Violence Begets... (25 page)

“I had no idea about the closet. I’m
sorry I made you get in there.”

“I didn’t love the idea, but I didn’t
think it would hit me that hard.” Another long pause. “I don’t know why this one
gets to me. With the shit he puts me through, I don’t know why this one makes me
lose it. But I guess now I know I can’t do any closet. I should’ve guessed—I hear
us homos have a hard time with closets,” he joked, smiling weakly.

Rick

Sylvia and my dad never mentioned the
trip again, and Kevin and I never made it on our date. He promised he’d ask me again,
and I teased him relentlessly about being a romantic, which I know he loved. After
the trip to the mountains, he opened up more and more, telling me stories of his
past. He didn’t have a lot of happy memories to share, but he tried. Most of the
time he recounted the nightmares of living with his dad, and then begged me to tell
him of happier times I had with Jason. Jason would’ve really liked the Kevin I was
beginning to know.

We counted down the days to graduation.
As soon as school was over we planned on ditching the guys and making ourselves
scarce until August. He turned eighteen just a few weeks before me, and would go
to New York first. He’d saved enough money over the years to get things going for
himself, and now he included me in his plans. As soon as I turned eighteen, I’d
leave my nightmare behind. He was working on changing our names so our dads couldn’t
find us. We planned on disappearing into the city and never looking back. I couldn’t
deny our future together any longer. Even if I still struggled with the idea that
I might be gay, one thing was for sure—I was in it for the long haul with him. I
felt that powers stronger than us were lining up the pieces. It was only a matter
of time.

Even though the conversation with the
guys was the same as always, the change of scenery was nice. Downtown Salt Lake
during spring break was not happening by any standard, but it beat a trashed old
barn any day.

“Seriously man, my mom took my phone
and everything. I can’t believe her.” Mike complained.

“Well, you did get caught, so it’s kinda
your fault. If you’re dumb enough to get busted, then I don’t feel sorry for ya.”
Brett elbowed Mike.

“It’s not like I meant to, dumb ass.
How was I supposed to know she’d be waiting up for me?”

Towards the end of the guys' light-hearted
banter, I noticed Kevin stiffen slightly, not anything anyone else would’ve noticed,
but I knew his body well. I glanced around, seeing a guy walking towards us with
a very pronounced swish in his hips. I watched as he noticed Kevin, and a smile
spread across his lips. A pang of jealousy shot through me.

“Hey, honey!” he said, obviously talking
to Kevin.

“Fuck off, not interested.” Kevin spat,
his fists clenched as he jammed them into his coat.

“Whoa, sweetie, don’t ya remember me?”
he said, then paused. “Charlie, from Danny’s?”

“The likes of you? No.” Kevin said as
he pushed past the guy, ramming his shoulder into him.

“Dude’s got a crush on you, Kevin,”
Brett blurted out. I nearly choked as I inhaled my smoke. Kevin barely looked at
Brett, but he shut up real fast. I prayed Kevin would keep his cool.

“Whatever, bitch,” the Charlie guy said
as he continued to walk away.

“Fucking faggot.” Kevin gritted through
his teeth, and my stomach clenched at the slur.

“Excuse me?” Charlie said. “Last time
we met, Kevin, you weren’t so shy.”

As his name dripped off this guy’s lips,
Kevin turned, took three steps and curled his fist into Charlie's stomach. When
he doubled over, Kevin slammed his knee into his face, and he stumbled back, falling
to the ground.

“I don’t know any goddamn cock-suckers,”
he sneered and kicked at him, narrowly missing his head and landing his boot squarely
in his chest.

The out-of-control Kevin who stood before
me now was nothing close to the person I’d gotten to know. I watched in shock as
he delivered blow after blow. I thought I should do something, but with so much
on the line, standing up to him in front of the guys could blow up in my face. I
watched as he kicked the guy several more times, each kick punctuating a statement
that broke my heart. With a final kick, he turned to walk away.

“I know you like it rough, but I don’t
remember you being this aggressive when you were fucking me in the ass, sweetheart,”
the guy sputtered from the ground.

“Oh fuck!” I breathed as Kevin pulled
the guy up and slammed him into a nearby building. In one motion he had his knife
out and was pressing it into the guy’s throat.

“I’m going to kill your faggot ass,”
Kevin sneered. The sight of blood at the tip of the knife drove me to action. My
smoke slipped from my fingers as I rushed at Kevin and grabbed the arm holding the
knife. He flung me back and the knife again made contact with the guy’s throat.
Kevin was crazed, showing none of the calm, controlled violence he usually displayed.
Again, I grabbed his arm. Desperate to stop him, I lowered my voice, praying only
he’d hear me.

“This is not the part of you I fell
in love with.”

His head snapped to me, and I could
barely hear him as he repeated one word.

“Love?”

The question was strangled and painful
from his lips. I nodded slightly. A confused look crossed his eyes and he shook
his head, his black hair loose and wild around his face. He looked to where Mike,
Brett, and Jeremy stood, and I watched him pull into himself, straightening his
spine and rolling his shoulders back. He took a deep breath, asserting his control,
and looked back at the guy he’d pinned.

“Do it, Kevin. Kill the faggot freak,”
Brett said behind me, and I nearly turned and ripped out his tongue with my bare
hands. I watched Kevin flinch. His grip on the knife tightened and the guy gasped
as it pressed harder into his neck. I silently squeezed Kevin’s arm again, pleading
with him to stop. He looked at my hand and then at me, and I was amazed as the hate
in his eyes disappeared, giving way to something I’d never seen in him. For several
seconds he just stared at me. Then I watched as he crumpled in on himself, shoulders
hunching over, eyes slipping to the ground. He pulled his hand back, and with a
cry—not quite anger and not complete anguish—he slammed his knife into the brick
wall, shattering the handle. He yanked his arm from my grasp as if my hand was burning
him, then turned and ran. As he disappeared into the darkness, I knew I had broken
him.

Kevin

I figured I was in shock. My life had
completely imploded, and I stood there staring at a fucking water fountain shooting
fifteen feet into the air. I needed to get high. I knew it wouldn’t be long before
the entire gay community found out what I’d done to Charlie, so I had to get to
the club and get drugs before the word spread. Thank god no one knew my real last
name, and if the police got involved they’d be looking for a 21-year-old who lived
downtown, not a high school student from the suburbs.

I walked to the bar slowly, as though
moving through molasses. Flashes of Charlie with my knife at his throat tore at
my goddamn nerves. I couldn’t bring myself to think of what would’ve happened had
Rick not stopped me. As I had beat the fuck out of him, all I could hear were his
words, outing me, and with each punch I hoped the guys would believe less and less
what they heard. If they believed him, or even suspected, the rumor was sure to
make it to my father’s ears, and that would be the end of it.

My dealer, Jake, was running low on
my usual. He had crystal. I debated; I’d seen crystal fuck up so many lives. I knew
it was a drug that robbed the soul, but with the realization that I didn’t believe
I had a soul to lose, I walked away with enough to make me numb for days.

The only place I could think of going
that I wouldn’t be found was the roof of the high school. Rick had heard me talk
about it, but I doubted it would cross his mind as a place I’d go. With alcohol
and a food supply, I asked the cab driver to drop me off at a house near the school.
For three hours I’d kept myself busy making plans, getting drugs, alcohol, shelter
and food, in that order. Now, I had to fucking deal with the suppressed emotions.

Moments after I had started running,
I had thrown both of my phones. I knew myself and knew what was about to happen.
I didn’t need the distraction of the outside world while holding the pain suffocatingly
close. I was prepared, and as I closed the door quietly on the roof, I set the bags
down and shattered.

They were the darkest hours of my life,
and at times I wasn’t sure I’d come out of it alive. It was daylight when my tears
dried long enough to take my first line of meth. My surroundings became sharp, and
I counted the bricks on the roof for hours. Then my mind dulled, and as soon as
I started coming down, feeling the edges of terror playing at my nerves, I took
another line. The drip at the back of my throat caused by the meth became reassuring.
As the rollercoaster of the high continued, I recognized the thoughts of my father
and the knife at Charlie’s throat as a sign that the drugs were wearing off, so
I’d lay out another line and go soaring again. I didn’t think of Rick.

I never touched the food I’d brought,
but I drank to stay hydrated. I lined up rocks, counted the scars on my arms, unlaced
and re-laced my boots, counted how many steps it took me to walk from one end of
the roof to the other and then how many it took to walk the perimeter.

I prepared. Even if my father had not
been told of my sexual deviance, I’d fallen off the grid for days. I debated if
it’d be better to go home high or sober. If sober, I was more alert. High, I was
numb and it wouldn’t hurt as much. Self-preservation made up my mind for me and
I decided sober was best. I was more likely to get out alive if I could play my
cards right, and to do that, I knew I had to be on my game. Things were fuzzy, but
I wasn’t tired. I focused on the small things—big things were too much. I went back
to the rocks, making designs, organizing by size, then color.

After nearly fifty hours of being high,
I could feel the sleep deprivation kicking in. I pulled out the weed I’d bought
and rolled a blunt that would knock me on my ass. I knew enough about crystal to
know I had to come down. In my current state, I felt like I could keep going for
a few more days, but I had the presence of mind to force a crash. As soon as I felt
myself coming down again, the panic tugging at the edges of my consciousness, I
smoked the blunt as fast as I possibly could and polished off several shots. I needed
to be fucked up to sleep off the effects of the crystal.

I fought coming back to reality as long
as I could, tossing and turning on the hard pavement of the roof. I knew I didn’t
want to wake up, and my mind held the reason just out of my reach. Finally, a flash
of my knife and Rick’s pleading eyes had me doubled over, throwing up the little
liquid I had in my body. I was dizzy and lightheaded, but forced myself to drink
some Gatorade and gag down the energy bars I’d brought with me.

As I watched the sunrise on my third
day, I could barely wrap my head around the disaster my life had become. I made
a mental list of things I was going to have to fix. I had lost control of my rage
and almost killed someone, and the fact that I was capable of killing someone was
something that was going to take some time to work through. I had backed down from
a fight at Rick’s insistence, and I hadn’t kicked his ass for stopping me. The guys
would be itching to challenge me, but I didn’t have the energy to defend my position.
I had to focus on my father. The guys would probably put all the pieces together,
and I was sure half the neighborhood knew I was gay by now. They may have even placed
Rick into the mix already. Rick. Rick loved me. Had they heard him tell me that?
I’d given up all control by running. And I knew I had to face my father. The list
made my head hurt, and I longed to lay out some more meth, but I tucked it deep
inside my jacket pocket.

I knew I had to get home and shower
before my father came home from church. Cleanliness was next to godliness. I felt
off, but I was sober—well, as sober as I ever was. I still wasn’t ready to feel
everything that had happened.

I walked home, planning time for a shower
and some extra time to allow me to gain my focus and control. Unless I planned on
giving away the fact that I had a spare key hidden outside for the side door, I
knew my only choice was to use the key my father had given me for the front door.
Thankfully, he wasn’t waiting for me when I slipped inside. As I had hoped, he had
kept up appearances and had gone to church.

After showering, I slipped into some
boxers, not bothering with a shirt or pants, knowing he’d probably rip them off
for easier access with the belt. I fixed myself some chicken and a protein shake,
anticipating my need for the energy to deal with what was coming. When it neared
time for him to come home, I sat on my bed and calmly waited. As expected, I heard
him walk in the door right on schedule. I listened intently for him to come downstairs,
but he didn’t. From the sounds of it, he got busy making an early dinner, then turned
on the TV. I could hear the beginning music from The Who on a CSI rerun.

He didn’t come down, but I sure as hell
couldn’t sleep; every creak in the house made me shoot out of whatever rest I was
about to fall into, sure he was going to burst into my room any second. I was wide
awake, although exhausted, when his alarm clock went off the next morning. I rolled
out of bed and ate two protein bars, again trying to give myself the energy needed.
I heard him shower as usual, and then, at last, I heard him on the stairs.