I woke up Monday morning with Jon rummaging through his dresser drawers. “Where is it?” He shouted as he pulled out a drawer and looked behind it. “It has to be here somewhere!”
I rolled over and sat up. “What are you doing?” I knew what was going on, but I wanted him to believe I was innocent.
“I’m trying to find my driver’s license!” He shouted in desperation as he threw the drawer on the floor. His underwear flew everywhere. “I can’t understand what happened to it.” He then turned and looked at me.
“You didn’t find it, did you?”
“No!” I said quickly. “Why would I?”
He screamed as he removed another drawer. “Coach is going to be mad if I miss practice today.”
I then recalled Dad telling Jon he was going to take him to the DMV to get another driver’s license after school. I really didn’t care.
Last year, I begged Dad to let me get my learner’s permit. I even told him I’d take a driver’s education class after school. He refused, telling me that I really didn’t need to drive because there were already three drivers in the family. If I needed to go somewhere, then he, Mom or Jon would take me.
Jon just scoffed at the idea of being my personal chauffeur. Dad usually made excuses that he was too busy. ‘Too busy’ usually meant a football game was on ESPN. Mom would try to help, but with Glenn’s pee wee football games and Glenda’s ballet classes, it was difficult.
I really didn’t need my driver’s license. Where would I go anyway? It would be nice to drive to school so I wouldn’t have to ride with Jon, Connor and Ross. However, with a car comes expenses. I get an allowance each week, but I could never afford a car, insurance, and gas.
Jon was lucky. Since he played football, Dad ‘rewarded’ him with those expenses. “He needs a car because he has to practice after school. I can’t always be there to pick him up.” When I reminded Dad that Jon’s teammates drove and could bring him home, I was met with a stern look.
What hurt the most was when Dad refused to let me get a driver’s license by commenting, “Besides, why do you need to drive? You never do anything.” I guess going to school everyday, getting good grades, staying out of trouble, and trying to be a good son, meant nothing to him.
So, could I care about Jon’s missing license which was buried deep inside one of my black dress shoes that I wear only to church?
Nope.
Connor was able to borrow his mother's car, and the ride to school was as usual. Since it was Monday, Jon and Connor spent most of the ride discussing Jon’s lack of sex. Since he had spent the weekend with Connor, he hadn’t been able to see Debbie.
“What about you, Ross?” Jon asked. “You score?” I quickly glanced over at him as his face reddened. I figured when he left the other night to go to Shelby‘s, he was going to have sex. As his face continued to redden, he shrugged his shoulders and looked out the window.
Connor started laughing. “He did.” He looked in the rearview mirror and saw me looking down at Ross, but he didn‘t say anything. He then looked back at his embarrassed brother and kidded, “When he came in, he headed straight to the shower.” I looked over at Ross. His face was burning a bright red.
“Come on, Connor,” he pleaded. “That’s enough.” He then asked Jon if he’d had any luck finding his driver’s license. I had to listen to another rant for the next ten minutes.
I met Jeff in the hallway on the way to first period. I almost didn’t recognize him. He was wearing the glasses I’d picked out for him at the mall on Saturday. He looked…really cute.
“You like them?” He giggled as he adjusted them on his face.
“Yeah,” I laughed. “So you talked your mom into buying them?”
“It wasn’t all that hard to do,” he replied. “She hated the other glasses.” I wanted to tell him that I did too, but I didn’t. I kept staring at his face. He looked like a completely different person.
“Uh, Woody,” he snickered. “You’re staring.” He looked around the hall as if he was afraid someone had noticed.
“Sorry,” I apologized. “It’s just that you look…” I stopped when I realized I was getting ready to say, “hot.”
“Look what?” Jeff gave me a puzzled look.
“Nice,” I said quickly. “Yeah, nice.” I continued to glance at him as we walked to class.
Mrs. Chapman passed back our reports at the beginning of first period. As I suspected, a large red ‘F’ appeared at the top of mine. I knew she was disappointed in me because when I entered her class she looked up briefly at me, frowned and then began talking to another student.
After she handed them back, Jeff got my attention and held up his paper. He had made an ‘A.’ I looked up at the front of the room to see if Mrs. Chapman was looking around the room. She wasn’t, so I flipped Jeff the finger. He laughed and flipped me back.
I spent the hour being attentive in her class. If she was like most teachers, the disappointment would be short-lived. I’d try harder the next time we had to do a report, and hopefully, all would be forgiven.
When the bell rang, Jeff followed me out of the room. “I take it she didn’t like your report on oak trees.” He patted me on my back and started laughing.
“I’m going to have to talk to her,” I replied straight-faced. “I spent the better part of fifteen minutes googling that report and pasting it together. It should be worth at least a ‘D-.’”
He bent down and threw his arm around my shoulder as we walked to our next period. “You’re an idiot,” he laughed as we continued down the hall.
I didn’t see Jeff again until lunch. After going through the cafeteria line, I joined Kate and Anna at our usual table. Jeff hadn’t arrived yet. Kate smiled when I sat down. She briefly looked over at Anna and then gave me that ‘we share a secret smile.’ I smiled back, hoping that no one was noticing our glances.
I couldn’t believe that I’d come out to Kate, and she had sort of come out to me. I still didn’t know if she was a lesbian, bi or straight. She had said she fantasized about Brandon. Then she dropped the bombshell that she sometimes thought about Sarah. Her mother had come home before we got a chance to finish our discussion.
Just as I was going to ask Anna about the biology problem I’d had trouble with the night before, I noticed Lucas coming out of the cafeteria line. I knew he ate the same lunch period we did, but I couldn’t recall where he sat.
I watched him as he approached our table. Kate noticed and turned to see who I was watching. He looked down, smiled and started to walk past us. I looked up.
“Hi, Lucas.” I stood, grabbed his arm, and directed him to our table. “Would you like to join us?”
His eyes quickly darted around the cafeteria before looking at me, Kate and Anna. “You want me to sit with you?” He seemed surprised that I’d asked him to join us.
“Well, yeah,” I responded. “That is, if you’re not eating with anyone.”
“Um, well,” he stammered as he looked nervously at me. “It’s nice of you to ask, Woody, but…”
I didn’t let him finish. I pulled out the chair where Jeff normally sits. “Come on, Lucas.” I looked over at Anna and Kate. “We don’t bite.”
Kate gave me a puzzled look. She couldn’t figure out why I was insisting on a boy we’d never really talked about sitting with us.
He put his tray down and then sat next to me. I introduced him to Kate and Anna. I was surprised that none of us really knew him. Since he was in none of my classes, I assumed he shared classes with them. But by their reaction, they didn’t seem to know him either.
Kate gave me a puzzled look, so I figured I should try to explain why I had invited him to eat with us. “Lucas and I go to the same church,” I said. He looked down at the table and nibbled on an apple. “He sings in the choir. You should have heard him yesterday morning.” I glanced over as his face reddened.
“What was that song you sang?” He looked shyly at me.
“Seasons of Love,” he replied softly. “It’s from the play, Rent.”
“Yeah,” I said excitedly. “Seasons of Love.” I looked into his eyes. “You were really good.” He started to respond when Jeff walked up carrying his lunch tray.
He stood towering over Lucas. “You’re in my seat.”
Lucas started to get up, but I grabbed his arm. “It’s okay,” I said. I gave Jeff a pleading look. “I’ll pull up a chair for Jeff.” I got up, walked over to an adjacent table and got an empty chair. I placed it on the other side of me.
Jeff plopped down in the chair and started eating. Occasionally, he’d glance at me and Lucas. Kate carefully watched the exchange. Anna finally broke the ice.
“Jeff,” she said excitedly. “You got new glasses!”
“Yeah,” Kate chimed in. “They look great on you. Where did you get them?”
Jeff glanced over at me. “At the mall Saturday. Woody thought they looked good on me.”
“Woody?” Kate gave me a puzzled look. She then looked back at Jeff and smiled. “Well, they do look good on you.”
The rest of the lunch was stressful. I was trying to be friendly when I invited Lucas to join us. However, Jeff’s behavior was puzzling, and Kate’s stares were starting to get on my nerves. Lucas seemed nervous. It was as if he’d rather be anywhere other than with us at the table. And Anna was… Anna. She acted as if everything was normal.
Lucas left five minutes before the end of lunch. He made an excuse that he had to see a teacher before class. He had no sooner left when Jeff asked, “Who invited him to sit with us?”
I was becoming angry. I couldn’t understand why Jeff was so upset. Lucas was a nice guy. It wasn’t like I’d invited my brother to join us. After all, we’d been attending the same church for four years and we had hardly said a word to each other. After listening to him sing yesterday morning, I wanted to get to know him better. I thought he might just fit in with our little lunch group. Seeing Jeff’s reaction, I guess I was wrong.
“Why do you have to be such a moron?” I asked Jeff. I was angry the way he had treated Lucas.
“Why do I have to be a moron?” Jeff pushed back his chair and stood.
“Woody. Jeff.” Kate was trying to calm us down. I knew we’d never fight, but I still didn’t want Jeff to be angry at me. I guess if I understood why he was angry, I could deal with it better.
“I got to go.” He grabbed his tray and walked away.
Kate and I gave Anna an astonished look when she exclaimed, “Oh, someone is jealous.” She then started giggling to herself. Kate looked over at me and raised an eyebrow.
I saw Jeff later in the hall between periods. He came up and walked me to my sixth period class. He didn’t say anything about Lucas, so I guess he had forgotten about it. Before entering class, he grabbed my arm and stopped me.
“Are you doing anything this weekend?”
“Not really,” I replied. I wasn’t about to tell him that I never do anything on the weekends. “Do you want to go to the mall again?”
He hesitated a moment as if he was embarrassed to say anything. Finally, he said, “I thought maybe you might like to come to my house and spend the weekend.”
I didn’t know how to respond. I liked Jeff and we had a lot of fun at school, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to spend the weekend with him. One, I was becoming attracted to him. And two, I was gay. I almost outed myself to him on Saturday when I called him cute. Fortunately, he laughed it off. Any other guy might have been insulted.
But going home with him could be dangerous. What if he only had one bed and he asked me to share it with him? What if my teenage hormones took over and I did something I’d later regret?
I looked into his expectant face as he awaited an answer. “Um, let me think about it, okay?”
His smile left, replaced by a frown. “What’s to think about?” His voice had a tone of irritation. “You either want to or you don’t.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t want to,” I responded. “I just said let me think about it.”
He gave me a disgusted look. “Never mind, Woody.” He started to walk away. “It was just a stupid idea anyway.” I watched as his shoulders dropped and he trudged down the hall to his class.
Kate was waiting for me when I left school. She smiled as she walked up and took my arm. “Want me to wait with you until your dad gets here.”
“He won’t be picking me up,” I informed her. “He has to take Jon somewhere.”
“So you’re walking home?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess.”
Kate wrapped her arm tighter around mine and led me away. “Where are we going?”
“To my house,” she replied. “Mom will take you home when she gets in.”
As we walked toward her house, she began to talk about what happened at lunch. “I think Jeff has a crush on you.”
I stopped and faced her. “What?”
“He does,” she remarked as we continued down the sidewalk. “He got really upset when you invited Lucas to join us for lunch.” She began to giggle. “For a minute I thought Jeff was going to claw the poor boy’s eyes out.”
“He did get upset,” I said. I’d been thinking about Jeff’s reaction to Lucas all afternoon. I too wondered why he acted so strangely. It was hard for me to believe he liked me. After all, I was me. Not too much to like.
“He wants me to spend the weekend with him,” I informed Kate.
“Like stay the night and sleep with him?” I started laughing at the astonished look on Kate’s face.
“No,” I insisted. “I’m not going to sleep with him.” I furrowed my brow. “At least I don’t think so. He didn’t tell me.”
“See,” exclaimed Kate. “I knew he liked you. I told you that the other day.” She looked over and raised her eyebrows. “So, what are you going to do?”
“I told him I’d think about it,” I replied.
“Not that,” giggled Kate. “I mean, you know, sex-wise?”
I pried Kate’s arm from mine and stopped. “There is no sex-wise,” I insisted emphatically. “Jeff’s….Jeff. I’ve never thought about him like that.”
“Liar,” she giggled.
I walked away quickly, but she caught up and took my arm again. “So what about Lucas?”
“What about Lucas?” I sighed.
“You like him, don’t you?”
“Sure I like him,” I replied. “He’s a nice guy.”
She stopped me once again. “No.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “You like him, like him.”
I didn’t know how to answer that question. I have been admiring him for a couple of years. At the time he seemed almost unapproachable. But after Sunday’s service, it seemed like we could become friends.
I frowned. “It’s not like you think,” I insisted.
“Sure, Woody,” she giggled. I looked up and realized we had reached her house. When we entered, her little brother was running through the house chasing a friend. Kate hollered at them to go outside. He stopped and stuck his tongue out as they left.
“He’s such a brat,” Kate remarked as I followed her into the kitchen. She grabbed a couple of cookies and two Cokes out of the refrigerator. We then sat down at the kitchen table.
“Now let me get this straight,” she said as she looked over at me. She then started giggling. “I guess straight isn’t the right word.” I rolled my eyes at her.
“Last week you tell me that you’re gay.”
“I didn’t tell you I was gay,” I reminded her. “You drug it out of me.”
“Whatever,” she replied. “Anyway, I drag it out of you that you are gay. You tell me that you’ve never had any experience with boys. Now in one week, Jeff likes you and wants you to spend the weekend so you can have sex.”
“We’re not going to have sex!” I shouted.
“Whatever.” She held her hand to my face. I wanted to slap it, but I didn’t. “So,” she goes on. “Jeff likes you, but you like Lucas.”
“I don’t like Lucas!” I shouted again as I rolled my eyes.
“That’s right.” I saw a glimmer in her eyes. “You like some guy on the internet who you’ve never met.” I just shook my head.
I didn’t want to admit it, but Kate was right. It did appear Jeff liked me, but I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I wasn’t opposed to the idea of having sex with him if he wanted to try something.
And I do like Lucas. However, I don’t know if he’s gay or not. His dad is a preacher. He probably thinks that he’ll go to hell just thinking about sex. But he is cute.
And then there’s Indyboi. When I saw him on the screen, I wanted to jump through it and do things to him I’d only fantasized about. He doesn’t even seem real, though. He’s only an image on my computer screen. However, with Indyboi, I can actually talk to him.
But I’m me, Woody. Skinny, short, scrawny Woody. Jeff, Lucas and Indyboi are all cute. Well, I’m assuming Indyboi is cute. I’ve never seen his face, but with a body like his, there is no way he could be ugly.
And I’m still me. The scrawny tree.
“Have you met him yet?” Kate asked.
“Who?”
“The internet guy, Silly.”
“Oh, Indy…” I stopped myself before I let his name slip.
“Indy?” She asked. “Is that his name?”
“Naw,” I replied. “I don’t know his name.”
“What do you know about him?”
I wanted to say that he had the hottest body I’ve ever seen on a guy. But how could I tell her that?
“Not much,” I responded instead. “We’ve just started chatting.”
“Well, be careful.”
“I will,” I assured her. We sat around after that and chatted about nothing in particular. That was one of the things I like best about Kate. She was comfortable to be around. She knew how far to push, and then she’d pull back. Another thing about Kate, though. She has a memory like an elephant. I knew she’d eventually get around to asking me more.
On the way home, Mrs. Combs started asking me a lot of questions. Many were personal, like what kind of grades I have in school and what my interests are. Kate kept asking her to stop, but she would somehow manage to get me tell something more about myself.
Halfway home it dawned on me what she was doing. She was interviewing me as a potential boyfriend for her daughter. Twice she had come home, and we were alone in the house. She probably thought we might be making out. I looked over at Kate and giggled.
Dad was home when Kate’s mother dropped me off. Jon’s car was gone, so he must have gotten a new license. As soon as I walked in, Mom informed me that dinner would be ready in a half hour.
I headed up to my room and turned on my computer. I was anxious to see if Indyboi was online. I was disappointed when he wasn’t. I went into the chat room to see who was there. I recognized several of the names. It seemed like the same guys were there every day. I guess they were a lot like me; they didn’t have anything else to do.
Suddenly, I saw my name being mentioned. It was Bidad36.
Bidad36: u there Elmer
I was becoming more comfortable being in the room, so I didn’t get nervous as I typed a reply.
ElmerFudd: yah i’m here
Bidad36: do you want to watch me
I opened his cam,
Bidad36: u like what u see elmer
ElmerFudd: yeah
I was getting ready to get off when I noticed Indyboi come online. I waited anxiously for a few minutes until he opened his cam. I clicked on his name and his image appeared. He was sitting in his chair in a pair of boxers. Several guys were encouraging him to remove them. Suddenly, I saw my name again.
Indyboi91: hey elmer
Like it always does when he talks to me, my heart started pounding.
ElmerFudd: hey indy
Indyboi: watcha doin
It was difficult for me to read what was being said since so many guys were trying to chat at once.
Indyboi: elmer u there
ElmerFudd: yeah i’m here
Indyboi: someone wants to talk to u
He lowered his cam.
Indyboi: he says hi elmer
Again, the chat started scrolling quickly. Numerous men were telling him to remove his underwear and show them his hot body. Even Bidad36 had forgotten about me and was trying to get Indyboi to chat to him. He lifted his body and removed his boxers.
Indyboi: elmer?
ElmerFudd: yeah?
Indyboi: can i you?
Panic seized me. I wanted to turn on my cam, but I was too afraid. There were forty-nine guys now in the chat room. I would be visible to all of them. However, I was also afraid that if I told Indyboi no, he might not want to talk to me again.
Indyboi: well??????
ElmerFudd: hold on
I reached into the drawer with a shaky hand, pulled out my webcam and prayed silently that I wasn’t making the biggest mistake of my life.