Brandon Smiling: From the Billy Chase Chronicles (2) - 16. Entry 16

Saturday

Not much went on today…per usual, lately.

My morning was spent helping my Dad do some ‘Dad’ things around the house. Not fun! He was ‘re-cocking’ (snort) the bathroom sealant around the tub and sink. That’s when you put caulking around all the places where water might get in between the sink/tub and the wall, cabinet, etc. It’s hard sometimes learning how to do ‘Man’ stuff with my Dad. He’s not always great at explaining himself and when I look lost or I do something wrong his way of teaching is to, basically, grab the things out of my hands and ‘show’ me. In any case, I guess I learned a little about how to ‘cock’ today…

The afternoon was better.

Stevie and Mitch came over and we went to the Forest Park Mall. This is the BIG mall for our general area. I don’t normally go to this one because it’s a fair distance from my house as opposed to Palatine Mall which is our usual ‘neighborhood’ mall. It’s funny, but Forest Park Mall is actually crowded! Palatine Mall is almost empty most the time except on weekends. There are a lot of stores closing in our local mall so maybe that’s why we decided to take the long bus-ride down to Forest Park.

It was at Stevie’s suggestion since he wanted to impress Mitch with one of our ‘real’ malls. Apparently, malls are still a big thing where Mitch is in California. I guess they aren’t as big a deal ‘out here in the sticks’. LOL!

“We live near Chicago, ‘Dood’! We’re hardly the sticks!” Stevie had to correct his cousin on a few points.

Despite his snooty ‘femmy’ attitude problem regarding our malls, Mitch was pretty impressed by Forest Park. It had some big names even his own local mall doesn’t have like ‘Gucci’ and ‘Armani’. There were some other Italian names too that I only know how to pronounce because of the little bit of Italian my Mama taught me. Mitch looked at me with wide eyed shock with how I just, naturally, rattled off these names like I’d lived in Italy my whole life. Hehehe!

“Wow! (big overblown gasp), you’ve got a ‘Top Guy’ store? OMG! We’ve GOT to go in there!” I figured Mitch just about wet himself with this discovery. It’s a store, I’ll admit, I’ve never gone into before, but mostly because my Dad and I rarely come down to Forest Park Mall for, like, anything! He thinks it’s way too overpriced.

“Ok, but we have to go to ‘After Midnight’ after this if we go in there! I’ll need to wash off all the ‘preppiness’ and bleach all the horribly bright colors and shit out of my eyes! Melody and Casper would disown me if they saw me go into this place!” I’ll assume Melody and Casper are a couple of Emo friends of Stevie’s I have yet to meet.

Despite Stevie’s dislike of the place, I, on the other hand, loved the stuff in ‘Top Guy’! It was just my style and, at first, I wondered why my Dad always steered me away from this place when we’d come here shopping for new school clothes. Then I did something very adult-like: I looked at one of the price tags! Sheesh! $200 for just a shirt? A shirt I could buy just as easily at ‘Broadway’ for $35? All just because it says ‘Top Guy’ on the label? I decided then and there to agree with my Dad and look, but not buy!

To his credit, Mitch didn’t buy anything either. He just modeled a couple of outfits for the salesman who looked a bit disgusted with Mitch when, after all that work, he didn’t buy squat!

In another universe entirely, we soon found ourselves in Stevie’s ‘After Midnight’ store. I kid you not, virtually everything in that place is black, including the walls! Mitch’s white and pink outfit, I kid you not, actually glowed in the dark thanks to the purplish black lights in that store! He got more than one weird look from others of ‘Stevie’s People’ who were shopping in the place. Mitch totally didn’t look like he belonged in there. I suppose, neither did I since I was dress ‘normal’, if that is even a style.

I’ll admit, though, the prices were way better than ‘Top Guy’! They had a collection of The Nightmare Before Christmas t-shirts that were just incredible, but were only $20 a piece. That’s still too much for a t-shirt, in my opinion, but it’s way better than $200 for a knit polo shirt.

I blew a twenty on one of those shirts…it had white Jack Pumpkinheads all over it. I bought it on a whim and actually wore it out of the store, I guess, to be more in style with Stevie. I may never wear it again, but maybe I will for Halloween or something. I loved how all the Jacks glowed grinning in the dark with the black lighting. Hehehe!

“One-Of-Us! One-Of-Us! One-Of-Us!” Stevie chanted at me as we left the store.

“Tsk! So cliché!” Mitch sassed.

Stevie, I have found, is one savvy shopper! He came out with five t-shirts for $20 to my one!

“How did you get so many shirts for so cheap?” I had to ask.

“You don’t usually buy the stuff up front at ‘After Midnight’, Dude. In the back they have bargains. In the stacks you can find a lot of cool shirts.” He held up one he was particularly proud of with a band logo saying ‘All Time Low’ on it. It looked like a tour shirt with names of cities and dates on the back. I figured that was suitable for a ‘proper’ Emo shirt.

We ended our time by going to a pizza place and sharing a deep dish pie. It was so good! I LOVE Chicago style pizza! There’s no better in the world!

This is Brandon, honorary Emo for the day!

Sunday

I kid you not, I must have spent six (6!) hours on the phone today! I thought for sure my Dad was gonna pull the plug on the wireless phone base just to shut me up, but he didn’t! He didn’t even complain! He seemed…happy I was so ‘popular’ this evening. Me popular? Ha!

Anyways, I spoke to Chandler today and we talked for three hours about Billy!

I told Chandler all the ‘vibes’ I’ve been getting off of Billy and how, it’s like, he seems so close to telling me something. Something about us…somehow. I told him about a shift in intimacy we’ve been having in our visits together at his home, at school, and on the phone, etc. Chandler was especially thrilled about hearing that Billy had invited me to his house a second time!

“Oh, that’s a big step, Brandon! Especially, his inviting you to his room and showing you all of his prized possessions and things. It really is a way for him to open up to you on a deeper level. It may seem simple and ‘normal’ for a kid to do that, but it means a lot. It means he’s starting to trust you with what he values most! That’s very promising in making him at least a best friend if not more.” Chandler said.

I told him that we spent time on his bed too. We didn’t do anything, exactly, but we enjoyed a very close chat on that bed and we were pretty close to each other physically as we were talking. Then, of course, there was the ‘horseplay’ with his draping himself across my back like he did…butt to butt even.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure it’s time, Brandon…” Chandler said and it almost sounded like a threat or a warning! I asked him, “Time for what?”

“Time to tell him how you feel about him.” Chandler just put it out there and, I’ll admit, I had a small panic attack when he said it! I told him I wasn’t sure if I could do that! I still don’t think I can!

“Well, to put it crudely, Sweetie, I think it’s time for you to shit or get off the pot. You guys are practically in each other’s arms already. I mean, Billy laid on you for Christ’s sake! Guys don’t normally do that to one another past a certain age. Hehehe!” Chandler told me.

“But, how would I even bring up the subject? What would I say? How would I say it! Oh, my God!” I was in full on panic mode.

“Calm down, Kiddo! Don’t go all koo-koo on me! You don’t have to pledge your undying love to him or propose! Just tell him how you feel in a very basic way! You like being near him. You’d like to get closer to him and be with him more. You’d like to get to know him and for him to know you better. You really like him! That sort of thing!” Chandler reassured me.

As spooky as that seemed, those kinds of words did seem like something I could approach Billy with. This was the truth of things, if not the whole truth. The whole truth would be that I’m in love with Billy and I want him to love me too! But, like Chandler says, I don’t have to pledge my complete and entire heart to him just yet. But, I certainly want Billy to know how important he has become to me.

“You know it, deep down, that Billy likes you. He’s been courting you for a few months now. People can sense things, Brandon. It’s like they can smell it. Your feelings aren’t nearly as secret as you’d like them to be. You’ve already told Billy everything he needs to know! You’ve done it with body language, in the way you talk with him, and the way you love having him with you whenever you can. I bet Billy sees you as the easiest person he can talk to. He keeps coming back for that! He fears losing this - hence the jealous moments I had you test him for and he showed you!” Chandler revealed.

“You mean…he knows?” What Chandler was saying was a shock to me! How could Billy know I want him when I haven’t ever told him that I want him…in that way?

“On some level, somewhere deep, I feel he does! He keeps coming back! He keeps finding you! He keeps his eye on you when you are with other guys! Remember what you told me about his weird behavior when you were helping that other boy with his Boy Scout thing? Billy is uncomfortable sharing you! Guys don’t generally have those kinds of feelings with just regular friends.” Chandler continued.

“Are you jealous that Stevie has Benji for a friend?” Chandler asked.

“No! Of course not!” I answered.

“Sure! But, then, why is Billy obviously jealous when you are with this Bobby kid? Do you see what I’m getting at?” Chandler continued to quiz me.

“I…think so!” I answered. Friends rarely get jealous of each other having other friends unless it’s a ‘best friend’ deal, I suppose. The more the merrier! But, boyfriends DO get jealous of other guys swooping in on their love interests!

I think part of my own dislike for Sam is jealousy! Billy obviously has strong feelings for Sam. Feelings I wish he’d reserve for me! But, is that as a best friend or a boyfriend? That’s where I get confused and I told Chandler so.

“So, now you know why it’s important for you to do this final test of Billy’s feelings for you. You need to make it safe for Billy to come Out to you! If you tell him how important he is to you, he’ll want to know just how important. If he knows just how much you care for him, Billy may just give it up and tell you just how important you are to him!” Chandler’s wisdom made the Billy equation seem so simple in the end.

I got off the phone with Chandler with all this swimming around, rent free, in my head. This was a tall order he was asking of me, but one, I agreed had to be my next step.

I was pondering all this when, lo and behold, guess who calls me out of the blue? It’s like we have some connection that’s almost psychic! Like, he knows that I’m thinking about him so he calls me up!

That’s right, Billy himself called me! So, I spent another three hours talking to him on the phone!

It was just chit-chat! I didn’t do the ‘Big Reveal’ on him. I felt that was something I needed to do in person and not, just, over the phone.

Even with my nerves over what Chandler was putting me up to with Billy, I found my normal rhythm with him and we found ourselves talking, laughing, and just having a good time talking to one another. It’s so easy to talk to Billy. We just…fit!

We talked until late and when it came time for us to call it a night, I really didn’t want to hang up. I’d have loved it if Billy and I had just fallen asleep on the phone together where we could hear each other snore on the other end of the line. He didn’t want to hang up either. We must have said goodbye seven different ways before finally hanging up.

After that, everything Chandler talked to me about today seemed to click! That feeling of closeness I had with Billy on the phone this evening just confirmed that Chandler is right…it’s time!

This is Brandon knowing what time it is…