18 Weeks of Twoey - 11. Week Two Thursday September 11, 2014: Visit to David's Room

“Tell me a little about Danny. You know, what he's into besides gymnastics, family, brothers, sisters, what group of kids does he hang with ...I mean I never see him around school except at lunch.” Twoey was chattering with us on our run.

“Danny's father is some military officer. Army. David and I only met him once, a couple years ago when we were at Danny's house and his dad came home unexpectedly. He wasn't happy we were there; he let us know, and we've never been back. Danny has an older brother Carl, way older, who is also in the military. I don't know which branch. What I do know is that everything is strict and ‘by-the-book’ at that house.”

I remembered Danny with bruises every once in a while when he was a younger kid, but I've never seen any since then. I'm guessing he learned the rules real quick rather than his father easing up. I just remember his mother seemed cowed by the father's presence. I didn't know if he ever hit her, but it wouldn't have surprised me. Gary and I never talked about it after that, by mutual understanding. I told you that he and I didn't always have to talk to communicate with one another.

And as I said before, we didn’t see Danny much except at school or when the gang got together. Sam told me that Danny didn’t spend too much time at home either--I don’t blame him. Sam only lives a couple houses away and said Danny goes out a lot. I guess his parents must often go to military functions or something because Danny told me he hangs out at Kory’s when they do. Although it was strange I never saw him there, but I’m not usually there later than suppertime, so that was when he must go.

Gary continued with a sanitized version of a controlling father and lots of strictness and more lots of rules. Twoey didn't look happy. Hell, I wasn't happy. I would probably take Tommy's crazy mother over Danny's father any day. At least I could work around her. Anyway ...that was his morning’s education!

Good news. I found out before I left for school that Dad and Tommy's mother were taking us to Syracuse on Saturday for the promised shopping. YAY! Tommy's going too, of course, but Liz isn't. She'll probably be screwing Greg all afternoon. I knew I'd have a certain dollar limit, so I'll hafta be careful how I spend money at the good stores--they are very expensive. I won't be able to get a lot. I'll need to review my current decent clothes and make sure the new stuff complements them. And just as a backup, I might text Grampa for a little reserve ...hehe.

We had an extra long homeroom today while they showed 9/11 stuff on TV. I mean, I know it was tragic and awful, but I was like one year old when it happened. That was a long time ago. It has no impact on my life, at all! It was a history lesson like “Remember the Maine” and I was probably the only kid in the whole damn school who even knew what that meant!!

In Math, Kathy told me her spies had news and she'd tell me tonight on the phone. I couldn't wait to find out who this girl savior of mine was!! Terri still looked bummed.

“You and Ron not made up yet?”

sigh--"No.”

I squeezed her hand. “It’s gonna be all right Terri. Really. Let me know if he’s still grumpy tomorrow and I’ll mess him up.” Yeah, right! But at least it got her to smile, which was my intention. Twoey was watching me squeeze her hand. I hoped he didn’t get the wrong idea. I would never move in on a relationship. Ever! ...Oh wait, I already sorta did that, didn’t I. But it wasn't the same. First, Kathy and Cal had already broken up. And second, I’m not going with her!

At lunch, with our new tablemates present, I decided to have a little fun.

“Hey Sam, why don't you join the wrestling team this year? I think they're looking for recruits.” I couldn't resist it. It was just a shot across the bow to let those guys know I knew what they were up to.

Well, that brought about fifteen minutes of the funniest, cleverest shit I think Sam has ever come up with. It was really great for me because the Twoey-Matty touchy-feely show was totally put on hold and I was actually able to eat my whole lunch. I gotta do this more often!

As I expected, in social Mr. Burch turned the whole period into 9/11 remembrance. Which was fine with me, except it had no relevance to the unit we're supposed to be covering. The poor kids who didn't do independent research were gonna be up shit's creek come test time!

Also, as I expected, he segued from 9/11 into a justification of the Iraq invasion and subsequent quagmire. Talk about non-sequitor. I didn't interfere with his propaganda though ...honest, even though he checked me out a few times. Was he baiting me? I was starting to get a little suspicious.

I think we’re at war, so I’d better be clever enough to pick my own battles!

Well, the lunchroom diversion didn't stop Matty from being physically friendly with me during gym, as we went through more calisthenics routines. Of course, some people are just naturally touchy talkers and explainers. Danny’s one of them. Just because I’m not, I probably shouldn’t object. I guess everyone was entitled to be who they were. I suppose I could live with that. There was no real harm done. As Grampa is fond of saying, “Nobody died.”

Twoey and Erik were back in the stands today watching practice. They were getting to be friends, I guess. Well good for Twoey. He needs friends. I just hoped Erik wasn’t only all about the wrestling team recruitment. Twoey needed real friends who were going to stick with him.

Our first race is tomorrow ...after school ...away. So that meant about a 45 minute bus ride each way and then not getting home until after dark. I was complaining about that as we walked home after practice when I made an impulsive decision. I didn’t know what it was, just something spontaneous, I guess ...but when we got to my house, I asked Twoey if he wanted to hang out for a bit. It was about 4:30 and we never ate until 5:30 or 6. He gave me a odd look, but agreed. Tommy was in the living room watching TV, so I introduced them. Then I--grimace--introduced him to Tommy’s mother. I explained he had just moved here from Syracuse, and then tried to save him from any further interrogation by saying we only had a few minutes to check out some math, and then sorta pushed him up to my room.

He was chuckling about that as he sat on my bed; I took the chair.

“Look Twoey, I can’t get it out of my head. I feel bad about last week. I’m not ever like that. Here, let me put something on while we talk.” Checking my iPod, I found the new Gorgon City Unmissable single they just released with Zak Abel. They’ve been slowly releasing all the singles for the album Sirens supposedly out later this fall. It made a good setting for our little talk, and Twoey seemed to like it.

“It’s OK David, you said you were under some kind of stress. I know a something about that. You can behave a little differently under stress. I saw that happen to a very close friend of mine.”

“Oh? Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really. I don’t even want to think about it. But unfortunately, I do. It’ll just take time.”

“Are you sure?”

“I know I’ll eventually tell you. Right now it’s just too raw. I’m sure you understand.” Of course, Sam sorta let me in on all this and I could see how hurt Twoey had been.

I reached over and put my hand on his shoulder, “Hey Twoey ...any time you want to talk, I’m a good listener. I don’t judge people either. Well, except for Enos Johnson.”

Twoey gave me a curious look, so I explained. “That’s the pastor of Tommy’s mother’s church that I’m forced to attend. He freaks me out. Totally.”

“Oh, hehe yeah, you were mentioning him Sunday during our run.”

“Don’t get me started on him! Let’s change the subject. Do you have any brothers or sisters? I mean, I know not here, but maybe older, you know ...not living at home.”

“Nope, I guess my parents only had sex once.” He chuckled.

“Well I’ve got a sister Liz whose a senior and you met Tommy of course. He’s in 8th grade. He’ll be a freshman next year. God, the high school will probably never recover.” I chuckled.

“He seems like a together kind of kid, though.”

“Twoey, he’s the best younger brother a guy could have. I love him to pieces. You want to hear something funny? He always watches out for me, like he’s the older brother. And you know what? I can’t ever remember us raising our voices at one another. We never fight. I can’t even imagine what we’d fight about!”

“Sometimes I miss not having a sibling. Sometimes it’s lonely ...especially when your mom is a damn psychologist! If you want to talk to her about serious stuff, she starts to analyze you.”

“Well ...don’t forget, I’m here for ya if you need to unload, and I don’t even know how to psychoanalyze, or spell it. Now, is it OK if I unload a little on you right now?”

“Why don’t you lie down here on the bed. I’ll sit in the chair and take out a notepad.” That made us both laugh.

I liked Twoey, I really did.

“Well, it’s not truly that serious a problem. It’s just this Kathy thing. Her brother only asked me to be a friend and help her over the cheating shit. But Gary is turning this into a romance and while I like her a lot, I don’t like Kathy in that way. I’m gonna have to do something about it, but I don’t want to piss off Gary. I’ll bet this is all Mel’s doing anyway. And don’t get me wrong, I like Mel! I like her a lot! I just can’t understand why they’re meddling in my personal affairs! It’s simply not like Gary to do this and it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well if you want my gut feeling, I don’t think you should lead her on.”

“Of course not, but I’m really not leading her on. Everybody else is creating this thing. What’s worse, I’ve got to go to the movies with Kathy, Gary and Mel on Saturday. So that means I’ll have to wait until next week sometime and have that little talk with her to clear this all up.”

“I don’t think you should even wait that long. Maybe you shouldn’t go to the movies.”

“No, I made a commitment and I won’t go back on it. But that’s it. It’ll be the last thing I ever do with her. Anyway, there’s another girl I sorta have my eye on and would like to get to know a little better.”

Twoey perked up. “Oh? And who might that be?”

“Sorry. I can’t tell you while this stuff is still going on with Kathy. You understand.”

Twoey leaned a little bit toward me and hit me with those fucking intense green eyes again. “I do. And wow, that’s pretty decent. You’re an unusual guy.”

“Ha! Unusually mixed-up! But thanks for the complement. I don’t get them very often. Now I have a few days to figure out how I’m supposed to word a breaking up speech with someone I’m not even going with.”

We both laughed at that, and then he asked me the weirdest question. “How long have you known Matty?”

“Matty from gym?”

“Yeah, your partner.”

“Well, this is a small town, so I’ve sorta known him for years, but we never actually were friends, so I really don’t know Matty at all, except in gym. He’s been explaining how muscles and exercises work together, so I appreciate the interest he seems to be taking. But I know his little secret.”

Twoey looked startled. “You DO?”

“Well it’s not exactly such a big secret if you just put two and two together.”

Suddenly Twoey seemed cautious. “Really?”

“Well sure, don’t you feel it from Erik?”

“WHAT???”

He was really getting worked up for some odd reason, so I tried to be calm when I explained. “It’s the wrestling team. They’re recruiting us. That’s why these little gym pairings. The gym teacher is the wrestling coach. Erik has to be feeling you out, right?”

Suddenly Twoey exhaled. “Oh ...hehe yeah. He has mentioned that.”

“Sure, that’s why I sicced Sam on them at the lunch table, to let them know I had them all figured out.”

“Oh ...so that was what that was all about!”

“Yeah, I know how Sam feels about school sports, so I figured it would at least be interesting, and it sure was!”

Twoey laughed and agreed, then got up to go, it was getting late. But not too late for him to take about five minutes of his time to talk with Tommy before he left.

“Your friend’s a interesting guy!”

“Yes he is.”

“Is that his real name?”

“No, it’s Michael, and I don’t know why he has such a weird nickname. He hasn’t told me yet.”

“How do you feel toward him?”

“What?”

“How do you feel toward him?”

“I heard you Tommy, I just didn’t understand what you meant.”

“Well, is he a friend like Gary, or just a friend?”

“There is no friend like Gary.”

“OK”

Then we sat down to another dinner I couldn’t eat.

Now for the SPY NEWS update. During our now nightly phone call--groan--Kathy told me that one of her friends saw Twoey get into a car with Erik yesterday after school, and they left together. So that's why he wasn't at my practice. Matty said Erik had a license because he’s older than 15. Which, again, didn’t make sense. He’d been in all my grades since Kindergarten. I'd have to check up on that. But Kathy was going to see if maybe Erik had a sister or whatever. That would make her the mystery girl!

Something was definitely not adding up!

Twoey

This morning I found out a little about Danny's family life, and it didn't sound good. I could tell Gary wasn't telling me everything, so reading between the lines, I could sorta see that getting with Danny wasn't gonna be so easy. But I think I wanted to try. He was just too scrumptious to ignore.

If David wasn't straight I don't think he would have a problem getting with Danny though. Danny was draped all over him on the walk to school--again.

In math, David was trying to cheer-up Terri and squeezed her hand. I think he gave her an orgasm. Kathy noticed the squeeze too and it wasn't a happy look on her face. I was sure he wasn't hitting on Terri, but I don't think he understood how incredible he was, and the effect he had.

The funniest thing happened at lunch. I think I'm starting to understand the quirky sense of humor Blondie has! Knowing we had two wrestlers at the lunch table, David asked SAM, of all people, why didn't he go out for wrestling this year! HA! That set Sam off for most of the lunch period about school sports and wrestling in particular. Nothing mean, but hilariously funny! Even Erik and Matty couldn't stop from laughing. Everyone was smiling after that. I told you I liked Sam, but it was David who just knew what buttons to push and what was going to happen when he did. And guess what? He hardly laughed, just munched away at his lunch! Later I found out specifically why he did it.

During our little Cross Country practice workout, Erik and I only kissed and jerked each other off. It was a little too cool out to be removing clothes today. And tomorrow will be a race, so there won't be practice. No excuse for me to be in the stands to ‘do homework’ and no car for Erik, so I guess it'll be a lonely walk home for me.

Then, after school, David actually asked me into his house for a few minutes. I met his brother and Mother. He apologized again for last week as we talked. That’s when he gave me the fright of my gay life! I thought he had me and Erik and Matty all figured out! I almost pissed my pants, although it turned out he was talking about the wrestlers trying to recruit us. But it was little uncomfortable for a while, I’ll confess to that! The rest of our conversation, I’ve gotta tell you, were deeper topics than I’d ever explored with another guy. David showed me there was a lot more to him than his looks. And Gary’s matchmaking plan was way, way wrong. The problem was, I couldn’t say anything to either one of them! But there is one thing I’m certain of--this was not going to end well.