Remembering Tim - 2. Chapter 2 - Tim

In August, Mom and Dad were supposed to take me and Sally down to Disneyland because we could stay with Dad’s little brother who was some sort of movie producer and had a huge house in Bel Air. The only problem I had was Stevie was supposed to go with us, so I wasn’t particularly happy when Mom decided Kiel could sub for Stevie. Of course, Sally was happier than a slice of veal still frolicking in the pasture. She was absolutely giddy because her favorite babysitter was going with us. She was looking forward to a lot of listening while Kiel read her sappy storybooks. I wanted some strong arms around me at night in bed, but I’d lost that opportunity when Stevie turned into gooey toast.

Kiel and I were next-door neighbors, but that was about as close as we seemed to get. He’d come over and put me to shame at horse, which isn’t hard since I can barely get a basketball through the hoop when standing on a ladder. Of course, Stevie was just as bad, so it wasn’t like I felt all that embarrassed. Only, it wasn’t the same because Stevie was more than likely to sneak a quick peck on the lips to make me feel better. I didn’t think I knew Kiel enough to expect that from him. We’d been to a few movies, but each time we went with Monica, Mark, and Tim, who always ended up sitting beside me and always tried to get his hand in my crotch. I don’t know what Stevie and he were doing in the showers after a tennis match, but I wasn’t having any of that stuff, especially with Kiel sitting on the other side of me. It’s one thing to be felt up by your best friend and quite another to get the same action from his tennis partner.

So a week before we’re to leave, Kiel comes over to our house to invite me to go with him to Tim’s house on Lake Mallard. (In case you’re wondering, it wasn’t named for the duck, but some real estate tycoon who made a ton of money selling property all over the county.) Imagine a pearly white, skinny teen in cut-offs. I know, scary, scary thoughts. The cut-offs looked new. Who cut the legs off of new jeans? Kiel always seemed to have new clothes. At least he was wearing a t-shirt, but it was too big. The beach towel had pink and lavender flowers. If that was supposed to be a clue, I wasn’t having any of it.

I was up to my room as fast as my clumsy feet could carry me, followed close behind by Kiel. I needed a pair of cut-offs for swimming and briefs to, well, keep something very personal away from the zipper. The last thing I needed was my mother seeing blood on my underwear and asking embarrassing questions. Kiel stood by my window, which was open because it was hot upstairs, and watched me change. I’d undressed in front of hundreds of boys in PE since sixth grade. Stevie and I were naked enough together that we never blinked an eye to a free striptease, but I swear I heard Kiel gasp when I pulled off my good briefs.

I am not hung. I’m not little by any means, but I’m not overly endowed, either. Personally, I think I’m a little on the short side of average, but maybe I was a little excited by Kiel watching me.

“What?” I asked, looking straight at him. He wasn’t looking into my eyes. He wasn’t looking out the window, the Boy’s Life in his hand, or the floor. His eyes were glued right where I didn’t want them. “Haven’t you seen one of these before?”

“You’re not circumcised,” Kiel whispered.

“Uh, no.”

“I’m not either,” Kiel said so quietly I could barely hear.

“Great! At least we have one thing in common.”

“Yeah.” He turned to stare out the window. I know how he felt. Being the only Christian dick in a locker room full of surgically altered genitalia can be downright embarrassing, especially if you’re twelve and everybody is looking for a flaw, something contrary to assumed normality. I certainly took my share of ridicule. I suppose Kiel went through the same shit. He certainly looked embarrassed now. Then I saw the bulge, a very big bulge.

“What’s the matter, Kiel? Get a hard-on looking at my dick?” I sneered.

“Yeah,” he said not turning around. I almost wanted to tell him to turn my way because it wouldn’t be so obvious, but I was kind of enjoying what I could see.

I finished changing my clothes, slipped on my sandals, and found a beach towel in the linen closet. Kiel was still in my bedroom, staring out the window.

“Well, think about something else because I want to go swimming, even if it is at Tim’s house.”

“What’s wrong with Tim?”

“Nothing.”

“He was Stevie’s tennis partner, wasn’t he?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re still bothered about Stevie dying, aren’t you?”

“He was my best friend.”

I wasn’t going to let myself cry, not in front of Kiel. I ran down the stairs. Then suddenly stopped, surprised I didn’t kill myself. Maybe you’re not supposed to think when coming down stairs. Nah, must have been the need to get away from Kiel.

“Come on, Geoff, slow up. It’s too hot to run.” He was at the top of the stairs coming down awkwardly as if he had too much of something stuffed in his too tight cut-offs. He was actually walking kind of funny. I know it’s not nice to laugh, but his problem was so obvious.

“Come on, Donkey Dick, the water’s getting warm.”

“Don’t call me that, Cry Baby.”

I froze. I couldn’t move. One of the crazies in the psych ward called me a crybaby every time he raped me. That was before I learned a much better technique for easing his sexual tensions. I couldn’t help myself dropping to the floor and rolling into a ball. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t stop myself from crying.

I felt Kiel kneel behind me and start to caress my shoulder. He was shushing me very quietly. His soft voice was so calming. It was almost like a cat purring.

I rolled onto my back and stared up into his eyes. He smiled. I smiled.

“I’m sorry.”

“I am, too,” I said, sitting up.

“Do you still want to go swimming?”

“Yeah, if you can keep a secret.”

“I won’t tell anybody.”

“Thanks, and no more names, okay?”

“Definitely.”

**********

It’s nearly two miles from my house to Tim’s parents’ house on Lake Mallard. I’d been there with Stevie a couple times when we were going to Bruce Bigedic (correctly pronounced bih-GEHD-ic, not BIG-eh-DIC like everybody did) Middle School, but not having anything close to athletic talent, Tim took very little interest in me. Other than the fact he was incredibly cute, I could care less. I figured I was better off not knowing that many jocks. Stevie was as many as I needed to know.

I suppose Kiel’s talents on the basketball court must have drawn Tim’s interest, but why I was being included, I had no idea. As it turned out, I kind of wished someone had clued me in.

Both of Tim’s parents worked so, except for the housekeeper, we had the house to ourselves. I guess he didn’t have any brothers or sisters, or they were all older and already gone. It was just the three of us. Kiel pulled off his t-shirt and jumped off the dock into the lake. He swam out to the float and sat there waiting for us. Tim’s hand was on my ass.

“Do you have a problem or something?” I asked, swatting his hand away from me.

“Stevie said he fucked you and I was just checking you out,” Tim said, much too loud to make me feel comfortable. Sound carries on a lake. On some lakes, you don’t even have to yell and someone on the other side can clearly hear you.

“Well, he didn’t.” And he didn’t, but what I couldn’t figure out was where Tim was getting his information. I couldn’t imagine Stevie saying anything about what we did. We were best friends and best friends don’t kiss and tell. Or, do they? Tim’s hand was back and it was doing a lot more than checking me out.

“Come on, let’s go to my room,” he said in a way that scared me.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said trying to sound like I meant it.

“Look, Mr. Smarty, it’s either me or the defensive line on North Park’s football team.”

“What?”

“I can make your life a living hell, so come on. This’ll only take a minute.”

“No!”

“Come on, don’t be stupid.”

“No!”

“Geoff, I’m not putting up with this. Come with me, now!”

He was stronger, a lot stronger than I imagined. Kiel hollered something unintelligible, but Tim yelled at him to wait. I wanted to struggle, but was afraid Kiel would notice. I don’t know why I was afraid of what he’d think about what Tim was going to do to me. Having been in the psych ward, I met someone who taught me what to do to make it easy on myself without letting a rapist know what I was doing.

“Take off your clothes, even your socks,” Tim said as soon as we entered his bedroom. “And, lie down on my bed. As many times as Stevie probably fucked you, I’m sure you know the procedure.”

I did as he asked. He had some rubbers and some lube. He’d done this before. I wondered if he and Stevie were fuck buddies and Tim was simply assuming Stevie had done this to me, too. Yet, I couldn’t imagine my best friend doing anything like this with Tim. He was my best friend.

“I want you to moan like you’re enjoying this or you’ll be begging for mercy from the football team,” Tim threatened. I believed him.

Good thing Tim had a short fuse because I wasn’t in the mood to be moaning with his little dick doing hardly anything for me. There just wasn’t any girth to it. Kind of like a pencil. Stuck it in and POW! It was over.

“You feel better now?” I said, pulling a tissue out of the box by his bed to clean myself.

“Yeah, thanks, I needed that.”

“Did Stevie fuck you or were you just doing him?”

“Your best friend wasn’t my best friend, okay? But, yeah, he did me. The SOB said I could do him, but then, when I’m ready for mine, he said you just did him and he was sore.”

“Damn!”

“Yeah, well, maybe we can get together again sometime.”

“When?”

“What do you mean, when?”

“Well, aren’t you going to threaten me with the football team?”

“Nah, that was just to get you to do it. Hell, they’d probably want me to do them, too.”

“Yeah, there are some mean SOBs on that team.”

“I would like to get together again sometime. I know I don’t have much of a dick, but …”

“It’s okay, Tim. I understand. I’ll think about it, okay?”

“You can do me, if you want, sometime.”

God! The last thing I needed right then was an apologetic rapist. And, why would I want to stick my dick into his hole? Because my best friend fucked him? God, suddenly I was beginning to wonder who Stevie Carlson was and why I sucked his dick, other than hew forced me and I wanted to keep him out of my back door, which I later found to be somewhat pleasurable if you could get around the fact that shit came out of that door, too.

Kiel was walking back up to the house when Tim and I came out. He looked like someone who just realized their ticket was for the 3:30 show, and not at 5:30 when they arrived at the theatre and saw the show has been closed for lack of interest.

“What were you guys doing?” Kiel asked.

“I wanted to show Geoff my stamp collection,” Tim said. “But I forgot my dad took it away because I wasn’t studying last semester.”

“Oh, and that took all this time?”

“Come on, Kiel, I want to go swimming,” I said, walking past him, and then running down to the lake. I pulled off my t-shirt and noticed it was inside out and I had it on backward. Glancing back, I saw Kiel and Tim talking. I wondered if Tim was letting Kiel know I took it up the ass. Then I thought that was what jocks probably did, anyway; just one more reason not to know a whole lot of them.

**********

Kiel didn't speak to me until we turned south on Oak Park Boulevard, less than a mile from home. It's not like I didn't try, but he was lost in some thought or other and after what Tim did to me I was in kind of a mood myself. We were waiting for the light at One Hundred Twenty-first, standing almost as if we weren't together.

"Do you what a chocolate soda?" Kiel asked. Gussie's Café was across the street. It was a breakfast and lunch place that made the best chocolate sodas north of the Ship Canal. It looked like they were still open.

"I don't have any money," I said.

"Hold the trumpets! What does this look like?"

"A pill bottle."

"Yes, but what kind of pill bottle?"

"I don't know."

"This is a magical pill bottle. Say the right incantation like, say, ‘Abracadabra Walla Walla Washington Hocus Pocus Winnemucca Nevada’ and it can do magical stuff."

While I was waiting for him to do something the light changed, but Kiel didn't move. "Come on, or we'll have to wait for the next one."

"Say the magic words," Kiel said, staying where he was.

I went back to the curb and pushed the button a second time.

"Come on, say the magic words."

"Why should I?"

"Do you want a chocolate soda, or not?"

"I told you I don't have any money."

"Say the magic words."

"Abradabra Pocus Nevacada Hocus Washington Walla Wiccemunna Walla."

"God, Geoff, why can't you just play along?"

"I'm not in a playing along mood. Do you have any money?"

"Yeah, come on," he said, starting across the street.

I sat in a booth waiting for Kiel to bring over the sodas. I had to admit I was trying to be as civil as possible, but after what happened at Tim's house civility seemed damn near impossible. It was bad enough he threatened me, but to admit it was simply a ruse to get his dick in me, that was something I didn't need to know. Then to tell me Stevie had been screwing him while I was sucking Stevie was another thing I didn't need to find out.

I suppose the worst thing was coming to the realization I'd gone suicidal over the death of some sort of best friend turned sexual pervert. That thought hadn't come fully into my mind while I was sitting in the booth watching Kiel watch Neil make the chocolate sodas. It was out on the edge of awareness; that place where original thoughts exist and only bits of them come across as little temptresses, hinting of their usefulness. It's like a tune or melody, a simple riff, that you've never played or heard, but seems very familiar when you play it the first time. Or, maybe it was the brief glimpses of Neil behind the counter.

Neil had been working at Gussie's for as long as I could remember, but he had the kind of face, and body, that never aged. To me, he was always twenty-two. Fair, blond, Scandinavian, with sparkling blue eyes, shiny white smile, not your ordinary waitress in a greasy spoon, but he wasn't in any sense girlish. No, Neil was a guy, I knew that much. Dad said Neil had been kicked out of the Navy for being a homosexual and was related to Gussie somehow. Yeah, there really was a Gussie. He was the cook. There were a couple of waitresses, too, but they came and went at odd hours. Neil was always there. I think I had a crush on Neil since I was four or five; of course, I didn't know what that meant until nearly ten years later.

Kiel walked over carrying the sodas. He looked different somehow. Less sure of himself, maybe. His eyes were in constant, nervous motion looking everywhere quickly as if some sort of menace was about, like playing hide and seek on a moonless night in a yard full of shrubs and trees where anyone might be lurking to scare the piss out of you. He definitely was avoiding me, not that I was all that interested in talking to him.

"Neil's nice," Kiel said, sitting down across from me then turning so he could stretch out on the seat and not have to look at me. "Did you know he's my cousin? Well, actually second cousin, I think. He's out somewhere on my father's side of the family. I think he's Danish, but with a last name like Schneider you'd never guess."

"My dad said ..."

"Don't!"

"What?"

"Don't you dare say what you're thinking."

"What am I thinking?"

"That Neil's a lot like you."

"What about me?"

"Tim said you let him fuck you."

Jocks! They think with their muscles. Not a compassionate bone in any of their bodies; and, now, Kiel will be expecting me to do the same for him. God, I hated high school.

"I didn't."

"He said you did."

"He forced me."

"Like he ..."

"Yeah, just like he made me do it. He threatened me, okay? And, I believed him." Yeah, I believed him. Walk all over me, I'm a doormat.

"He said you'd let me do that to you."

"Well, I won't."

"You don't like Tim, do you?"

"Should I like someone who did something like that? Go ask Neil if he'd like someone to do that to him. You said, we're alike. I bet he'd let you do it to him. You could probably threaten to expose him. Of course, he doesn't have a whole high school to hate him, but you might be able to force Neil like Tim forced me."

He wasn't looking at me; and, I might have been too loud because I saw Neil walking toward our table. I couldn't look at him. He looked so good, and now he was going to do what? He slipped in beside me.

"We're closing in about ten minutes, but you guys can finish your sodas," Neil said.

I was sitting as close to the window as I could. I wanted space between us. I definitely didn't want some homosexual touching me.

"Do you have a problem with me?" Neil asked, turning to look at me. I glanced away, avoiding his eyes.

"No," I whispered.

"Kiel was asking me if I'd talk to you."

I stared at Kiel, but his head was turned away. He was blushing. Maybe he didn't think Neil was going to be so forthright in his approach.

"Why would he do that?" I asked. My voice was so low I could barely hear it myself.

"Because maybe he thinks you might have a problem that I might be able to help you with."

"Excuse me," I said. Neil moved out of the booth and I got up and left as quickly as I could without running. I couldn't talk to him. I was not a homosexual. That's what Neil was. I was not like him and I had to get out of there.