The Year I Stopped Being Invisible - 28. Chapter 28

Wednesday was our last big after-school practice before the Foxrun tournament, which would be my first of the year, since I had been suspended for the one at Chamberlain. The team had done fairly well at that one, considering that we were only one of seventy-two schools participating. Carter qualified in Humorous Interpretation, placing second, and Linda had placed second in Poetry Reading, but that wasn't a qualifying event.

Our speech team had done better. Kathy Witcher had placed third in Lincoln-Douglas Debate, qualifying for state because one of the two finalists had pre-qualified at another contest that we hadn't attended; Robin Powers had qualified with a second place in Men's Extemporaneous Speaking; and we had three other finalists besides. But Polk managed to place second in the overall sweepstakes because of one guy: Raymond Steadman.

Raymond was a tall, handsome African-American junior who was quiet and dignified in his personal life, with a great sense of humor. He lived around the corner from me and had a younger brother on the basketball team. His father (whose name was also Raymond) was a fit, athletic war veteran who ran every morning despite his scarred, burned and withered left leg, which -- due to some unspecified combat trauma -- was little more than a thin stick, scar tissue wrapped around bone. I admired his perseverance and athleticism in the face of such an injury.

When Raymond Steadman Jr. opened his mouth at tournaments, pure gold flowed out. He nabbed first place in Original Oratory at Chamberlain, bolstered with a quarterfinals appearance in Lincoln-Douglas Debate (losing only to last year's national champion by the luck of the draw) and topped it off with a first place in Dramatic Interpretation, a cutting from the football drama Brian's Song which brought the audience in the finals room to tears. Raymond was our big weapon that year, and no one doubted that he had a very good chance of winning State and moving on to Nationals in at least one event.

The team was still teasing Kathy that day in Mr. McRory's room, as she -- despite her obvious debate skills -- had a rather amusing speech impediment, causing her to pronounce her "r"s as "w"s, particularly when she wasn't paying attention to it as closely as she did in competition. Apparently, at the Chamberlain tournament, she had gone to check the "break sheets" posted in the cafeteria, which announced the contestants who had moved from one round to the next, and noticed that Raymond Steadman and Robin Powers had both advanced to the final round of Original Oratory.

Upon making this discovery, Kathy had exclaimed in surprise, releasing a sentence which sounded like this:

"Wow! Waymond and Wobin in the same Owation wound! Woo, what a wough woom!"

This became the mantra of our forensics team for the rest of the year, spoken in hushed tones whenever both Robin and Raymond made the finals in something, which was fairly often, or just any time we needed to get a cheap laugh at Kathy's expense. Her response was always a haughty toss of her hair, after which she would turn on her heel and leave the room, pointing at the trophy table as concrete evidence of her speaking skills.

Secretly, I prayed that I -- Rick -- would make the finals with Raymond and Robin at one tournament, just to extend the joke's potential.

I ran through my Humorous Interp of Titanic and joined Linda for our Duet of Same Time, Next Year, impressing Mr. McRory enough so that, after he gave us our final notes, he took me aside and said, "Rick, you're showing a lot of promise for a freshman, and I really want you to try out for the play next week."

I agreed that I would and hurried off to follow Linda to the school parking lot. She was still talking to Carter about something or another, and I noticed them smiling intimately and leaning in to each other as the afternoon sun kissed their golden-blonde hair, seemingly blessing their incipient romance. They moved apart slightly when they saw me approaching, and Carter gave me a big shit-eating grin.

"Hello, Mrs. Premise," he trilled, in the high-pitched British accent of Monty Python.

"Hello, Mrs. Conclusion," I exclaimed in return. Pointing at Linda, I continued the bit: "There's a penguin on the television set!"

"Hmm," Carter went on in character. "How d'ya suppose that got there?"

Linda cut us off, having heard us do this particular bit numerous times, but laughed anyway just to be polite.

"You guys are so funny," she said, "but we have to get going. I'm starving."

"I'll call you later," Carter said with a wink, and ambled off to blaze up with Roger and Jack Delman, his two senior stoner buddies. Neither Roger nor Jack ever really had much success at tournaments, but they enjoyed the experience so always entered regardless, usually in Prose, Poetry or Impromptu Speaking, the less-demanding version of Extemp which didn't qualify for State either.

Linda and I began walking toward her car, and both of us were happily surprised -- if a bit puzzled -- to see Taine leaning against the hood. I ran up and hugged him, sneaking a kiss in the otherwise empty parking lot. Practice had run until six o'clock, and I hadn't expected my Babes to still be around.

"Taine!" said Linda, giving him a big hug, "Have you been waiting here this whole time?"

"Naw," Taine demurred. "I went over to the mall and had some Orange Julius."

"For an hour and a half?" Linda teased. "You guys..."

Taine blushed and I grinned happily as we piled into Linda's car. Orange Julius or not, Taine still had plenty of appetite for sweets when we stopped at the nearby ice-cream parlor so that Linda and I could have some burgers. Taine ordered a gigantic strawberry shake, topped with whipped cream, multi-colored sprinkles and a giant maraschino cherry. Linda giggled as the waitress -- dressed as if it was the 1950s -- deposited it in front of him, along with a steel shaker containing some extra pink goo.

I went to hold his hand under the table, but both of Taine's perfect paws slapped themselves around the glass, the cap lowered over the straw, and half of the giant shake disappeared into Taine with a loud slurping sound. Linda and I both giggled as the brim of the cap raised to expose my Babes' confused expression. He looked at us with puzzlement.

"What?" he said, "I like strawberry shakes."

Which only made us giggle some more. There was nothing more adorable than an adorable boy who didn't realize exactly how adorable he was.

* * * * *

Linda dropped us both off at Taine's house, where I called Rex to let him know that I'd be home later. After some minor grumbling about how he'd had to feed the birds while I was "dancing around the maypole," as he termed my Drama activities, Rex assented. I gave a quick wave to Sly, who was watching the news in the living room, and followed Taine up the stairs.

Tossing our book bags together in the corner of his room, Taine and I flopped down together on his bed, side by side, and shared a long and loving embrace, nibbling at each others' lips in happy reunion.

It seemed now as if any time at which we were not joined physically was an interruption of our special bond, and we had to re-establish it by hugging and kissing until we felt that the magical unity of our souls had returned. Neither of us had ever known such close connection, such complete intimacy with another human being, and we valued it highly, cherishing and nurturing it with great attention and care.

What we had was not the typically lust-centered teenage experimentation -- which even led countless straight boys into each others' arms and beds when the hormones were surging -- but something profoundly spiritual, which joined us through our adolescent angst, our inner fears and hopes, and even through our dreams.

"I had a dream about you a couple of nights ago," I said softly as we lay on our sides facing each other.

"Tell me," Taine said, his eyes intent and expectant.

I felt as if Taine was always somehow starving for information about himself. I don't think he was confident enough in his perceptions of who he was or how he fit into the world to rely on his own observations. Human interaction was strange and confusing to him, and he often needed it interpreted and contextualized before he would be at peace.

He needed additional data, in other words, and was always curious about how his thoughts and actions were seen by others, especially in dreams, which he valued highly, and especially if those dreams were mine.

"I dreamed about the drawing you made," I said.

I told Taine about the dream, and he listened to me intently as we lay there, one of our arms around each other's waist as the other was clasping each other's free hand between us. When I had finally finished recounting my dream, I snuggled closer to Taine, resting my head softly into his neck as I cuddled his warm, slender body next to mine.

"What do you think it means, Babes? The drawing, the dream...what does it mean?"

Taine was silent for a long time, but I wasn't alarmed, as I knew he was digesting, processing what I had told him, gathering his thoughts and emotions, searching for the right words to carry the burden of explanation from deep within his soul to the outside world, which at that moment was represented by me.

At long last, he pulled away from our embrace, looked me in the eyes, and slowly stroked my hair and the side of my face, never breaking contact, with his other hand held firmly in my own. I gazed deeply into his eyes, studying his expression with expectant admiration. I was lost in the moment, almost forgetting my question as my breath was once more taken away by Taine's sheer heartbreaking beauty.

With a long expression of concern drawn across his perfect face, he studied my eyes as if searching for understanding, for encouragement...almost for permission, it seemed to me. I nodded my head slightly, and that appeared to be enough.

"I really want to talk to you about your dream," he said softly. "I also want to tell you what that picture I drew means to me. But after that, I want to be able to talk about a conversation I had with my dad. Is that okay, Ricky?"

"Of course it's okay, Babes," I said sympathetically. "You can tell me anything and everything, you know that."

Taine rolled slowly onto his back, and I propped myself on an elbow and leaned over him, still hugging him to me with my other arm. He looked up at the ceiling, took one more deep breath, and began to speak.

"I'm trapped in that cell," he said. "Abandoned by my father, who just left my family alone in our grief after my baby sister died as if we didn't matter, and by my mother, who left me alone later by dying just when I needed her the most. I've always felt isolated, and imprisoned in that isolation. I feel like I'm imprisoned all the time, shackled by the barbed wire, and it's slowly bleeding me away. All those barbs on the wire, they're my past. Those razor-sharp barbs are everything that ever hurt me, and I bleed from every one of those wounds all the time. Every minute of every day. Do you understand?"

He turned his head to look at me. I nodded, unable to speak. Taine acknowledged my nod, then turned to the ceiling again and continued.

"I'm not surprised the barbed wire sliced you up," he sighed. "I told you that my past would hurt us both. In the picture, I drew your shadow in an open doorway, as if you could free me from that cell. But your dream is much more likely to come true than my drawing. The door closes, you're locked in with me, and we both get hurt...really hurt. And it's going to happen soon, Ricky. What came up behind you -- that monster or whatever it was that you dreamed about -- that thing wasn't in my picture, but it was real. And it's coming."

He kissed me then, and I melted into him, but both of our minds seemed to be elsewhere.

My mind was on my dead dog, the misspelled note written in Foxy's blood, and the black Charger.

What Taine was thinking, I cannot say, but I held him as tight as I could while we each mulled over our own dark fears of what might be coming next. We laid together that way for a long time, until Taine finally pulled away, looked back toward the ceiling, and began to tell me about his conversation with his father.