Rounding Third (28 page)

    
Rob knew he didn’t want to hear any more. “Josh, it’s okay, you don’t have
to...”

    
Josh was too mesmerized by the horrible video he was replaying in his head to
pay any attention. He gripped the worn arms of Nonie’s pink, flower-patterned chair
as though bracing himself for what was about to happen on the TV screen of his
mind. “He took me to Corey’s and I couldn’t say no. Part of me was afraid, but
I still wanted so badly to be his friend. I couldn’t believe he could treat me
worse than he already had. I know it sounds crazy now. But I went. Not that I
had any choice. I was so afraid of Danny by then anyway. We went downstairs.
Supposedly to play pool. As soon I got down there, I knew things weren’t right.
Corey and Poulan were there. Pretty drunk. There was a rope lying on the pool
table. Danny was behind me so there was no way I could run, even if I’d have
had the guts to, when Corey said, ‘So this is your little fag toy who wants to
suck us all off?’” Rob felt his gut tighten into a painful fist and wondered if
he could, or should, resist the urge to vomit. 

“They grabbed me and tied me over the pool
table. Each time I tried to resist they punched me, hard. By the time they had
me over the table, I was choking on the blood from my bloody nose. They had my
head hanging over the side and they yanked off my pants...”

Rob felt his head swimming and he wanted to
let the wave of nausea carry him far away. He wanted to pass out and not hear
the details that were thrust upon him about pool cues and rape and testicles
beaten with pool sticks and sweet, innocent Josh being used by three punks and
beer bottles and pool cues and the beating and he wanted to beg Josh to stop,
to please stop, as though by stopping the retelling he could somehow stop the rape.
But he knew he couldn’t open his mouth without throwing up and he also knew
Josh was very far away now where he would never hear Rob’s pleas to stop.

A different voice, one not connected to the
litany of crimes broke in. “Bobby?” it said. It took Rob a moment to find the
voice in his memory and recognize it as his father’s. Once Rob realized whose
voice it was, and how close, he could only hope his father hadn’t heard any of
Josh’s story. Josh went on talking unaware of Mr. Wardell or anything beyond his
pain. There was now something about being thrown out, shirtless, to walk home
on a cold November night.

“Rob?” The voice of concern came again. Rob
slowly got up, walked to the door and gently closed it without saying a word.
He returned, like a dutiful zombie to continue listening to the
recitation. 

Josh seemed not to have noticed the movement
and was now describing another trip to hell.  “...they showed up at my
house, the three of them. I don’t know how they knew I was home alone. It was
so...Danny always knew where to find me. Sometimes I’d let him find me, to use
me, to beat me. To punish me for being the sinful faggot I was...”

“Oh, Josh.” Rob could no longer contain the
anguish, but his friend still wasn’t listening. 

“Sometimes Danny would just show up, and he’d
make me take him upstairs and suck him knowing my mother was right downstairs.
And they seemed to know I’d be alone and they’d all just show up. They’d open
the door and walk right in, like it was their house not mine. Taylor slapped my
face and asked me ‘where’s the beer, faggot.’ I told them there wasn’t any. My
parents don’t drink.”

Josh was now wringing his hands reliving the
fear of what sort of punishment being a bad host might bring from his uninvited
guests. Fresh sweat was running down the frightened boy’s face in spite of the
chill of the porch. 

“Danny said, ‘Good thing we brought our own,’
and he held up a six-pack. He pulled one off and shook it and opened it. The
beer shot over the rug and the couch. I know it’s crazy, but I knew what they
were going to do to me, and still I was more afraid of what my mother would say
if she got home and saw beer stains on the rug or couch.”

Rob’s mind again swam away only to surface
unwillingly to hear of Josh being escorted to his parents’ bedroom. Of being
used repeatedly on his parents’ bed. Of how even during the rape he was
concerned about the stains on his parents’ comforter. There were details of how
they used his mother’s lipstick to write
fag
on his stomach and chest
and back and drew lipstick circles around his nipples and his navel, and on his
penis, which Josh was embarrassed was hard while they were doing all of this
and again instead of being worried about his personal degradations he was more
worried about his mother noticing the damage to her lipstick. 

Josh recited how he ran around the house,
still in pain, blood trickling down his leg, trying to spot clean the couch and
rug and comforter before his parents got home, before he would allow himself a
hot shower and sank into the corner of the shower stall. Of how his family did
come home and how his father yelled for him to get out of the shower, and he
couldn’t move, and how his father came in and yelled at him and dragged him out
of the shower, and hit him. 

“And the thing was I knew I deserved it. It
was God’s way of punishing me for being a fag. And I couldn’t tell anyone. I
could never tell. I could never say anything. I couldn’t. Who could I tell? I
just had to keep quiet. I couldn’t tell...”

Rob realized Josh had become stuck--a wheel
spinning in a snowy ditch, unable to free itself. Rob reached out and put his
hand on Josh’s shoulder. Josh recoiled, then recognizing Rob, grabbed his wrist
and pulled Rob toward him. Rob knelt before Josh as Josh bent over him, sobbing
into his hair, still repeating “I couldn’t say anything...”

Rob stroked his cheek and said, “You can tell
me. Anything. Anytime.”

The tears continued until Josh had no energy
left with which to cry and Rob helped him to bed and left the room, turning out
the light and closing the door. He tiptoed upstairs. Light still seeped from
under his parents’ door.

Rob went into the bathroom and closed the
door quietly. He slipped off his shirt and hung it neatly over a towel rack,
then raised the toilet seat, knelt down and began retching. 

Rob was still registering the knock on the
door when it opened. Rob couldn’t take his head away from the toilet, but from
the corner of his eye saw his father’s slippers and familiar sky-blue pajama
bottoms. He felt a hand on his shoulder. “Are you all right?” 

“No.”

“Is Josh all right?”

“No.” 

“Bobby...”

“It’ll never be all right.” Rob fell to the
floor, convulsing at his father’s feet. 

38

When he awoke the next day, Rob had only a slight
memory of his father carrying him to bed. His head was still pounding and his
stomach was a wrung-out rag. The taste of stale vomit still filled his mouth
and sinuses. It only took a moment for him to remember the reason for his own
pain and could only imagine how much worse it had to be for Josh. Without even
checking to see if he was dressed, he leapt from his bed and sprinted down to
Josh’s room. 

Josh was slumped in the chair again in front
of the TV. On a game show network re-run, Bob Barker was telling someone the
price was wrong. “Hey,” Rob said as nonchalantly as possible, considering he
was only in his briefs and was panting heavily. Josh tried to smile. It didn’t
work. “How are you?”

“Ok,” Josh lied. “I’m sorry about last night.
I didn’t mean to dump all of that on you. It just sort of came out. I can’t
believe that a stupid TV show...I mean I must be pretty messed up if a TV show
can make me lose it like that...”

“It’s okay.”

“Not really. I gotta get a handle on this. I
can’t keep freaking out on you and your family. Start crying if Bob Barker
makes someone bid on a pool table.”

“But that’s a lot to keep inside you without
telling anyone...”

Josh nodded. “But it just comes over me all of
a sudden sometimes. Most of the time it’s like something that happened to
someone else and I just heard about it. Or like I saw it in a movie.”

Rob said, hoping Josh wouldn’t take him up on
it but he knew had to offer, “Anytime you need to talk about it...”

“And I know now I deserved it.”

“Deserved it?”

“They should’ve killed me for being gay. God
hates homos. My parents said it so often, you’d think I’d have understood
that.”

“Oh stop it. If that’s true, why doesn’t he
punish me?”

“He has. Your family has suffered. You’ve
suffered and now you’re stuck with me. It’s God’s will.”

“A loving God would not let anyone suffer
like this. Think about what you’re saying. Do you really believe those assholes
were the instruments of God? That’s like saying God used Hitler to punish the
Jews. I don’t know much about religion and I’ve never read the Bible except to
bullshit your mother, but I do know that if there is a God those assholes are
not on his side. The devil’s maybe, but not God’s.”

“Why else would God let this happen?”

“This had nothing to do with God. Ask
yourself how Danny Taylor knew about you and me.”

“He can spot a faggot when he sees one.”

“He can spot one ‘cause he is one. He has
gaydar! He hates himself for being gay and since he can’t beat himself up, he
beats us up. Why else would he want to have sex with guys?”

“What about Brickman and those guys?”

“They would eat dog shit if Taylor told them
it was cool. The biggest homophobes in history have all been gay. J. Edgar
Hoover, Roy Cohn, Ted Haggard, Mark Foley...”

“Who?”

“Never mind. Too much history class and time
on the computer. The point is they lash out at gay people to avoid being gay
themselves. It reminds me of that thing little kids say about you point at
someone, you have three fingers pointing back at you. Every time Taylor pointed
me out for being a faggot, I kept thinking he was three times the faggot I am.”

“You think Danny is gay?”

“Duh. I’ll bet you twenty bucks he’ll be
hanging out in gay bars in San Francisco in five years!”

“Bobby?” Mrs. Wardell called from the living
room.

“In here, Mom!”

“Are you okay?” She appeared at the door. “We
didn’t bother waking you for school.”

“Thanks. And yeah, I’ll be fine.” 

“Make yourself some breakfast if you feel up
to it. And put some clothes on. You don’t want to get really sick.”

“I think I need to brush my teeth and let my
mouth air out a bit first.”

She smiled, “I have to go. I have a job
interview.”

“Job interview?” Rob asked.

“I’ll tell you about it when I get back.” She
gave him a peck on the cheek, waved at Josh and left.

“Are you sick?” Josh asked.

“I was, sorta, last night. I’m okay.”

Josh looked concernedly at his friend, but
let it go. “I wasn’t sure if I was dreaming it, but last night I thought your father
peeked into the room while I was sleeping. The second time it happened, I knew
I wasn’t dreaming.”

“They’re worried about you, Josh. I’m worried
about you.”

“What a coincidence, I’m worried about me,
too.” Josh tried to smile at his own weak joke, but again his cute mouth wasn’t
in a smiling mood. 

“Your parents don’t seem to care how much
school you miss any more.”

“Neither do I. I do my work. I’ll graduate.
That’s all that matters.”

“Do people say things at school?”

The thought to lie to Josh crossed Rob’s mind
only fleetingly since he knew he was unlikely to get away with it anyway. “A
little, not much. Sometimes. I need a shower.” Rob started out of the room then
turned back. “We have the house to ourselves. Care to join me?”

It was the closest thing to a real smile from
Josh that Rob had seen in a month. The subject of sex hadn’t come up since Josh
had moved in.

They got in the shower together and Rob began
licking the water off Josh’s neck and chest. He moved up to kiss Josh, and Josh
let him, but didn’t kiss back. Rob pulled back. “Let me know when you are
ready. I won’t rush you.”

“I think I told you that once,” Josh said.
“Then I

rushed
you anyway.” Josh tried to kiss Rob. It didn’t work. “I’m sorry,” Josh said.

As they stepped out of the shower, Josh said, “I think I’m going
to nap.”

“Want me to join you?” Rob asked, grinning.

“Not today.”

Without any recollection that he had made the
decision to do anything, Rob pulled on some shorts and shoes and before he
realized it, he was fleeing down the driveway, running. Running down the road,
away from the house. And away from Josh.