both ways, man. And I think you’re really new to this. And I think you might not really know what you want right now.”

  “Damn it, Hutch. Stop telling me what’s in my head. I know what I’m doing. I’m gay all the way.” That was my goal, anyhow. The way Hutch was talking was going to make it that much harder for me to get there.

  “Okay,” Hutch replied quietly. “Prove it.”

  A dumb look plastered itself over my face. “Huh?”

  Smiling, he opened his arms, presenting himself to me. “I’ll let you make the first move, man. Just do what you feel comfortable doing. Whenever you’re ready.”

  About fifteen minutes later, Hutch said wearily, “Any time this year, Jerry.”

  “You said whenever I was ready,” I snapped back.

  “Yeah, but I meant before we graduate from high school.” He stood up in front of me, took off his jacket, and stuffed it onto one of the metal shelves beside him. That left him in jeans and a thick, blue, oversized jersey that draped on his body very nicely. “Damn, man. Just do something,” he said.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Grab my butt.”

  One Saturday afternoon during middle school, Mac and I were watching a World Wrestling Federation championship match online. Caught up in the moment, Mac announced that he could pin me in ten seconds flat. We both knew he could, given our size difference, but I had to talk smack, of course, telling him that he couldn’t pin his own hairy mama, let alone pin me. Mac threw an arm around my neck, flipped me to the floor, and sure enough, I was pinned flat on my back within ten seconds. He wasn’t done, however. To avenge the insult to his family honor, Mac sat on my face and fired off a fart with such force I was surprised that he didn’t achieve liftoff. Maybe I’m weird, but the incident did not really encourage me to get any more intimate with male backsides.

  “Hutch,” I said flatly, “I don’t want to grab your butt.” Look at it, yes. Admire the muscular shape of it, sure. Touch it… nah, not ready for that.

  “Then I’ll grab yours.”

  “Not in this lifetime.”

  “Jerry, you asked me to do this, remember? If you’re not comfortable with me, I’ll take you home and you can find another guy to date, or you can just stay with Lissandra.” He yanked his jacket off the shelf and started to leave.

  Damn it. I’d obligated myself to get busy with another guy. This would be even more awkward with a stranger. I grabbed Hutch’s arm. “Wait,” I said quickly. “I’ll… kiss you, okay? But give me a minute. I gotta work myself up to it.”

  We faced each other again. Hutch really did have very pretty eyes. His cheeks and lips were still rosy from the cold. His lips were nice. For the first time, I noticed that he had a line of faint, fuzzy brown hair over his mouth, and I realized that I liked it. It was (I can’t believe I’m saying this) kind of a turn-on. He pulled a pack of Big Red gum from his pocket, unwrapped a stick, and started chewing like a grazing beast working a cud. It was the way a guy chews, all manly and careless, and that was nice too. Anticipation suddenly lit me up, making me feel as excited as I did at my birthday parties when I was a little kid who could hardly wait for the fun to get started. Where was all this dang enthusiasm coming from? I pulled a peppermint from my pocket and popped it into my mouth. With Lissandra, I was careful to hide the preparations that led up to our kissing. But that was about romance. This moment between Hutch and me was about something else, but I wasn’t sure what that was just yet.

  Damn it, I told myself, just get it over with.

  To that end, I shut my eyes tightly and thrust my head forward, aiming for Hutch’s lips. And our lips did meet—right after my chin collided with his. There was a loud clop, exactly like the sound a horse’s hoof makes against a hard surface. The forward momentum caused my mouth to smash into Hutch’s. I could feel his teeth cut into my upper lip. I could taste blood.

  Together, we each snarled, “Shit!”

  I shoved away from him. I realized that I’d swallowed my peppermint. Hutch must have also swallowed his gum. The way his mouth was hanging open now, anything not tied down in there would have been sliding down his chin by now. He stuck his tongue out, eyes crossing as he tried to assess the damage. “I think I bit my tongue off!” he cried. He was lisping, but the message was clear enough.

  I saw blood, but his tongue was intact. “No, you didn’t.”

  Hutch grabbed a roll of paper towels and ripped it open. “Damn, Jerry! What the hell was that? Were you trying to bite my face off?” He pressed a wadded paper towel to his mouth.

  “Sorry, man.”

  He pulled his hand back, staring with dismay at the blood that brightened the towel. “Look at this,” he wailed, his voice shaking with indignation.

  I was already drowning in embarrassment, and now anger shot up my spine. “Damn it, Hutch,” I replied, rolling my eyes. I paused for a second to suck down my own blood. “Quit being such a little sissy. You whine worse than a girl.” I pushed him aside, unlocked the door, and started out of the janitor’s closet.

  The moment my back was to him, Hutch—in an action that had nothing to do with gayness—got a good feel of my hinterlands. He planted the fake Timberland boot on his right foot squarely between the back pockets of my direct-from-Walmart Faded Glory blue jeans.

  The blow to my backside left me stunned (but not because that’s where my brain is, thank you). I couldn’t believe Hutch had actually kicked me. It was just as unbelievable when my fist shot out and got acquainted with Hutch’s jaw.

  From there, things went downhill pretty fast.

  Chapter 9

  I WALKED down Poplar Avenue, cursing my existence with every step.

  It was rush hour, and as I passed the point where Poplar became Highway 22 again, the highway started clogging down with the loud, fuming crush of cars racing for Webster’s Glen and points beyond. My throat hurt, my nose was burning and bloodied, and a knot the size of a baby’s foot sat on the side of my head, all from blows delivered very solidly by Hutch. We’d tussled in the narrow service hallway of Madison’s Deli until something large and hairy (Hutch would later tell me it was the bakery chef, but I’d be willing to swear it was an eight-foot gorilla) emerged from the kitchen, seized us by our necks, and tossed us out the rear service door like a couple of rotten cabbages. Hutch then raced for the front of the building. I realized what he was about to do and ran hard on his heels, but he got to the car before me. He hopped in and started the engine. I made a grab for the handle on the passenger door, and he threw my backpack, hitting me in the chest and knocking me backward. In the few seconds it took me to recover my balance, that shiny yellow coupe blasted its way out of the parking lot.

  I only had three dollars in my pocket, hardly enough for cab fare. And I didn’t have my cell. Not that it mattered. I wasn’t about to call Mom or Dad and ask to be picked up. They’d have a few too many questions about what I was doing in Benton. My parents had warned me repeatedly never to hitchhike under any circumstances, so thumbing a ride was out. There was no bus service from Benton to Webster’s Glen. That left me with just one way to get home.

  I ran the first two miles or so, but the backpack was heavy and made my shoulders ache, so I slowed to a brisk walk. I’d called Dad from school to let him know that I was hanging out with Hutch and would be home by six. My current pace would put me there around six thirty, but that was nothing Mom or Dad would get upset over since my curfew today wasn’t until seven. At least I would come out of this without getting into trouble.

  Nothing sets the heart racing like the blue-white flicker of police strobe lights. Once I crossed out of Benton, the four lanes of Poplar Avenue narrowed to the two lanes of Highway 22. The sidewalk also ended at the border, and I had been stumbling along the sloping, grassy berm with cars whizzing by barely four feet away. After my jog turned into a walk, I made perhaps half a mile under those conditions before the brie
f, sharp warble of a siren cut through the air and the police car started flashing its lights behind me.

  I stopped and turned. A white and blue Benton city cruiser had pulled off the road. The driver’s door popped open, and a cop climbed slowly out. He was Hispanic, about the same age and height as my dad, but thicker in build. He wrapped the fingers of his right hand around his belt, close to his holstered service revolver. He wasn’t smiling.

  Do cops ever smile?

  “Where you going, son?” he asked in a voice that put the grrrr in gravelly.

  I thought I might pee my pants.

  “Home, sir.” I smiled in what I hoped would be a winsome and wholesome manner. But I knew even as I did it that I just looked nervous. And guilty. Of anything and everything.

  “It’s dangerous for you to walk along the highway like that. You could get hurt.”

  “I’ll be careful, sir.” I turned to go.

  “I can’t let you walk on the side of the highway, son.”

  “It’s okay. Really. I’ll watch myself.”

  The cop’s voice got even lower. It rumbled with an authority so profound it could have parted seas. “Get… in… the… car.”

  Would you have told him no?

  COMING home in a police cruiser is embarrassing. You think everyone in the world is a witness to the event, the image of you in the backseat—secured behind the mesh divider like a rabid animal—forever burned into their minds. I can’t say that the entire world saw me, but Dad sure did.