PrivateTim

I think you miss the points on Will entirely. To the Willophiles, Will doesn't just display the average maturity of an average 15 year old, Will is "wise beyond his years". Will is so wise beyond his years that he is always wiser than Brad, often wiser than Stef and sometimes even wiser than John Paul. Many readers don't see any of that.

Don't worry, you won't/ Zach is no saint: that's a great observation. Will gets that, and he doesn't want a saint, he just wants someone who will be honest with him, and he really needs people he can trust to prop him up right now. Will wants someone to be honest with him, but is that Zach? Is Zach honest with Will all through the story? Will demanded of Tony that he be honest with himself, but doesn't insist for the same from Zach. Zach is who always has been since we first met him, a manipulator who uses people for his own purposes and desires.

It was 84° at Disneyland on Christmas Day 2013. I am more smarter than I thought! Will is not a provocateur? His whole conversation was that way. Matt is right, Will should not be telling him who he can and cannot fuck. If Wil and Tony were boyfriends, sure, but they are not. For a guy that doesn't want anyone judging him or telling him what to do, he sure judges lots of people and tells lots of people what to do.

I know, right. Travis is worried about being murdered, but he is so bored, he is willing to risk going on shore, rather than wait out 11 more days on a luxury yacht.

Ouch! (true, but Ouch!) It didn't go as long as I hoped, but we've only moved a couple of years in CAP time from here to The Gap Year, so those storylines could still come to fruition. True 'dat. A brat? A kid who has been a virtual orphan since he was 7 years old? SEVEN YEARS OLD! And he is a virtual orphan because of Wade's mother engineered it that way. Wade is all about family. 'Ohana means family. Family means nobody gets left behind or forgotten' My comment was partly tongue-in-cheek, but you have to admit that Will treats hot assholes who rock his world sexually differently from how he treats ugly assholes who do not.

We don't know if he ever did or did not. It just wasn't in the story. A person, as sexual as Darius is, it would not surprise me if somewhere between 12-14 he had sex with another boy or boys, experimenting with MM and oral. No, it is not, "just the way things are". Some people have standards and moral codes.

Always happy for a new chapter of CAP, especially The Gap Year. Having been going through the entire CAP series again, it is now frustrating to be in a place to have to wait for new chapters vs being able to knock out a complete book. I wondered if Stef's yacht had a panic room, as is common in so many homes of the wealthy now. And I love the story... and the drama...... and the cliffhanger.... but there are several realities.... one, the Maritime Gendarmerie would never, ever arrest someone on a U.S. state extradition warrant, they might on a federal warrant for terrorism. Two, it is highly unlikely that Curtis Buck could get a CA judge to sign an arrest warrant with the Schluter/Crampton lawyers objecting. If the judge did issue a warrant, the S/C lawyers would move to quash it and get it delayed for a full hearing. Three, Travis would have 10 working days (14 days) to appear before the French Investigation Chamber that would consider the application for extradition. The Investigation Chamber then has 30 days to make a favorable or unfavorable decision. The clock would simply run out. But if I was Travis, I'd have my French lawyer write up a will, naming Will as the beneficiary, and if I was Will, I'd be sure my will was updated.

I had an epiphany.... it does require a small rewrite of The Streak, but..... in order for me to get a screen deal, we have to comply with new SAG/AFTRA rules to be Academy Award eligible. Zach Hayes died in Claremont in a tragic accident involving a toaster. In the new version of The Streak, Will meets a guy surfing in Santa Cruz who is from De La Salle High School and he is a football player. Here is the twist, the surfer/footballer is African American. It shatters the very pale complexion of surfing in the U.S., introduces a major character of color into CAP instead of in servants roles and his dick is 5", exploding another major stereotype.

I'm first! I'm first!

Oh.... and can we not have an option where Zach just never wakes up? And can that happen in Millennium?

I've been loving the CAP series forever and I am eternally grateful for Mark and this amazing body of work. Truly there are no accolades big enough that can be given. If there was a little less explicit gay sex, I think Mark Arbour novels would sit side by side with James Patterson, Michael Connelly, Patrick O'Bryan, Bernard Cornwell and Alexander McCall-Smith. There'd be several movies as well or maybe an Amazon or NetFlix series. But seriously... did we need a third "Jake" in CAP? Does no one on the team say, 'hey we have two Jakes already, let's call him Toby.'

Zach has been a douchebag since the say he entered CAP. Getting with John, one of my favorite CAP characters, just because he could and it fucked with Will is enough reason for me to hate Zach for life. I am 3/4 of the way through my first, painful reread of 9-11, the chapters where everyone is trying to warn Will off Zach, especially Gathan. Will goes all Volcano Will on everyone, including JP, Stef, Brad and Gathan. Despite all the warnings of what a self-serving asshole Zach is, Will buys Zach a car, buying into Zach's bullshit. Despite Will's poor treatment of Gathan, and getting Gathan removed as the main trustee on Zach's trust, everything that Gathan said about Zach was true, and more. On balance, I think Zach has been a bigger hurt to Will than a benefit. Will would have been better served to have spent his high school years with someone he could be out, open and grow with.

We really need to find more hobbies for you.... ever tried stamp collecting? 🤣🤣

Except Zach is neither. He is not being treated unfairly, and he isn't an underdog. The boys at the Mission are boys who are the ultimate underdogs. They are the ones who've truly been treated badly by their parents, the authorities and most other people. Their lives are the very definition of unfair. Five miles from the safe, cushy confines of Escorial is East Palo Alto, with an incredible amount of people in deep need (at least in 2000-01). It had a lot of fatherless boys that could have used tutors, volunteer sports coaches, etc. If Will wanted to help underdogs and boys being treated unfairly, he doesn't have far to look.

It irritated me that despite all this crap, he absolutely refused to consider that Zach may be a different person at sixteen then he was when he was fourteen. Be irritated, but through a lot of heartache you will discover that Zach is the asshole at 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, and probably for the rest of his life. It was all I could do to tell him that I didn’t give a fuck what Wally and Clara thought. And this is the problem on so many levels. It shows Will's elitism, his arrogance, his lack of respect for Wally and Clara's parental prerogatives, and his inability to have empathy for anyone else, or walk in their shoes. He can do that for Zach, but he can't for the man who has raised five kids, some of whom are not his, on a garbage man's income. “Maybe they should have a little confidence in him,” I said. “You might remind them that it doesn’t really matter what they think, he’s going to do whatever the fuck he wants anyway. They do have confidence in him. They let him leave home to go play football. They could just pull him back to Claremont.

“No, it is not,” I disagreed. “Seems to me you didn’t feel like you had to disclose how much money you gave to Brian. Now you’re saying I have to disclose whether or not I gave money to Zach?” First, there is the hypocrisy, Will doesn't want anyone to k now his business, but he thinks he is entitled to know JP's business. Then, there is the false equivalency between Brian and Zach. Brian was an adult. Zach is a child, still under the control of his parents. “Did you ever notice how Hayes men are not only judgmental, they’re stubborn?” I asked my father. Is there anyone in this story more judgmental than Will? He is judgmental about Wally & Clara, judgmental on Stef, on JP, his father, Isidore, Claire, Noah... I mean CRAP, who is Will not judgmental of besides Will? "Only in this situation, it’s some strange family he’s living with in New Jersey, and they can completely dictate where he can and can’t go,” I said. Will is a little bitch drama queen. No one is dictating where he can and can't go, he just wouldn't be driving himself.

I think Will is actually a unifying figure in the family, but he's also the mirror, and with this group, it's tough to use a mirror without pissing them off. He's the guy who's going to do what he thinks is right, and damn the consequences. Over time, perhaps the consequences will factor more into his calculations. More to the point with Will, he thinks ONLY his opinion matters. It never, ever occurs to him he might not be right. Which highlights one of Will's biggest flaws. OMG, who wrote that line, Mark or Will 😝 What a bullshit, post bad decision justification. “I didn’t think that I’d ever bring someone home and have that happen,” I said, piling on. “Is this the norm? Should I expect this in the future?” This is Will's passive aggressive attempt at manipulation. Here is what John Paul would have actually said, "I am sorry Austin felt that way, but I am not responsible for his misunderstanding with whom people were upset at. That issue has been laid to rest," he said, glancing at Stef and Brad who nodded their confirmation. "The issue on the table is you involving yourself into the personal business of another family." And the discussion could start from there. Wally and Clara are still responsible for Zach. He is not an emancipated minor. They can take the truck if they so desire. Will has no idea why Wally and Clara didn't give Zach a car because he didn't bother to ask. That alone is douchey.

The way the Chronicles of an Academic Predator is set up is narration from the characters in the story. We are not getting a third party, neutral narration, but from the eyes of one person. We see the world and events through their eyes and perspective. It is not reality we see, the way things actually are, but reality from the viewpoint. Sometimes, maybe often, the two realities meet and are aligned, but just as often, they are not. In the story, I think the younger the narrator, the further apart the two realities are. I remember being 15 and how I viewed my world, then I remember being 30 and how different my view was, how my experiences had shaped my perceptions. The same was true as I turned 45 and I'm smart enough to figure that at 60, 70 and 80, should I last so long, my views will change again and again; that is what experience does. It doesn't mean every older person is wise or right, but it does mean they are worth listening to. I was like Will in that I blew off what my father thought about anything when I was 15, but by the time I'd graduated college, I could look back and see he'd been more right than he was wrong. In CAP the last three books (I think three), many people (the Will Lovers), think that Will at 13 and 14, has been as smart, or even smarter, than all the adults around him. That just isn't the real world. I like the Will character, but he does annoy the crap out of me and maybe because growing up where and how I did, I've known too many kids like him. They usually would up at USC, were drunk for four years, graduated, and got a job at daddy's (or granddaddy's) company as a VP. Will is not that different. I don't think he'll work for any of the family businesses when he graduates college, IF he graduates college. Will may figure he is smart enough already, and doesn't need to listen to professors who are just another adult, not as smart as he. Whatever happens, he will always be shielded by the vast wealth he has access to. He will never have to worry the way Jeff Grimes did growing up, or the wrestler kid at the Mission, or any of the boys at the Mission. Will can do nothing, just clip coupons, and live in his dream world, unaffected by reality. “You haven’t seen how he works,” Gathan said. And Will throws out a smarmy comment, intended to make John feel badly. Here is Will's arrogance. He has known Zach a bit more than a year, but this is the first time he's spent any appreciable time with him, vs Gathan, who has known Zach intimately his whole life. Who, in reality, knows Zach better? “I think what they are trying to do is explain that they’ve had bad experiences with him in the past, and they don’t want you to get hurt,” Dad said nervously, knowing he was walking into an argument that he shouldn’t. But he was pretty wounded, so I let his comment slide. If he’d have said that to me a month ago, I’d have focused totally on him and just let him have it. What in the hell is wrong with what Brad said? In reality, he is right. The people, most of whom HAVE been hurt by Zach, ARE trying to prevent Will from being hurt. “You act like he cares about you, he doesn’t,” Gathan insisted. “He doesn’t have feelings for anyone but himself.” "So why should I step on them? Why should I try to kick him in the balls, just to hurt him? How is that the right thing to do?” In this exchange between Gathan and Will, Gathan reveals an essential truth about Zach, he doesn’t have feelings for anyone but himself. We will see that time and again in following stories. Volcano Will goes to his 'kick him in the balls' extreme. No one said, 'kick him in the balls', they said, 'don't trust him, he is not trustworthy'. “He didn’t have a car in Claremont, and he got in trouble there,” I said logically. That is newly minted 15 year old logic, not real logic. It is a logical fallacy. A does not follow B. No one knows how much more trouble Zach might have gotten into in Claremont IF he'd a car. “Regardless, he’s not in Claremont now, he’s back east,” I said. “Maybe since he’s not living at home, he needs a way to get around.” Did none of these brain trusts ever stop to think about that?" Here is another arrogant, no one is as wise as me Will. MOST kids in high school do not have cars. In Will's unreal world of Harvard-Westlake, Malibu, Menlo School, et al, when a kid turns 16 they get a brand new BMW, Mercedes, 4 Runner or some such car. That is not true for most high school kids. In a semi affluent family, the oldest kid might get a family hand me down when they turn 16, if they are lucky. Dad said, as if Wally and Clara Hayes were the brightest beacons on the planet. Like being Claremont’s best sanitation engineer made Wally an expert on teen psychology. This is beyond arrogant Will, this is asshole Will, looking down his nose at Wally and Clara. He doesn't once stop and ponder what is that these two wonderful people did. He doesn't for an instant consider that they might know what is best for their kids. He doesn't consider for an instant what buying a car for Zach might do to the family dynamic. He doesn't consider for an instant that Wally and Clara, who have raised Zach, might know him better and know what is best for him. No, all that matters is I WILL have made a judgment and decision and all others must bow to it. He has NO IDEA how smart Wally or Clara is. Either one of them could be as smart as JP, Brad, Robbie, or any of them, but Wally and Clara never had the opportunities or encouragement that John Paul, Brad, etc had. They never had the vast wealth to smooth over their lives. If Robbie hadn't left Claremont for Gunn, it is doubtful he would have wound up at Princeton. If Stef hadn't been Greg Anders partner, Robbie would never have joined the Anders Production Co. for it to become Anders-Hayes. This is the world of privilege. Privilege is not bad or wrong, but people who have privilege should at least be self-aware of it and empathetic for those who do not have it. Will gets it in bits and pieces, but at the statement above shows, it is not in the forefront of his mind. Where has Will obtained his expertise in teen psychology? Being a teen doesn't make you an expert on teens. Someone needs to set Will straight on this. This arrogant little prick doesn't think either Wally or Clara has anything to offer, any wisdom to impart to him because Wally is 'just a garbage man' and Clara is 'just a housewife'. Arrogant little cocksucker. “In the end, you’ll see I’m right about him,” Gathan said all self-righteously. Okay, a bit of a spoiler....... stop reading if you don't want to know..... but GATHAN IS RIGHT, as we will come to see. That isn't to say Will should write off Zach right now, but when Will touches the stove and it is hot and he burns himself he should go, 'wow, Gathan was right, you can burn yourself on a hot stove', instead of touching the hot stove time and again. “You seem reluctant to explain your reasoning,” Grand said, letting Dad and Stef know that these flippant replies weren’t going to work.

Move over Tony, someone else needs a seat on the bus as it careens to the edge of the cliff. Sure Zach fooled us for a bit, but can we save Will from more pain by killing off Zach now? Of course that would mean dropping an entire book and half of another, but is that really such a big deal?

The enormity of the impact of Robbie's death on Brad didn't really strike me until this chapter. Not many people are lucky enough to marry their high school sweetheart. The pictures of 16 year old Brad and 16 year old Robbie together, and then growing older, raising kids, flourishing in their careers are just heart wrenching. We do need a future storyline where something snaps JJ out of his bitch personality. We know what was a huge contribution to the shift. Work a plot device to shift him back.

What is it with these people and sex in the midst of the grieving process. I am going to call it "Mourning Wood".

It is St. Catherine's Academy. Jeremy made it sound like St Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys. St. Catherine's is actually a terrific place, warm and supportive. A lot of the students are foreign nationals, mainly Mexican, who want a good education for their kids. If Ethan went there, he would have many great friends and probably spent holidays with them. We don't know how much Ethan's mother did or did not see him, or where. The mother certainly would have had some leverage in threatening to out her affair with a powerful and influential, conservative senator. The mother could have set up a home in Tijuana, just a 2 hour drive from the schools mentioned. Or she could have gotten herself assigned to Mexico City, if she was in the diplomatic corps.

Before I went away to college I was very discrete in my private life, especially when it came to sex, and all of my friends were my age. After I went away to college and started exploring the world in a way I could not in high school I acquired a lot of older gay friends, like 20+ years older gay friends. It was interesting to learn from guys who came of age in the 1970s and see the gay world through their eyes. They grew up in a world before Prodigy and America Online where unless you were in a big city, meeting guys meant bathrooms, public parks etc and relationships were not the norm. To a man not one of them was in favor of gay marriage. They wanted legal protection for things like hospital visitations, etc, but didn't want the option of marriage because they didn't want the implicit premise of marriage, which is, "and forsaking all others, keep myself only unto you, for so long as we both shall live". Marriage was designed for monogamy (which is a lengthy different discussion). That traditional marriage doesn't always turn out that way isn't important, it is the idea that marriage = monogamy. By contrast, my generation that came of age in the 1990s seemed to be more about romance and the romantic notions of love and marriage, finding Mr. Right and settling down with a white picket fence and two cats (or a pit-bull for the really butch ones). The more relaxed attitudes and laws made that possible. Who didn't? Just my two cents, but Will seems more like a bottom and Brad more like a top. To a top, a hole is a hole, some are better than others, but so many tops just don't care or even notice who the whole is. On the other hand, bottoming is much more emotional and falling for a top who rocks your world while the top barely notices who you are seems common. I don't think it will take ten years, but we may never know since ten years later we are only in 2004 in The Gap Year. So many readers here act as if Brad and Will are peers. They are not. I wonder if those who do are parents. If you've raised a child, he is your child. You expect them to share things with you, especially problems, so you can help them. By the same token, you DO NOT share your problems with your child. They don't need that emotional burden. Children expect parents to be rocks and it would shake their world to know about their parent's problems with finances, partner, job, etc. At some point parent does become more peer like, but they never stop being your parent. As I said in my original comments, a school like The Menlo School would have prepped all the teachers about a student who went through what Will went through, but I never forget that CAP is a fictional story, not a daily newspaper. The poor algebra teacher was a literary device. Will will certainly have PTSD from 9-11, as will all the family members. People who only watched 9-11 unfold on live TV suffered from PTSD. If Robbie left his interest in Anders-Hayes to Will in his will, I am sure he never in his wildest imagination thought those shares would go to Will at 15. In a way, it could be a good thing that Robbie died, or at least there can be some good outcomes despite the horror of it. Based on Brad's comments, I don't think the relationship would have lasted. There was always going to be another Neil, Carson or Alex. Unless Robbie got deep, persistent therapy, he was always going to have psychological issues that threatened his relationship with Brad.

One thing that occurred to me this reading is that love and hate are not the opposite ends of a straight line, but a 360 degree circle where they touch. It is easy to move from loving someone to hating them fairly easily. You see it in divorces and family annihilators.

Will lost one of his fathers and he is 15. It is not that I Brad should or should not, but rather that sex and pleasure would be the furthest things from his mind. I'd think he'd be so distraught that an erection is nigh on impossible.