Window Stories - 5. Chapter 5

“You’re killing me!” I shouted.

Jason laughed and said, “Relax, Phil. All I’m asking you to do is take a few steps.” He had helped me from my wheelchair and was holding tightly to a belt around my waist as I attempted to walk a few steps. Usually, I can talk him out of making me walk, but today Jason was persistent. “You’ve been lying in your bed for several days. I want to get you up today.” Even though he was behind me, I knew he was grinning when he added, “You know what they say. If you don’t use it, you lose it.”

I laughed and replied, “I lost it a long time ago.”

“I bet you had fun when you had it,” he laughed.

“Got that right,” I replied as I stumbled slightly. Jason grabbed me by my waist and held me tightly. “Damn legs,” I grumbled.

“You’re doing great,” Jason assured me. “Just a few more steps. Just close your eyes and pretend you’re a young man again.”

“If I was a young man,” I laughed, “You wouldn’t be holding me up. You’d be fighting me off.”

Jason giggled and said, “You wouldn’t be the first person I had to fight off me.”

I stopped walking and turned my head toward him and said, “I bet.” Because of his dark skin tone, I couldn’t tell if he was blushing, but I was sure that he was. “I would assume you have all the girls hitting on you.”

Jason is exceedingly handsome. He has a dark complexion with dark eyebrows and a slight mustache. It appeared that he was trying to grow a goatee. I’m sure that he had been admired by a lot of girls in high school. We had talked a little about his life. He told me that after graduating from high school, he had attended a local college where he majored in sports medicine. His dream has always been to work for a university as a sports trainer, but it is a very competitive field. He was working at St. Joseph’s until he could fulfill his dream.

As we continued to walk, I wanted to know more about his life. “Do you have a girlfriend or wife?” I asked. I looked quickly at his left hand, and I didn’t see a wedding ring.

“No,” he replied with a chuckle. “Right now, I’m single and ready to mingle.” He led me over to a bench, and he helped me sit down. “You’re doing very well, Phil,” he said with a smile.

I laughed and replied, “No wonder you’re single. You’re Attila the Hun. No girl would want a cave man like you.”

He grinned and replied, “Who said I’m looking for a girl?”

Jason giggled when my eyes widened, and my mouth opened. “You mean?” I asked in amazement.

“What?” he laughed. “You thought you were the only gay man in this place?”

“You never said anything.”

“Never had a reason to,” he smiled.

“Why now?”

He looked around to make sure we were alone before answering. “Who is the young guy that is coming to visit you? Is he your grandson?”

“You mean Colin?”

“Is that his name?” he asked.

I was becoming amused. Jason liked Colin. I could see it in his eyes. “And why do want to know his name?” I teased.

Jason asked, “Is he straight?”

“Nope,” I shook my head. “I can’t tell you that. If you want to know, you’ll have to ask him yourself.”

“Come on, Phil,” pleaded Jason. “Please? He’s hot as fuck. I’ve got to know if he is gay. I’m picking up these really strong gay vibes from him.”

“Sorry,” I apologized, “but I can’t tell you.” I knew that Colin wasn’t out. It wasn’t my place to out him to someone he doesn’t even know. However, I hoped that Jason would get up the nerve to talk to Colin. They would make a really cute couple.

“Bastard!” laughed Jason as he stood and tried to pull me to my feet. “I’m going to show you who Attila the Hun is.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked as he grabbed the belt around my waist and began walking me across the room.

“We’re going to walk until you tell me,” He laughed. However, he walked me to my wheelchair and helped me sit. He then pushed me to my room. I noticed that he stopped and looked around before patting me on my shoulder and leaving.

I lay back in my bed and closed my eyes. I envisioned Colin and Jason together. ‘A perfect match.’ I thought to myself.

Colin didn’t show until after two o’clock. I was beginning to think that he wasn’t going to visit. He smiled broadly when he entered. “Bet you thought I wasn’t going to show,” he said.

I replied, “We don’t have a set schedule. If you show, you show. If you don’t, you don’t.”

“You sound like you don’t want to see me,” he frowned. I laughed when he pretended to cry.

“Sit down,” I laughed as he sat beside me. “How’s your day been?” I was so tempted to tell him about Jason. I was eager for them to get together. However, I was afraid if I pushed them together too fast, it might not work out as planned. If Cupid’s arrow was going to strike, I wanted it to be his decision, not mine.

A sad expression appeared on his face. “I lost a patient today,” he said sadly. “It was an elderly woman in her eighties at another facility.”

“Sorry,” I apologized. I could tell her death upset him very much.

“I’ll be okay,” he replied. “I knew when I took this job that losing patients would be something I would have to deal with.”

I laughed nervously and said, “I hope you don’t lose me soon.”

Colin’s eyes widened as he stammered, “I’m sorry, Phil. I shouldn’t be talking like this to you.”

“Why?” I asked. “Because I’m an old man.” I sat up and stared at him. “I accepted long ago the reality of death. It’s something we all must face someday. Unfortunately, I may have to face it sooner than I want. However, I’m prepared to die.”

Tears welled up in his eyes. “I don’t want to lose you, Phil. I like you very much.”

I laughed and replied, “Well, let’s not put me in the grave too soon. I have a few more stories to tell you.”

“That’s right,” said Colin with a grin. “Yesterday, you told me you were going to tell me about your prom at the one room schoolhouse.”

“Smart ass,” I laughed. “I’ll have you know that my school wasn’t much different than the high school you graduated from. It was a rural school, but we still had a large attendance.”

Colin couldn’t hold back a laugh when he said, “You mean you had five in your graduating class?”

“More like 120,” I replied.

Colin smiled and said, “What was it like going to a small school?”

I replied, “The one problem going to a small school is that everyone knows everyone’s business. Of course, that also means you are friends with everyone.” Colin smiled and nodded. “It’s difficult to keep anything secret.”

Colin said, “I still don’t know how you kept the fact you were gay secret.”

“It really wasn’t that difficult,” I replied. “If you don’t think about it, then it doesn’t seem to exist.”

“That seems hard to do,” he said.

“Does it?” I replied. “You’re saying it is difficult, but you’re living a life not telling people that you are gay. What’s the difference?”

“I don’t know,” he replied thoughtfully. “I guess you couldn’t come out. Things are different today. I can come out if I want to.”

“Then why don’t you?” I asked.

He sighed and replied, “I’m thinking about it. I’m tired of living like this.”

“I’m not going to tell you what to do,” I said. “That’s a decision you’ll have to make on your own.”

He asked, “When did you come completely out?”

I replied, “That’s for another day. Right now, you wanted to hear about my prom.” I turned and looked out the window. I saw a cloud of red and white balloons float past.

I looked over at Colin and began, “High school never changes. It’s young boys and girls attending a place they would rather not for eight hours a day.” Colin smiled and nodded his head. “Most schools are divided into cliques, and most students fall into a clique of friends.”

Colin asked, “What clique were you in?”

“I guess the word for it today would be the nerds,” I laughed. “I was a book worm. I didn’t participate in sports.”

“Why not?”

“The locker room,” I laughed.

“The locker room?” he asked. “What does that mean?”

I replied, “If you played organized sports, then it meant you would have to shower with other boys.”

“Yeah,” he replied. “So what?”

“So what?” I laughed. “It meant you would be seeing other boys naked in the shower.” My face blushed as I added, “And a gay boy in a room with other naked boys, certain things happen.”

Colin gave me a puzzled look and asked, “Like what?”

I laughed and replied, “Woody shows up.”

“Who’s Woody?”

“Oh, my god,” I laughed uproariously. “You’re not making this easy.” Colin gave me a blank look. “Woody,” laughed as I reached under my sheet and raised my finger above my crotch.

Colin leaned back and roared. “Oh, I get it. You got an erection in the shower. Did that really happen?”

“Only once,” I laughed. “When I was in the ninth grade. After gym class the coach made us shower. I didn’t want to, but he said he didn’t want us smelling up the classrooms with our body odor. So, the first day, I did it. I was shaking like a leaf when I entered the shower. I turned toward the wall and wouldn’t look at anyone. But a couple of the guys started talking to me, so I turned to look at them. All I saw were their dicks. Before I knew it, mine started to harden. They looked down and started laughing at me. I only had about four inches, but it was hard as a rock. I wrapped my towel around me and rushed from the room. They teased me when they came out, but they didn’t mean to hurt me. They said all guys get hard sometimes. However, I knew why I got hard. If I continued taking showers, it wouldn’t be long before they would start calling me names. So, I never took a shower again.”

“How were you able to do that?” asked Colin. “You said the coach insisted that you shower.”

“I would stand at the sink and wet my hair,” I replied. “When I came out, he would think I took a shower.”

“Clever,” responded Colin. “What about the other guys?”

“I don’t think they cared,” I said. “Some of the other boys didn’t like taking showers, so they did what I did. I think by the end of the year, only a few guys were taking showers. We found out we were able to get to class faster.”

We looked over at the door when it opened, and Jason walked in. He looked around and said, “I’m sorry, Phil, I didn’t know you had company.” A slight smile formed on my face. I knew what Jason was up to. He walked over and stood at the head of the bed with a clipboard. “We didn’t schedule your appointment for tomorrow.”

I wanted to laugh, but I didn’t. I normally have a set appointment for nine every morning. It sometimes gets cancelled if I’m not feeling up to it. However, I was willing to play the game. I found it rather amusing. “Yes, Jason,” I said. “What time would you like to make it.” He gave a sigh of relief. I think he was afraid I might try to embarrass him in front of Colin.

“How does nine o’clock sound?” He had a wide grin on his face.

I turned to Colin and asked, “Colin. What time do you plan to come tomorrow?”

“Um,” he responded. “I don’t know. I come when my schedule allows it. I’ll make it after nine, if you want.”

I looked up at Jason and said, “How unthoughtful of me. Jason, I want you to meet Colin.”

Jason reached out his hand and said, “I’m Jason Dunn. I’m Phil’s physical therapist.”

I laughed and said, “He’s actually Attila the Hun.”

Colin smiled and introduced himself. “I’m Colin Anderson. I come by and do social therapy with Phil.”

“Social therapy?” asked Jason. “What’s that?”

“It means he stops by and keeps this old man company,” I said with a laugh. “It’s more like I’m boring him to death.”

“Nonsense,” replied Colin. “I’m enjoying my visits.”

Jason reached down and touched my arm. “Phil is a difficult old bird, isn’t he?”

“Old Bird,” I exclaimed. “I’ll have you know that in my day, I could have taken both of you on.” I grinned and added, “And you both would have enjoyed it.”

Colin seemed stunned by my remark, but Jason laughed loudly. “I bet you could,” he replied. He winked, turned and said as he left, “I’ll see you at nine. It was nice meeting you Colin.”

I looked over and watched Colin as he stared at Jason’s ass as he left the room. His face reddened when he noticed me looking. I was satisfied. Cupid’s first arrow seemed to have hit the mark.

Colin cleared his throat and said, “You were going to tell me about your prom.” I looked out the window and still noticed the red and white balloons. He asked, “Did you have a date?”

“Of course, I had a date,” I replied. “Only social misfits didn’t attend a prom. I may have been a nerd, but I did have a few friends.”

“Who did you take?”

“Nancy,” I replied.

“The girl you took to the movies with what’s his name?”

“Bobby,” I laughed. “You forgot his name. And they say old people can’t remember anything.” I laughed louder when Colin’s face reddened.

“Back then, Bobby and Susie were going steady. Nancy wanted me to go steady with her, but I was able to avoid it. Occasionally, we would go on a double date with Bobby and Susie.”

“I bet that was uncomfortable,” replied Colin. “Didn’t she wonder why you didn’t want to go steady?”

“I told her I was too busy with work and school,” I replied. “I just didn’t have time for a girlfriend. She was okay with it. In fact, she dated other boys. I was just another boy who asked her for a date.”

“Did you ask her to go to the prom?”

“No,” I laughed. “She asked me.”

“What?”

“She asked me,” I repeated. “I wasn’t planning to go because I wanted to work that night. But she cornered me in the library one day and asked me to go. I really hadn’t thought about it, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

“How did it go?” he asked.

“It was torturous,” I laughed. “One of the worst nights of my life.”

He smiled and said, “I bet.”

“I had to go to a clothing store and rent a tuxedo,” I replied. “I looked like a damn monkey in a light blue suit. Then I had to go to a florist and get her a corsage that matched her dress.”

Colin grinned and asked, “Do you have a picture? I want to see it.”

“It’s inside a box in the storage place,” I replied sadly. “Everything I once owned is there.”

“Maybe we can get the box someday,” suggested Colin. “I would love to see pictures of your life.”

I shrugged my shoulders and replied, “Maybe. Anyway, the prom was as bad as I expected it to be. First, Mom had to take pictures with her polaroid camera.”

“What’s that?”

I replied, “It’s what we took pictures with before cell phones. Then I picked Susie up, and her family had to take a hundred pictures. Bobby had made reservations for the four of us at a steak house in town. Of course, people in the restaurant took pictures because it was filled with my classmates.”

“What did you order?” asked Colin.

I rolled my eyes and replied, “God, I don’t remember. That’s not important. So, anyway, after we ate, we went to the school.”

“Why did you go to the school?”

I answered, “It’s where we held the prom. In the gymnasium.”

“Gymnasium?” laughed Colin. “You held it in the gymnasium? Ours was at a convention center downtown.”

“We did the best we could do,” I replied. I looked out the window and saw the balloons. “Everything was decorated in red and white, our school colors. There were several areas where photographers took pictures. Naturally, Nancy had to pull me to all of them to have our pictures taken. We were a sight. Me in my blue tuxedo and Nancy in her purple gown.”

“Ouch,” laughed Colin. “Maybe I don’t want to see the pictures.”

“It gets worse,” I said. “Back then I couldn’t dance. I had two left feet.” Colin laughed, and I waited for him to ask to see them. “Chubby Checkers had just come out with a song called The Twist. We danced that dance for three hours. When I went home that night, my hips were killing me.”

“I saw that once in an old movie,” laughed Colin. “It was weird.”

“It was the rage back then,” I said. “A couple of years later, the Beatles came along, and everything changed. But that’s another story for another day.”

“How did the date end?”

“A total disaster,” I replied. “I didn’t know that Bobby had accepted an invitation to an after-prom party at Steve Mitchell’s house. His parents were out of town, so there were no chaperones.”

Colin laughed and said, “Sounds like a wild time.”

“Wild time is an understatement,” I replied. “Take about forty teens who are away from home for probably the first time in their lives without an adult being around. Bobby broke into his father’s liquor cabinet, so everyone was getting drunk.”

“Did you?”

“No,” I said adamantly. “I had to be careful. I was afraid if I got drunk, I might do or say something I would regret. Nancy, though, got plastered. The more she drank, the more sexual she became. After about her fourth drink, she tried to get me to have sex with her. Bobby and Susie had disappeared into a bedroom somewhere, and she wanted me to fuck her. She had even gotten a condom from Susie!”

Colin asked, “So, you couldn’t do it?”

“Hell, no,” I spat. “It wasn’t I couldn’t do it, I didn’t want to do it. It was bad enough having to spend the evening with Nancy. I certainly didn’t want to make a fool of myself by trying to do something I didn’t want to do.” I reached under the sheet, raised a finger, and let it go limp. Colin leaned back and laughed.

“What did Susie do?”

“Took Roger Coleman to the bedroom and fucked him,” I replied.

“Damn, Dude,” laughed Colin. “I bet that was embarrassing.”

“At that point, I didn’t care,” I said. “I went out, got in my car and left. Nancy called me the next morning and apologized. She said she was too drunk to remember anything.”

“Did you still date her?”

“No,” I replied. “Fortunately, she started dating Roger. I didn’t have a girlfriend again in high school. Everyone felt sorry for me because they thought I had been dumped. If they only knew how relieved I was.”

“What a night,” remarked Colin.

I asked, “Tell me about your prom.”

He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Nothing to tell. I didn’t go.”

“Really?” I asked. “There was no pressure to attend.”

“No,” he said. “I attended a large high school. I don’t think half the students attended. The only ones who went were the popular kids. They didn’t care if we were there or not.”

“That’s a shame,” I said.

Colin laughed and replied, “You just spent a half hour telling me how horrible the prom was for you, and you tell me it’s a shame I didn’t attend.”

“Touche,” I laughed.

Colin looked at his watch. “It’s getting late,” he said. “I have to be running. Will I see you tomorrow? Maybe you can tell me about your graduation. It had to be more exciting than the prom.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” I laughed. “But I guess I can bore you with the details.”

“Your stories aren’t boring,” he replied. “I’m enjoying them.”

I looked over and asked, “Why don’t you come by early? How about nine o’clock?”

He asked, “I thought that is when you have your physical therapy?”

I had to think quickly. “I was just thinking you can get another aspect of me not lying in the bed all the time. Besides, you might enjoy seeing me groaning in pain.”

Colin gave me a skeptical look. For a minute, I thought he might be aware of what I was trying to do. “Okay,” he replied. “I’ll check my schedule. Jason seemed like a nice guy. I want to see him be Attila the Hun.” He rose, said goodbye, and left the room.

I smiled as I saw Cupid’s arrow fly across the window.