Song For Guy - 18. Chapter 18

They tell us that by the time we reach our final year of schooling, that last year of our childhood before we step out into the real world as young adults, that we should have some idea of what it is that we want to do with our lives.

Yeah right! As if!

I know that in my case I had spent most of my high-school years filled with uncertainty about what the future may hold for me and what it was exactly that I did want to do after I had left school, but by the time we had reached our mid-year exams, which were a full-blown trial run of the real thing that we would be facing later in the year, I had pretty much made up my mind. Finally!

That taste of excitement from being on stage when we had done the musical the previous year, and my hearing and seeing and feeling the response from the audience on those couple of amazing nights, had pretty much sealed it for me. I wanted to sing and dance and act – or at least give it my best shot.

Who knows, I might surprise everyone and actually be good at it!

The reactions of my family members were fairly predictable, though. My father, despite the fact that he had been completely blown away by our efforts some months earlier, told me in no uncertain terms that I was fucking crazy and that, ‘No son of his was going to spend his adult life prancing around on a stage.’

My mother, while not entirely in love with the idea, was supportive.

And Jason? Well, he was now convinced that I just had to be gay! Although thankfully, those thoughts were shared only between himself and me.

As for the rest of our little gang of friends, of which Jonathon now seemed to have become a permanent part – much to the consternation of the rest of our class – they were all looking in different directions.

Guy looked like he wanted to head into the computer field, but was being pretty laid back about it all. He said he’d be happy doing anything really, just so long as I was somewhere around.

Ben, who in some respects I had always looked upon as the most serious and focused out of us all, even allowing for the fact that he spent most of his waking moments goofing off and acting like he belonged in kindergarten, looked like all he wanted to do was head north and be with Samantha, and to hell with everything else.

While Jonathon was definitely going to do Business Studies. Somewhere or other.

I guess that as we were growing older we were all changing. We were no longer the fucked up kids we had been just a few years earlier. Life was now starting to take on some meaning and purpose, well, for some of us at least.

So far, Guy and I had also managed to keep the closeness of our relationship a secret from everyone, including Jason and Kevin, but the further we went, the more difficult it was becoming.

We spoke often about what it would be like to be able to live our lives however we wanted, without the need for all this secrecy and subterfuge, and decided that once school was finished we both wanted to get out of this town and go someplace together. Some place where it wouldn’t matter what we did or who knew about us. Some place where people could just take us or leave us.

We both liked the idea of heading to Queensland and trying to get into University up there if we could, but that was still a long way away, so as yet we hadn’t done anything about starting to make any concrete plans.

We knew that Ben would head off to be with Samantha, who was studying at the new University up on the north coast, the first chance he would get and so we also thought about checking out that place as well, one day when we could manage to find the time.

*   *   *

Autumn and spring were definitely my favourite times of year. One, a season where the trees started turning, bathing our country town in a blanket of warm colours, and the other, a season when new life starts emerging and the drabness of winter is smothered by new colours and new sounds and the air is fresh and alive.

By the time our mid-year exams rolled around, autumn had been and gone and winter was now slowly spreading its icy fingers over the land. Spring was still an eternity away.

As always, Guy and I spent as much time together as we could, but it’s not what you are thinking; we actually did spend most of our time studying. If you feel the need at all to want to check up on us, just ask Ben and Jonathon, who I’m sure would back us up. Maybe.

One night in May, about a month out from our mid-years, Guy and I were sitting in his car up at the lookout and gazing out at the city lights below us, just like we did on a regular basis. It was one of the places we liked to escape to as often as we could, where we knew we wouldn’t be disturbed by anyone.

We were sitting in the dark, on the back seat of his car, with Guy propped up against the door and me propped up against Guy, my back snuggled into his chest and with his arms wrapped snugly around me. I could hear him breathing softly beside my ear, his warm breath sending a tingle through me each time it touched the bare skin of my neck.

‘Is it my imagination, or do you think Ben has changed over the last couple of months?’ he asked.

At first I didn’t answer, as I started thinking about Ben, about the once happy-go-lucky friend that he had been, compared to the rather serious person he now seemed to be.

‘Well?’ Guy asked again.

‘Yeah,’ I eventually replied. ‘I was just thinking about your question. To be perfectly honest, I hadn’t really noticed it or thought about it until just now, but now that you’ve mentioned it, yeah, I do think he has changed actually.’

‘Hmmmm . . .’

‘Do you think he’s alright? I mean, we can both see it in him, but how much do you think he has changed? And why?’

‘Geez, so many questions! I’m almost sorry I brought it up now.’

‘No. I’m glad that you did. It’s made we wake up to the fact that we’ve been spending so much time together that I hadn’t thought much about Ben at all lately. I hope he’s okay.’

‘Yeah, me too,’ he replied.

‘But I think I’d like to talk to Ben about it.’

‘Yeah, so do I,’ he replied, giving me a hug and kissing me on the neck as he did so.

We stayed there for a while longer, neither saying much, but both of us no doubt with our thoughts on Ben.

The more I thought about him, the more convinced I became that I knew what his problem was, and I said as much to Guy.

‘And what’s that then?’

‘Samantha.’

‘She’s not a problem. Christ almighty, they love each other. Don’t they?’

‘You don’t get it do you? That is the problem. She’s up there on the north-coast. He’s down here. And how often does he get to see her?’

‘Oh,’ Guy answered. ‘But he can’t do much about that though, can he? Unless he . . .’

‘Unless he what?’

‘I was going to say, unless he actually goes and visits her.’

‘Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too.’

‘Do you think we should suggest it to him?’

‘I’m not sure. We should at least talk to him though, don’t you think?’

‘Yeah. I think we should. Or more to the point, I think that you should.’

‘Me?’

‘Well, you have been his best friend since the year dot, haven’t you? I think he’d be more likely to listen to you than he would if it came from anyone else.’

‘Yeah. You’re probably right,’ I replied.

We sat there for a while longer, content to just be together and watch the city lights sparkling below us, or study the occasional airplane taking off or landing at the airport which sat atop the hills on the opposite side of town, their landing lights passing directly over as they came and went, almost close enough to touch.

Whenever I was in Guy’s arms I felt safe and secure, and I loved that feeling. I didn’t want it to end. Not now. Not ever.

Thinking about Ben though, I couldn’t help but now be worried about him. I was fairly sure that he was under a fair bit of pressure from home, with this being the make-or-break year for all of us as far as school was concerned, but I was just as certain that missing Samantha so much wouldn’t be helping him much either.

I knew now that I had to try and talk to him. I had to see if he was alright, and if he needed it, I had to see how we could help him.

After a while, during which we both sat in silence, each to our own thoughts, Guy asked, ‘Do you want to go home yet, babe?’

‘So soon?’ I asked him, then taking one of his hands in mine I brought it up to my lips, kissing him gently.

‘Aaahhhh, I get the picture,’ he said, hugging me close to him and burying his face into the base of my neck, while running his hand down my stomach and finding its way into the top of the track pants and shorts that I was wearing.

He took a hold of me and instantly things started to happen.

‘You always did catch on quick, didn’t you?’ I whispered to him.

‘Well, it helps that I had a good teacher,’ he answered, giving me a firm squeeze.

Slowly I turned around in his arms, so that we were soon laying stomach to stomach, and groin to groin.

‘I love it when we come up here,’ I said to him, then leant in and kissed him, before he could make any wisecracks about the word I had used.

It was no use though, through lips that were working overtime he managed to say, ‘Yeah, so do I. Especially when you do too.’

*   *   *

Guy picked Ben and me up on the street the following morning, just as he did almost every morning these days, and we arrived in time for class with just seconds to spare - just as we did most mornings these days.

In the few minutes between when I caught up with him and when Guy picked us up, I hadn’t had a chance to say anything to Ben about Samantha, or anything else for that matter, which was something I really wanted to do as soon as possible.

When lunchtime came around I figured it was now or never, so as we were putting our books away after the end of the previous lesson, I said to him, ‘Can we talk?’

He looked at me with that lop-sided, quizzical expression of his, as if he were considering what it was that I would possibly want to talk to him about, but before he could say anything I added, ‘I want to talk to you about you!’

‘What the fuck are you going on about?’ he asked.

‘Come on, let’s go down onto the oval.’

I had told Guy through the morning what it was I wanted to do, and had deliberately asked him not to come down to the oval with us. He was cool about it all, and conveniently made himself scarce as soon as the lesson had finished, feigning some excuse about having to go to the library and look something up.

We walked in silence down to the edge of the oval, where we sat on a bench in the shade beneath some old pine trees.

‘You wanna tell me what this is all about?’ Ben asked, starting to sound a little peeved.

‘It’s about you, mate. We’re both worried about you.’

‘Wha . . .’ he started to say, then shut his mouth abruptly.

‘You’ve looked out for me often enough over the years. Now it’s my turn to look out for you.’

‘And do what, exactly?’

‘I know you’re miserable, mate. You’ve been like it nearly all year. Only now, you’re getting worse. And I think I know why.’

Silence. He didn’t say a word. He just stared off into the distance, looking kind of sad.

‘To be honest, I hadn’t even noticed. It was Guy who asked me last night if I thought you were a bit down. Then the more I thought about it, the more I think I realised what the problem was.’

More silence. Although this time he did look up at me.

After a while he said, ‘You don’t know how much I miss her, mate. I mean it’s not just the fooling around and stuff that I miss. It’s her! It’s not having her around. It’s not being able to hear her voice, touch her face, listen to her laugh. It’s everything about her.’

‘Actually, I think I might know just how you are feeling, mate. I felt the same way even just for those few weeks over Christmas while Guy was away. Question is, what are we going to do about it for you?’

‘We?’

I nodded. ‘If you’re miserable all the bloody time, chances are we’ll end up that way too,’ I said to him with a laugh. ‘And neither me or Guy want to end up as miserable as you.’

‘Very fuckin’ funny, wisearse!’

‘Well, it’s true, ain’t it?’

He looked down at his hands and started fidgeting.

‘Yeah. I thought so,’ I said.

After a while, during which time I just sat studying him, Ben said, ‘I miss her like crazy, mate. But what can I do about it though?’

‘You could always go see her.’

‘Yeah, right!’ he scoffed.

‘I’m actually trying to be serious here, bud!’

He thought about that for a minute and then said, ‘How could I do that? The bloody mid-years start in the middle of next week.’

‘Well, you could always hop on a bus or something. Just go up for the weekend. I mean, a few days break from studying would do you the world of good I reckon.’

‘For starters, my folks wouldn’t let me.’

‘Yeah, I suppose that’s fair enough.’

‘It is a good idea though,’ he said to me with a grin on his face. ‘And thanks for caring.’

‘Hey, mate. What are friends for? But we still haven’t solved your little problem though, have we?’

‘It’ll be alright, mate. I think I feel better already, just having talked about it. So thanks.’

Just then we noticed Jonathon wandering down the path towards us, with a curious expression etched on his face, as if he were sizing us up, wondering what we were up to.

‘If you need a root, mate, I suppose you could always ask Jonathon,’ I whispered to him, jokingly.

Ben’s head snapped back towards me with a look of total disgust on his face.

‘What?’ I exclaimed. ‘I was actually joking, mate! Really!’

Slowly a smile washed over his features and he said, ‘Bastard!’

‘Sorry. I just couldn’t help myself there.’

‘You’ll keep.’

‘Probably.’

I looked up just in time to see Jonathon reach us and sit down on a nearby bench.

‘Hi, guys,’ he said. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Nothing much, mate. We’ve just been discussing Ben’s love life - or the lack thereof.’

WHUMP!

That was Ben’s fist connecting with my arm.

‘Hey! Watch it!’ I said to him, while rubbing the now painful spot on my arm.

‘You were asking for that one,’ Jonathon added.

‘Yeah, you were!’ Ben chimed in, now laughing.

‘Geez, you try to do a guy a favour . . .’

*   *   *

The rest of the week went by without incident, and by the time Friday came around Ben was positively cheerful again, so I figured that my little chat with him must have done some good. His cheerful mood seemed to infect us all actually, and by the time we finished school that afternoon it was as if we were all recharged and ready for a big weekend.

‘What are you blokes doing tomorrow?’ Ben asked me as we walked down towards the spot where Guy had parked his car this morning.

‘Not sure yet,’ I replied, while looking across at Guy, who just grinned back at me. ‘I guess we’ll think of something though. You want to call around and we’ll all go downtown or something?’

‘Yeah, maybe. We’ll see what happens, huh?’

‘Sure.’

‘How about this afternoon? You want to go down to the milk bar or something?’

‘Errr . . . maybe some other time, huh? I have a few things to do this afternoon. Would you mind just giving me a lift home, Guy? Anyway, you blokes need some time together, I reckon,’ he said with a grin.

‘Whatever!’ Guy replied.

We dropped Ben back at his place and listened to him whistling to himself as he went through the front gate.

‘Later then, guys,’ he called out to us, giving us a wave and then shutting the gate.

We waved back and Guy pulled out onto the road.

‘Well, he certainly seems happy,’ Guy commented. ‘Your little peptalk must have done some good then?’

‘Yeah,’ I answered. ‘It looks like it.’

‘Where to, then? And no, we can’t go to my place, Kevin will be there.’

‘Damn!’

‘Any suggestions?’

‘How about we just head downtown. I could do with a milkshake I reckon.’

‘They’re not as much fun down there as they are at home though,’ Guy replied.

‘Ain’t that the truth!’

‘Still, we’ll just do the best we can. Maybe we could make a night of it, grab some takeaway, and a movie or something? Stay up all night and watch the sun come up?’

‘Now we’re talking. But if we’re going to do that, how about we head home to my place, we can have a shower and get changed, then hit the town?’

‘A shower? Your place? Hmmmm . . . sounds nice’

‘Just hold your horses, loverboy. We’ll have to see if anyone is home first!’

‘Fine by me, babe.’

Quickly, Guy did a u-turn and sped back up the hill towards my house, with a grin etched on his face that was infectious. As luck would have it, there was no one home when we got there, so after doing a quick check of the house we stripped off and headed for the bathroom at a run.

Jesus! If anyone had walked in!!!

We made it a quick one, then dried each other off, which was half of the fun I reckoned, before getting dressed, ready for a night on the town.

‘Those clothes don’t fit you all that well,’ I said to him, admiring the way one of my favourite shirts and cargo pants all hung loosely about him.

‘It’s alright, mate, it’s a new look, you know?’ he replied, doing a little whirl in front of me.

‘Ah well, I’m going to rip them off you the first chance I get anyway, you know?’

‘Well, I certainly hope you are!’

I quickly scrawled a note out and left it on the kitchen table, just telling my folks that I was going out with my friends, and then we left and headed downtown. We started at the milk bar, then afterwards caught a movie – gotta love that Spiderman . . . and ain’t that Tobey so damn cute? – then when that was out we went to a cosy little pizzeria, complete with red and white checkered tablecloths, where we sat and talked and ate until we were kicked out by the owners because they wanted to go home.

‘So, what about the rest of the night?’ Guy asked me as we strolled to the car.

I glanced across at him and even in this light, I could see the grin on his face.

‘Well, just so long as I’m home before dawn . . .’ I said to him.

‘Hey, no problem,’ he replied.

When we reached the car we got in and Guy started it, and we quickly pulled out onto the road.

‘And just where are you taking me, sir?’ I enquired.

‘Out of town, to a quiet place we both know,’ he answered, which I immediately assumed to be Georges Creek.

As we drove along, heading out of town on the road that I had expected us to take, I looked across at Guy and started thinking about how grateful I was that he had come into my life, and about how much things had changed over these past months, for both of us.

It hadn’t quite been a year since that first day when Ben and I had spotted him downtown with his mother, but in the time since we had met, we had become friends and then fallen in love. If he were to leave me today, I thought, I just didn’t know how I would cope.

‘What are you staring at?’ he asked me after glancing across at me and catching me staring at him.

I smiled and said, ‘Only you. I was just thinking how lucky I was.’

‘Lucky?’

‘Yeah. Lucky that Ben and I spotted you downtown that day last year. How long ago was it now?’

‘Ten months, thirteen days and . . .’

‘What?’ I exclaimed. ‘You actually know that?’

‘Well, sort of,’ he answered. ‘It’s something that I started doing just after we met, you know, just keeping track of things. I thought I would stop it after a while, but apparently not . . . it’s been a hard habit to break.’

I just laughed at him.

‘What’s so funny?’

‘Only you, babe,’ I replied. ‘Man, that’s so sweet.’

‘Well, hadn’t you noticed, I’m a fairly sweet guy.’

‘Yeah, I had actually,’ I replied, then leant across and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Minutes later we slowed and turned off onto another road, which led down to the picnic area on Georges Creek, and when we finally pulled the car to a halt we found the place to be deserted.

‘Looks like a nice quiet night,’ I said to Guy as he cut the engine.

‘Yeah, just the way I like it,’ he said to me, as he slid his hand along my thigh.

‘Want to see if we can’t liven this party up a little?’ I asked, leaning across and whispering it into his ear, then teasing his ear lobe with my lips.

‘Ohhhhh . . . I love it when you do that.’