“Who took this picture?” Chris glances at me, then each of our friends, trying to find the guilty party.
My vision blurs and my breath comes up short. I lean back against the lockers. The metal cuts into my shoulder blades as I struggle to keep from collapsing. It’s overwhelming, what this means. I’m out, like, naked in the middle of the hallway—no, worse, because it’s Dave’s cock filling my mouth, and the picture is so candid, you can tell I’m enjoying it. Damn, that shit is personal. Something’s been taken—no, stolen—from me, my most personal, private thing. And that thing has been smeared all over the walls to be judged and ridiculed by everyone who sees it.
“Fuck,” I mutter. The oxygen has been sucked out of my lungs, and I can’t get it back. Our friends are silent, eyes darting from me to Chris, perhaps seeing how we’re going to react. My sister demands her phone back, and Chris absently hands it to her.
My sister says something else shitty to me—what it is, I can hardly hear or process—then storms away. The only person who comes into focus is Chris, still demanding to know who sent this, and I can only figure he means whose cock is in my mouth. And I realize even the way I look at Chris is incriminating me and probably him too. I have to get out of here. Right now. I abandon my backpack completely and drop my deck at my feet—not the new one Chris gave me, which is safely stored in his car, but my old trusty that I don’t care if it gets abused. I hop on my magic carpet and skate blindly down the hallway. A teacher calls out to me, but I kickflip a curb onto the walkway, sprint through the lawn, and drop my board on the sidewalk off school grounds. I pump my legs until I’m flying, hardly bothering with stop signs or traffic. My anger and adrenaline fuel me until I don’t even realize how far I’ve gone.
I’ve been violated, outed in the worst possible way. Only Dave could have done this, but why? Spite? Anger? Jealousy? What an awful, hateful thing to do, which makes me question everything I thought I knew about Dave and what we did together. I feel cheap and dirty and used and stupid. So fucking stupid. Betrayed. The list goes on and on.
It’s not that I’m ashamed of being gay, or even sucking off Asshole Dave—yeah, the name is back. It’s the complete and utter violation of my privacy and having that on display for everyone at Sabal Palm High to judge and hate on. It’s the same reason I never show off my skateboarding tricks until I’ve practiced them to perfection.
I hate looking stupid.
I need to focus on something constructive. I check my phone for the address of the nearest DMV. It’s too far to skate, so I pull up the city bus routes and make my way to the nearest bus stop. There’s a young mother there with three kids under the age of five. The baby’s crying and the middle one keeps trying to totter out into traffic, and the oldest one looks like he’s tired of the bullshit. I wonder how she got to this place of having three kids and waiting on the bus, which, let’s be real, in South Florida kind of sucks. And then I figure that somewhere along the way, a man must have betrayed her, kind of like my own dad betrayed my mom, kind of like how Asshole Dave betrayed me, and even though I don’t know her, I can relate to her struggle, so I offer to keep her one kid out of the street while letting the other one mess around with my skateboard and she tries, in vain, to get the baby to stop crying. But the baby keeps on screaming because life is hard, and even this kid, at six months old, knows it.
Crack Really Puts Things in Perspective
IT TAKESforever to get to the DMV, and then there’s a line. A loooong line, and the people who work here are slow as hell and don’t seem to mind stretching out the process. I guess they get paid either way. First there’s paperwork. Then the written test. More paperwork. Then it’s another hour of waiting for the driving test, and I’m jacked up on soda and candy from the vending machine, my only source of nutrition, when the woman behind the counter finally calls my name.
“You can pull your car around back,” she says.
“My what?”
“Your car. You need to have a car in order to take your driving test.”
“I thought you guys provided the car.”
She sighs like I’m the world’s biggest idiot. “No, sweetheart, we don’t provide the car. You have to bring your own.” She glances down at her clipboard and then, perhaps noticing I’m on the verge of tears, shows a sliver of humanity. “I’ll file your paperwork. Come back next week with your own car and we’ll finish it then.”
“Are you open tomorrow?” I whine. It’s nearing closing time, so even if I managed to get my mom’s car, by the time I got back, it’ll be too late.
“Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Make an appointment next time and it will go faster.”
I moan, still trying to keep it together, then exit the DMV in a huff. I’m sticky from the ride and grimy from sitting on my ass in the DMV all day. My emotions are running amok when I imagine all the people who must have by now seen my mug performing fellatio on Asshole Dave and the last thing I want to do is go home and face my raging sister making this all about her again. And Chris. I don’t want to have to explain that picture to him.
Knowing Chris, he’s probably got our apartment cased, waiting to ambush me. Or maybe it’s the opposite and he never wants to talk to me again after today. Even though he won’t admit it, some part of Chris likes being a cool kid, and this was definitelynot cool. The thought of him abandoning me is too depressing to even contemplate.
I hop on my board and head for the beach, thinking it’s the last place I can run and hide.
When I get there an hour or so later, the sun is at my back and there’s a damp chill in the air. There are a few guys out surfing, but I’m not in the mood to beg for a board.
My stomach growls because all I’ve eaten today is cake, a candy bar, and chips. I recognize one of the beach bums, Lieutenant Sean Knox, picking through the trashcans that line the beach access. Sean’s one of the guys who will reliably buy us beer if we give him a cut, and I decide to spend the last of my birthday money from my mom on getting totally shit-faced. Seems like the only way to end this awful day.
I offer up my plan to Sean with the option that he keep the difference in cash. He suggests we split the case of beer instead, and I tell him I’m game. He asks me what kind I want, and I tell him to pick since it’s all the same to me. He comes back from the convenience store with a case of Miller Light under his arm. I figured we’d just split it there on the sidewalk, but he tells me to follow him down to the beach.
Once there, he ducks under the pier and climbs up to where the sand meets the pilings and creates a secluded kind of cave. Not a bad place to camp out for the night, which makes me wonder if Sean does that on the regular. He plops down and motions for me to join him, cracks open a beer, and tosses me one. I thought I’d be drinking alone, but I suppose it’s just as well to drink with a friend. I pop the top and it foams up a bit. I slurp it up, thinking it tastes only a little bit better than it smells.
By this time the sun is starting to set and the surfers are all going out for their last few rides. I get to thinking about my surf trips with Chris, how I’ve usually punked out by this time and I’m just sitting on the beach wrapped in a towel watching him surf. If I make my eyes go wide and fuzzy, I can almost see him out there on the waves right now, and it fills me with a sense of calm and contentment that also feels dangerous, and I know I’ve really screwed things up this time.
While we drink, Sean tells me about his time in the army and where he spent his tours. I’ve heard it before, but I listen again to be polite. Then he starts telling me about this city in Afghanistan, this one particular battle, which apparently has been made into a movie and stars an ex-marine who was there.
“He was the only one of his platoon to survive. I mean, what are the chances?” Sean says with a bitter edge to his voice, and I’m not sure I understand the significance except to think that he is one lucky bastard.
“Know what I think?” Sean leans in like we’re two gangsters planning our next bank robbery.
“What?” I’m light-headed and at ease. I could listen to Sean all night long. Just two buds, kicking back a few beers, telling war stories.
“I think that fucker was hiding. I think he abandoned his boys. Because the shit he was able to remember.” Sean shakes his head. His upper lip curls into a snarl. “I mean, I was in some shit, man, and I can’t remember anything.”
