Turnabout 2

Three

By Chris G

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There was mostly silence in the car. I’d given Will instructions on how to get to Josh’s. He knew the area, so we didn’t have a whole lot to say about that. After my outburst, it seemed he didn’t want to reopen the subject of where I was going with all this. I sure didn’t want to either.

In order to have something to do, I played with the radio. Will’s parents’ car was not an industry model of cutting-edge audio wizardry. In other words, the radio was all there was. I suppose I was lucky there was FM.

Ever notice that when you’re scanning stations, looking for something decent, all you’ll ever get on any station you hit is an advertising break? I took us through two used-car lots, three supermarkets, a bank, and a shoe store. All delivered in that high-intensity, breathless onslaught much favored of commercial announcers. Then I found music. Classical guitar. My favorite. Right.

When I went to move on, Will reached out and knocked my hand aside. “Leave it,” he said.

“You like this stuff?”

“Not really. But it’s better than all that noisy skipping around.”

He was sounding a little curt again. Probably thinking better of his initial generous impulse.

“Look, Will. You don’t have to do this. You can just drop me and I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

“I’m not ‘dropping you’,” he said with heavy emphasis, clearly indicating that he hadn’t meant that phrase the way I did. “I want this over; the sooner the better. Whichever way it goes.”

“Why, Will? Why are you fighting so hard?”

“Because I…”

“No! Don’t say it’s because you ‘love me’,” I said, almost turning those last words into a sneer.

By this time we were on the road leading up the hill to Josh’s place. Will pulled the car over to the side of the road and stopped. He put the car into park and shut off the engine, turning towards me.

“And just what is wrong with saying that I love you?” He was starting to get heated again. I wanted nothing better than to just get out, get away. But this had to be faced.

“I told you before. Because I don’t even know for sure what that means.”

“Do you love Josh?”

“Will!” I exclaimed, exasperation sending my voice into that adolescent/adult no-man’s-land. “I just got done telling you I don’t know what the fucking word means! Jesus!” I could hear myself getting shrill, feel myself start to lose it. I didn’t want to take us back where we’d been before. “Look, Will,” I said, trying to sound more calm. “You seem to be pretty definite about what you feel. You seem to know what you want.”

He nodded, and his mouth opened.

“Hang on; I want to finish this.” He sat back and waited. I took a few seconds to get my mental feet under me.

“You seem to know where you’re going. I don’t. It’s like I said before: you took the lead with me. You got me to open up, to actually relate to another person. Relate strongly. You kind of swept me off my feet.” I delivered that last one with a wry grin, and he reacted the same way.

“You said just now that I was the strong one. I still find that really a strange thing to say. Cause I sure don’t know where the hell I’m going. I’m still exploring. Thing is, I read you one way, then another way. I did the same to Josh. So now I don’t really know who either of you is. And I just have to find out.”

Will looked thoughtful for a moment. “That’s what I meant about being strong,” he finally said. “It’s probably not the right word for it. You could probably come up with something better. You’re the word guy.”

“True. I’m certainly not the bicycle pump guy.”

Will snorted. “I’ll say! Anyway, what I meant was that you had guts enough to stop and think about what was going on. I’ve just been on a high ever since I barged in on you that day. You know, I think I really did sweep you off your feet. Of course, you made it easy. You were lying down at the time.” He gave a short laugh.

I couldn’t help grinning broadly at that. “Yeah. If I got a good lawyer, I could probably do you for rape.” The grins on both of our faces started to fade after that. “You know, Will, you saved my sorry ass with what you did that day. I’m not sure exactly where I was headed, but it was nowhere good. That much is for real sure. That’s why I don’t know if what I feel for you is gratitude or love. And I have to know, cause I don’t want to be leading you on. This thing with Josh is proof enough of that.”

“What is it about him, anyway?” was Will’s blunt question.

“That’s just it. I don’t know yet.” I paused, thought, then went on. “What I think I’m seeing is that the arrogant asshole bit is all a front. You could figure that he’s just a spoiled rich kid. And he could easily still be. Worst case scenario is that he’s just trying another tactic to somehow nail me—you know, get revenge. But I keep coming back to what happened between us in the shower. There was no way he was faking that. It jolted him but good, and it just may have started him thinking about himself and what he was doing.”

“Is he gay?”

“Well, if he isn’t he sure has good control over himself. Enough for us to kiss and make me feel that it was real. Of course, he could be bi. Ever see him with any girls?”

“Only that gang of his. The toadies.”

“I don’t think they count for anything. What I was getting from him yesterday sounds like he’s got some issues. And so of course, what do I do at the first sign of trouble? I run.”

“OK, David, don’t start the flagellation routine again. This time you’re running toward him, not away from him.” Will started the car again and prepared to pull out. I put my hand on his arm and he turned back toward me.

“Will… thanks, man. You’re being great about this. Really great. More than I deserve.”

“Hey, no probs. I’m doing it because I love you. And I think I know what I mean by that.”

Ouch, I thought. If this is love, how come it hurts so much? Isn’t it supposed to be all sugary, and soft, and dreamy, and all that good shit?

We made it up to the top of the hill, to the closed gates barring the way to Josh’s house. We looked at them, then at each other.

“Well,” I said, “I think I should just check out whether Josh is here. I guess there must be some sort of intercom thing over there to call the house on.”

“I suspect,” said Will. “I’ll just wait here, OK?”

“Will, man, don’t feel you have to hang around if I get in. I mean, I don’t know what’s going to happen if I do—how long I’ll be.”

Will looked distressed again. He took a deep breath. “Let’s just take it a step at a time, OK?”

“Gotcha.” I squeezed his arm again, and got out of the car.

I went over to the pillar that held the key pad Josh had used to enter his security code. Sure enough, next to it was what was obviously an intercom. There was a speaker grille with one big button under it. I pushed it, and waited.

After a few seconds’ wait, a woman’s voice came through. “Yes?”

“Umm, ahh… my name is David Preston,” I started.

“Oh, David! It’s Mrs. Barrett, David. I’m so glad you’re here! Are you driving?”

“No, ma’am. I’m on foot.”

“Then just go around to the other side of the pillar you’re at now. There’s a little gate there. I’ll buzz you through.” She clicked off. I turned to wave at Will, who was watching me through his window. I could hear a buzzing noise, so I quickly went around the pillar and pushed on the heavy iron grill I found there. It swung open and I moved through. I turned to close it again, and found that it was doing that for itself. The marvels of modern technology.

As I walked up the drive, I was thinking furiously. Here I was, so now where was I going with this? Mrs. Barrett was obviously pleased by my presence. What did that mean? Did it mean that Josh was going to be too? Had he said something to his parents? Did he explain my sudden departure? How was this going to go?

Do I give the impression that I like to just wing things?

I looked up from my musings, and was startled by the sight of Mrs. Barrett coming down the drive toward me. What was this about?

“David, thank you so much for coming.”

I opened my mouth to reply. At least, I tried to reply. I came up totally empty. You’ve heard about people just gabbling? That was me. I’m proud to say that when I heard myself doing it, I promptly shut my mouth.

“David, I know from Josh that you left in a big hurry yesterday. Josh was quite upset, but he gave me no explanation as to why. I’m hoping that you will.”

We were walking slowly up toward the house now.

“Is Josh here?” I wasn’t trying to stall. I just wanted to know where I was going with this.

“Yes, he is. He’s been in his room all day. He said he didn’t want to go to school, which is very unlike him. I thought that it was best to give him some slack. When I say that he was upset last night, it was understating the case.”

“Right. Yes,” I said, thinking furiously. “That was probably the best thing to do.” Then I blushed hotly. I’d been speaking to her as though I was another adult.

She gave no sign she had noticed anything odd about what I’d said. She spoke back to me as though she believed we were contemporaries. “Can you give me any idea at all what happened between you?”

Well, there were certainly some things that had happened between us that I was not going to tell her. “All I know, Mrs. Barrett, is that things started to go wrong when I was trying to get him to tell me something, and I called him Joshua.”

She stopped. “Oh dear,” was all she said.

I stopped beside her, waiting.

She stood thinking for a few moments, then turned toward me. “I don’t know if you remember this, David, but when you came in yesterday afternoon, obviously upset, Josh’s father asked him if he were responsible for your distress, and he used his full name.”

I nodded. “Yeah, I do remember. I guess it’s why I did it too. I thought I was kind of teasing him a little, trying to sound like his father to get him to do what I wanted.”

“Yes, I see. Unfortunately, David, that was the wrong thing to do.”

“I figured that out when Josh slammed me up against the wall and yelled at me never to call him that again.”

Mrs. Barrett became visibly upset. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

I hastened to reassure her. “Oh, no ma’am. It was just the suddenness of it. But I figured that I’d done something really wrong and… well, as you know, I was kind of upset, and I thought that I should just go before I made things worse.”

She nodded slowly. “Do you know that he looked for you for a long time before he came back?” I just gazed at her. “He drove around all the streets and came back quite depressed. I asked him why he couldn’t just phone you, but all he would do is shake his head. He just stopped talking to me.” I could see she was distressed by that.

She went on. “I’m debating with myself whether I should fill you in on some things, but I really think Josh should do it. David,” she said, turning directly toward me, and placing both hands on my shoulders. “You’re a new friend, at least from what Josh tells me. Do you think you could try to get over this? The reason I ask,” she rushed on, “is that after he came back from taking you home Sunday night, he was like a new person. He laughed, he talked… I haven’t seen him that happy in a long time. And now, it’s gone again…”

She trailed off. I made my move. “Mrs. Barrett, that’s why I came today. I realize I didn’t do the right thing yesterday, and I want to try to fix that. I’ll be happy to do anything I can.”

She looked up, her face brightening. “Thank you David. Well, let’s go on then. You just go straight to Josh’s room. You know the way.”

I knocked softly on Josh’s door. There was no response. I tried again, this time more loudly. Still nothing. “Josh, it’s David,” I said, although I couldn’t seem to raise any volume that I figured was enough for those words to carry through the door. But it was enough.

The door opened, and Josh stood there. A haggard, disheveled Josh who gazed at me with dull, red-rimmed eyes. “David,” was all he said, and in a tone that carried no hint of how he meant it.

My eyes dropped to the floor. “Can we talk?”

“Yeah.” He stood aside and I walked in. The heavy drapes were closed, shutting out all daylight. Only one small light was on, and the room was dim and had that stuffy, closed-in atmosphere which tells you that it’s been shut up for a while.

Josh went over to the bean-bag chair and dropped heavily into it. It was like he had no life, no energy in him at all. His eyes were closed, his head thrown back. I stood irresolutely for a few moments, then shook my head and went to work.

I went over and knelt down beside him. I put my hand on his arm, around his bicep, and applied a firm but gentle pressure. “Josh, I… I’m really sorry for what I did yesterday.”

That got a response. His eyes flew open and he turned his head toward me. “You’re sorry for what you did yesterday?” His voice was filled with incredulity.

“Yes, I’m sorry for what I did yesterday. Obviously, I screwed up and hurt you. And I’m sorry for that. And then, instead of facing it, I ran away. And doing that was way worse than what I said to you.”

“Jesus Christ, David! I’m the one who a… attacked you, for fucksake! Over a stupid little name…” He trailed off, breathing heavily, swinging his head. “I’ve been beating up on myself over that ever since you took off out of here. And here you are back again!” He said that last as though just realizing for the first time that I was there.

“Yeah. I had to. You’ve been beating up on yourself, I’ve been beating up on myself… Let’s face it: looks like we’re just a pair of masochists. Maybe we should join a club.”

I actually got a smile for that, weak though it was. I still kept my hand on his arm, and I started to give short strokes up and down. “Josh,” I said softly, “we’ve managed to hurt each other a few times. But we’ve also come to be really good friends too. Can we just concentrate on that, and let that be a way of getting around the other stuff?”

Josh took a deep, ragged breath. He looked back up at me, and his other arm came up, snaked around my shoulders, and drew me down against him. We didn’t kiss or anything. We just lay against each other, feeling each other’s warmth, the strength of each other’s grip. I buried my face in Josh’s shoulder and just breathed him in. Every breath I took seemed to bond me more tightly to him. Josh stroked my hair, pausing every so open to grip the back of my neck. He seemed to be trying to convince himself of my reality.

Eventually, I gently disengaged myself and sat back up beside him. “OK,” I said, “let’s get this sorted out.”

Josh looked at me and grinned. “Are you going to turn out to be a lawyer or something?” he asked.

“Why?” I asked, puzzled.

“Well, you’ve just got this thing about crossing all the i’s and dotting all the t’s…” Then he realized what he’d just said and laughed. It wasn’t quite the carefree laugh I’d heard the last couple of days, but it was getting close.

“I think you’re more right than you think you are. I guess maybe that’s just exactly what I have been doing, which is why I want to get everything sorted out. And there’s more to it than just you, Josh.”

Josh’s grin faded. “What else?” was all he asked.

“I… I’ve been having a couple of talks with Will. He actually drove me up here today. I don’t know, he could still be outside… down at the gate, I mean.”

Josh picked up a remote, punched a couple of buttons, and his big TV came to life. Displayed on it was a series of shots, obviously from different security cameras around the property. The one showing the street outside the gate revealed no cars. “Looks like he’s gone,” said Josh.

“Yeah,” I responded. I think my face must have shown more than I intended.

Josh snapped off the TV again, put down the remote, reached over, and gently turned my face towards him. Still holding his hand against my cheek he said, “Let’s get this sorted out, OK?” He heaved himself out of the chair, and came to sit on the floor facing me. He reached out and took both my hands in his.

That connection suddenly seemed to make everything feel more secure. My hands tightened around his and I smiled at him. “You make everything feel easier, even if it isn’t,” I told him.

He smiled back. “I think we can work out anything we want to if we try hard enough. I know I want to.”

“OK. So what was it about what I said to you yesterday? Was it really that I called you Joshua?” His mouth twisted as soon as I said the name, and his hands suddenly clenched in mine. “Gee, I guess it was, with a reaction like that!” I went on. “What’s up with that?”

Josh took a big breath and blew it out through pursed lips. “Oh, man,” he said. “There’s so much up with that it’s hard to know where to begin. But I’ll try. Things haven’t been good between Dad and me for a long time now. I mean, it was great when I was a little kid. He’s always been busy, what with the company and everything, and he’s worked really hard at it. But back then, he always had time for me. I think he made time for me, actually, even if he thought he couldn’t afford to. But then, like… all of a sudden, it changed.”

I thought. “When exactly did it change?”

“Well, it seemed to be when I started Middle School. All of a sudden, he started talking to me all the time about the family name, about how important it was to not do anything that could damage our reputation. I mean, before, we just used to fool around together and do all sorts of things. That stopped, and the only time he spoke to me it just seemed like another lecture on how to behave myself in my ‘position’. It was like he expected me to do something to damage him, or the family name, or whatever. It was just this constant stream of ‘don’t do this, don’t do that, make sure you keep in good with so-and-so’, just on and on and on…”

I started stroking my thumbs along the backs of his hands which I still held in mine.

“Then there was the incident with Debbie.”

“Debbie Harkins?”

“Yeah. Her.” Josh said it in a tone which indicated a good deal of distaste. “Dad was always wanting me to get out and mix—with the ‘right people’ of course—and, this was back in grade ten, Debbie decided to have a party at her place one Friday night. So obviously I got invited. I went, and it was like the moment I walked in she was all over me. I don’t think she left me alone for one minute from the time I walked in the door. She got me a drink, and I knew from the first sip it was spiked. I pretended to drink it, but actually I was slowly tipping it out into some plant that was beside us. Probably killed the damn thing.”

I laughed at that. Josh didn’t. There was obviously something that really bothered him coming up.

“She started getting really friendly. She’d got us sitting on a couch over in a fairly dim corner of the room. The lights were on pretty low in there anyway, so there wasn’t much of a way anyone was going to see a whole lot. But she started coming on to me real heavy. I mean, her… her hand was on my leg and she took one of mine and put it on… on her…”

He tore his hands out of mine and turned completely away from me. I wasn’t sure what to do. It seemed pretty obvious that he was uncomfortable telling me about the physical part of this. I didn’t know whether I should touch him again or not. I decided on a compromise. I scooted up behind him, close but not quite touching, and put a hand on the floor on each side him. “Josh, tell me,” I said very softly in his ear.

He choked when he started and had to try again. It was barely a whisper. “She took my hand and put it on one of her breasts. And then, when I didn’t do anything—in fact, I tried to pull it away again, she squeezed my hand so that I was squeezing her tit. And then she leaned in and started licking my ear!”

He said it with such disgust that I could feel my stomach heave in sympathy. He continued, “And then her other hand went right up to my crotch and she started feeling me up! I… I just couldn’t handle it. I just jumped up and ran right out the door. I kept running for blocks and blocks. And then I just stopped, and as soon as I did I started to feel it all over again and I just heaved my guts up onto somebody’s lawn.”

“Oh my God!” I said, more to myself than to him. “So when I did that to you in the shower room…” I couldn’t go on.

Josh spun around at this and grabbed my shoulders. “No, man! That was completely different. Don’t put those two things together.”

I shook my head. “Josh, I can’t help it. It seems like everything I’ve done so far has been to hurt you, even if I didn’t understand what I was doing.”

“You’re crazy, David! You haven’t hurt me at all! In fact, I haven’t been this happy in a long time. You’ve saved me!”

I looked up sharply. I could feel the classic expression of amazement forming itself on my face. He was sounding just like I had when Will demonstrated his love for me. “Do… do you mean that?” I asked, at the same time remembering what his mother had said to me outside about how happy he’d been since I first came to the house.

“Of course I mean it! I’ve found somebody to love!”

Uh oh. First Will, now Josh. Where was this heading? What did I feel? How… Oh, shut up, David! Shut up, shut up, shut up! Don’t talk to yourself—talk to him! “So what happened with the Debbie incident?”

Josh looked down at the floor again. Obviously, this really bothered him. “Well, she told her father what had happened. Only she sort of reversed the roles, you know? Like it was me who’d been forcing myself on her. And her father phoned my father…”

“Uh huh,” I grunted. Figures. Stupid fucked-up bitch! “But Josh, she’s like… one of the gang,” I said lamely. I meant one of the toadies, but I didn’t think it was a good time to remind him of that term.

“Oh, yeah,” said Josh with heavy irony. “Only she’s not like the rest of them. I kinda think that what my father said to her father was that he should be lucky I was interested in her and that there might be some advantage to continuing the connection. Anyway, she’s never left me alone since then. It’s like I’m kinda her property.”

“Oh, wow,” I breathed, again sort of to myself. “So that’s why she was like that.”

“Huh?” said Josh. “She was like what? When?”

“Oh, this afternoon after school. I didn’t know how to get hold of you, and I asked her if she could give me your phone number. She went on about how you were always with me now and ignoring them. She was having a real hissy fit about it.”

“Great! Fucking great,” snarled Josh. He threw himself back full length onto the floor, the heels of his hands pressed into his eyes. “Fuck them all!”

So there I was. I’d made it all worse instead of helping. Will on one side, hurting like hell because he was sure he loved me; Josh on the other, hurting like hell because he was sure he loved me… I wondered where else I could spread destruction and woe before I finished.

What the fuck was I going to do?

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