As his prison sentence continued, Kell stuck by Bede’s side, thankful for his brutish-looking guardian angel, thankful for the break in the clouds when he stood in the yard doing his best to get as much April sunshine as he could as he watched Bede play hoops.
Kell joined in sometimes, being a good-natured winner when he got a point, because that’s what Bede did. He never whined when he got shoved to the gravel, not that Bede ever got shoved, like, ever, because Bede was there to help him up, grasping Kell’s wrist and hauling him to his feet with a quick pat to his back.
Sometimes, when they were standing in line in the dining hall, Bede would clasp the back of Kell’s neck and pull him close, whispering in his ear.
Sometimes Bede whispered something about the book he was reading, other times, he just leaned close, his body warmth soaking into Kell. And sometimes he told dumb knock-knock jokes, which made Kell laugh, and then everybody would look at the two of them, which had been Bede’s intention. To make it look like what everybody thought was going on between them was actually going on between them. Which it was not.
Bede didn’t like virgins, and he sure as hell wasn’t interested in Kell’s ass or any other part of him. And for that, as well, Kell was grateful.
On the day in the yard that Ryan passed a king sized Reese’s Peanut Butter to Kell, Kell knew that, had this happened on his first day in the yard, he’d now be sharing a cell with Ryan, and doing Ryan’s bidding. Getting fucked in the ass every night, and other unthinkable horrors. But when he brought the candy back to his cell, Bede snatched it out of his hand, and just as he was about to throw it in the trash, Kell grabbed his wrist.
“What’d you take it for?” Kell asked, reaching to get the candy back, but Bede held it over his head a good long moment before lowering it. “Those are my favorite.”
“See this?” Bede asked, laying the candy in his palm. “See the little holes along the dark brown area? Look close.”
Because this was Bede, Kell looked closely, blinking at what he thought he saw.
“Are those little holes?” he asked, looking up at Bede.
“If you ate this,” said Bede with utter seriousness. “You’d end up in the emergency room or, at the very least, spend an entire night on the can. Never trust anything from an enemy. Hear me?”
“Yes, I hear.”
Ryan was not nor ever would be Kell’s friend, though it sure was funny as hell the next day when Bede and Kell came to breakfast in the dining hall, and it was obvious to one and all that either Kell had a stomach made of iron or he’d not eaten the candy. Even Griff came up to Kell, and patted him on the shoulder, sayingSmart fella, before walking off amidst his little entourage of bully boys.
Kell stayed out of Ryan’s way, and away from anyone who Ryan associated with, as best he could. He walked at Bede’s side, or even a little behind him or in front of him, living in Bede’s shadow in a way that would have irritated him had it not been what was getting him through his time behind bars.
He showered every day with Bede and slept like a baby on the bunk above Bede’s. He ate with Bede, and hung out in the yard with him when not working in the prison library, and never once did Bede act like Kell irritated him.
When Kell brought the subject up one time, Bede only shrugged and said that Kell was doing him a favor because since jailhouse scuttlebutt saw them together, he no longer had pathetic twinks coming up to him, fawning all over him, begging him to be their man, their protector.
“So why me?” asked Kell, looking up at Bede, his eyes tracing the tattoo that went from one side of Bede’s neck and down along the curve of his chest.
The tattoo, he now knew, was a geometric pattern meant to invoke a traditional Maori tattoo, but wasn’t an actual one.That would be disrespectful, said Bede, when he’d explained the pattern to Kell.But it’s stylized to evoke that kind of tattoo ‘cause I think they are beautiful.
“I’m kind of a twink,” he added, in case Bede needed any clarification. Kell knew that his looks, dark messy hair and green eyes, were unremarkable, and that his slender, still-growing body, whether on the road or trapped behind bars, made him vulnerable.
“Why you?” asked Bede, looking down at Kell, his head making a shadow of the overhead light that settled like a gentle cloak over Kell’s shoulders. “Cause you were standing up to Ryan. Cause he hit you. Cause I hate him. And you have a backbone, which I respect. That’s why.”
Bede played everything close to his chest, and other than an odd remark about loving New Orleans jazz, or how often he wanted a pass to the library to exchange books, he never mentioned much about his past, which maybe was tragic, or exciting, or whatever, but Kell was never able to find out. In return, though, Bede never pried into Kell’s affairs, keeping his distance like he was doing Kell a favor.
Then there was that one night when a fight had broken out in the dining hall, and all the inmates were herded to their cells, the doors locked, and the lights shut off early. From beyond the metal door, Kell could hear shouts and bangs, maybe even gunfire. From the bunk below, Bede said it was only stun guns, and smoke bombs, maybe a stun grenade.
“They just want to subdue the riot, is all,” said Bede. “It’s a lockdown. Probably be over by morning.”
They were shut in, the clang of the door still echoing in Kell’s ears. The blaring alarm was dampened by the metal door, but it was constant, like a pounding headache had expanded to encircle the entire prison.
In his upper bunk, Kell’s heart thudded, and he couldn’t close his eyes, couldn’t catch his breath. Finally, unable to handle any more, he’d climbed down from his bunk, reaching for Bede in the darkness.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Without a word, Bede had scooted back, making room for Kell on his bunk, tugging Kell into place so they were front to back. When the sheet and blanket and then Bede’s muscled arm had settled over Kell, he’d turned and buried his head against Bede’s strong chest.
The words came from deep inside, rising up in the alarm-echoed darkness. How he’d come out to his parents right after Christmas his junior year. How his dad had gone ballistic, but in a scary way. Not just shouting and complaining, but turning mean, as if having a gay son was the worst betrayal.
His mother, a gentle soul who lived only to please, had been unable to stop his dad when he withdrew permission for track and field. When he locked Kell in his room. Took away his learner’s permit. Took off his sharp-edged belt and whipped Kell into a corner, blood flecking the air while his mother cried and begged his dad to stop. Whipped Kell any time he saw fit after that, week after week.
All of that horror during the spring semester of his junior year had narrowed to a point where his dad sat him down at the kitchen table and flipped a three-fold brochure in front of him. He was being sent to a conversion camp in upstate New York, a place called Serenity Sleepaway Camp, where, his dad told him, he’d get the help he needed. Get help putting his head back on straight, and leaving the gay nonsense behind him.
