You Pass This Way But Once - 15. Chapter 15 - The Darkness Envelopes Us

The next morning, I waited for Seth in front of the main entrance to the school, so we could walk to the locker room together. We had discussed this the day before and decided it would be best if we didn’t do anything at school alone. We felt it would be best if we at least had each other there for support when we joined up with the rest of the team. It wasn’t a perfect strategy, however, because we still weren’t prepared for what we found when we entered the locker room a few minutes later. Hanging above our lockers were two huge signs – one had the word “fag” scrawled on it, while the other had “queer” written across it. Without saying a word to anyone, we walked over, tore down the signs, wadded them up and threw them in the trashcan. When we came back to our lockers, we made our next discovery.

As we opened the locker doors, we immediately noticed our helmets had been painted pink, over their usual white coloring. Seth looked at me and asked what I thought we should do next, so I told him we should just suit up and then head out to the practice field as usual. Then, once the coach spotted us, we should have a fairly good idea about his attitude toward what was going on and where we stood with him, since we already had a pretty good understanding about how the rest of the team felt about us.

Once that had been decided, we started to put on the rest of our gear and that’s when we discovered the word “fag” had been spray painted over the pads on one of our pant legs too. Even though this made matters worse, we finished dressing, grabbed our helmets and walked out to the practice field, since everyone else was already there. When the coach saw us walking down, carrying our pink helmets, he called us over.

“You boys don’t like the school colors?” he asked skeptically.

“No, someone else thought we’d look better in these, coach,” I answered him.

“You think that someone on the team did this?” he challenged.

“Well, our helmets were in our lockers overnight and they were white when we left yesterday,” I stated. “Unless someone else has a key to our locker room, then I’d say it’s the only other possibility.”

“Why don’t you boys walk back up to the locker room with me so I can replace those for you,” he offered. “My assistants can handle things here for a while and it will give us a chance to look around some.”

We followed the coach back to the locker room, but we were unsure what he was going to do, other than replace our gear. Upon reaching that location though, he began by searching the trash for evidence about who might have done this. Coach not only found the signs that had hung above our lockers when we first arrived, but he also discovered a spray paint can in the garbage, wrapped in a wad of paper towels.

Once he found those things, he continued to look around and began searching each of the lockers. When he came to one of them, he found a pair of sneakers that had pink paint splattered on the toes. He noted the name on the locker and then led us over to the equipment room, so he could replace our ‘damaged’ equipment. Seth and I quickly changed into our new gear and then walked back to the practice field with the coach, as he carried one of the pink helmets, with the sneakers stuffed inside it.

“Chambers get your sorry butt over here, now!” he bellowed in his drill-sergeant voice, and Randy Chambers came running over to where the coach stood.

“Do you want something, coach?” he asked, trying to act innocent

“Do you know anything about this?” the coach asked, as he held up the pink helmet.

Randy held his arms out waist high, palms up at his side, in a gesture to proclaim his ignorance.

“Why are you asking me coach?” he countered.

Coach then pulled the sneakers out of the helmet and held them in front of him.

“Well, it might have something to do with the pink paint on the toes of the sneakers that I found in your locker and the pink paint smeared on your hands,” he shot back.

When the coach said this, we all looked down at Randy’s hands and saw the dabs of pink paint on his fingers. Randy looked up sheepishly and then put his hands behind his back.

“Do you want to tell me who else was involved in this?” the coach asked next.

Randy looked like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but he wasn’t about to give up any of his friends.

“There was no one else, coach, just me. It was only a little joke,” he added.

“Do you see me laughing, Chambers?” Coach followed, in a very loud and irritated tone. “The destruction of school property and sexual harassment are not jokes. They’re very serious issues and immediate action needs to be taken. You’re off the team, Chambers. Just leave your equipment in your locker and I’ll check it in when I get back up there.”

“You’re kicking me off the team and you’re letting the gay boys stay on?” Randy challenged.

“Let me put it this way, Chambers. You’re no longer needed or wanted on this squad, end of story,” Coach responded. “Now, go change and get lost. The principal and superintendent will decide your academic status when school starts next week.”

“What do you mean by that?” Randy wanted to know, his eyes as big as saucers. “Are you telling me that I might be kicked out of school too?”

“Well, it appears you may be smarter than you act, if you were able to figure that one out by yourself,” Coach sneered. “Your future as a student at this school will be left in the hands of the school administrators. They’ll decide your fate where that is concerned, not me.”

“You mean all of this is happening to me, just because we have a couple of fags who want to play football?” Randy shot back.

“No. All of this is happening to you because you decided to be stupid and spray paint school property and defame two of your teammates,” Coach replied emphatically. “You might as well face facts, Chambers. You only have your own stupidity and bigotry to blame for this. Nobody held a gun to your head or fed you stupid pills to make you do these things. That was done by you, and according to what you told me a few minutes ago, you alone.”

He then handed Randy his sneakers and Randy started to say something else, but the coach silenced him and pointed toward the locker room. Randy reluctantly left the field and headed toward the school, but Seth and I knew this probably wouldn’t be the last we saw or heard from him or his friends. It looked as if the coach was thinking the same thing, because he called everyone in for an impromptu team meeting. He held up the helmet as he began to speak.

“If anyone knows anything about this, then I suggest you speak up now, before I find out on my own,” he announced and then waited for a response, but received none. “Alright, have it your way then. Mr. Chambers is no longer a member of this football team and school officials will be asked to decide next week what punishment he will face for his involvement in this incident.”

As we looked around, there were shocked expressions on the faces of the other guys on the team, as they looked back and forth at their friends. Then a buzz washed over the group as they began to talk to one another, but the coach finally got the team’s attention again and resumed his comments.

“This is destruction of school property and will not be tolerated. Neither will the sexual harassment of any students in this school or members of any of the sport teams,” he added. “If there are others who were involved with Mr. Chambers, then they will face a similar fate, possibly even more severe, since no one is willing to own up to their part in this debacle. I’ll be in my office after practice, if anyone wishes to speak to me about his part in any of this or if any of you can shed any light on who participated in this affront on decency and good taste.”

The practice was rough and Randy’s friends were continually staring at Seth and me. Even though we had nothing to do with him getting kicked off the team, other than the fact that we were his targets, they still felt we were responsible for what had happened to their friend. Maybe they thought we had talked the coach into doing this when he took us up to the locker room, but that may have nothing to do with it at all. Go figure.

After practice, Seth and I hung back on the practice field to avoid any confrontations in the shower room. When we finally went in, nearly everyone else was gone. We were almost completely undressed, when Jeff came back into the locker room and approached us.

“Seth. Logan,” he started, but then stopped. He was very meek acting for Jeff and I knew something was up. “I’m sorry that things got out of hand like this. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

“What are you talking about, Jeff?” Seth asked. “Are you saying that you were responsible for what happened today?”

“In a way, I guess maybe I am, because this all kinda started when we slept out in the tent after my birthday party,” he confessed. “You see, I saw you two cuddling with each other when I got up that morning to head into the house to pee. Then, later, after I woke up again and saw you two were gone, I went out looking for you and that’s when I spotted you guys kissing each other behind one of the trees. After you two left for camp, I remembered about that time in the showers, when you two were in there alone and hard, and everything began to fall into place. That’s when I realized you were both gay.

“I didn’t want to make any accusations or cause any trouble, but I thought I’d see if anyone else had noticed anything like that, besides me,” he continued. “I was asking Keith about it one day at the pool and he asked why I wanted to know, so I took him to the other end of the pool, away from everyone else was at the time. Once we were alone, I explained to him what I saw, but the whole thing blew up when we realized we weren’t really alone.

“I’m sorry, but neither of us happened to notice that Randy and one of his friends were resting against the edge of the pool at the deep end with only their heads above the water, and they must have heard everything we said,” he added. “When we eventually spotted them, it was too late to do anything about it, but at the time we didn’t know for sure if they had actually heard what we’d been talking about. We didn’t find that out until we started to hear the rumors spreading around the neighborhood. I really didn’t mean for this to happen and only wanted to know if Keith had noticed any of the same things I had.”

“Thanks for being honest and telling us this,” I told him. “It’s nice to know you didn’t do this maliciously and we’re glad to hear it was just an accident on your part. I think we’re also willing to assume you didn’t have anything to do with what happened today, so I hope this means we are still friends. We are, aren’t we?”

He hesitated briefly, before he spoke again.

“I definitely didn’t have anything to do with today, but I didn’t exactly say we were still friends either,” he pointed out. “I don’t have a problem playing football with you guys, because you’re good and you’ve helped to make me look good too, so we can still work together on the team. It’s just that I don’t want to hang out with you outside of football any longer. I mean, if you two are gay, then that’s just not right and it’s definitely not natural, so I wouldn’t want anybody else to think that I was gay too, just because I hang around with you guys. I think it would probably be best if we were only seen together during practices and games then, if you don’t mind.”

“I see. Well at least now we know where we stand with you. I guess it’s ok for us to hang around you, just as long as we’re making you look good, like in football, but you don’t want to be near us at other times, so our disease doesn’t rub off on you,” I stated, sarcastically. “Don’t worry, Jeff. We understand you perfectly and can see how this works, so you don’t have to worry about us hanging out anywhere near you in the future.”

Jeff didn’t know how to react to my last comment, so he just turned around and walked away. Seth and I merely looked at each other, while we absorbed the implications of what Jeff had said. I think we both knew he probably wouldn’t be the only guy who felt this way.

“That took guts, Logan,” Seth said, while looking me in the eye. “He comes in here and admits to us that he’s the cause of all of our problems and then has the nerve to tell us that he doesn’t want anything more to do with us. You’ve got to admit doing that took big balls.”

“The size of boulders,” was all I could add.

Seth went with me to my house after practice, so we could decide how we were going to handle any future incidents. We also wanted to try and determine if there was anyone else we could count on to stand by us, now that the cat was out of the bag. Our little meeting was very bleak, because the only person we felt we could count on was Robbie, but he would be putting himself at risk if he said anything in our defense. The only ones we felt we might be able to rely on were some of the teachers and administrators at school, but we weren’t exactly sure how many of them would defend us either, besides our coach. Seth and I eventually concluded we were basically on our own.

We talked about telling our parents and I decided to speak with my mom and dad about this that evening, so I could let them know what was happening. Seth, however, was afraid to tell his parents. First of all, he said he wasn’t sure how his mother would react, but he was convinced his father wouldn’t take the news well at all. In fact, he thought his father might react very strongly, if he knew or thought his only son was gay, so Seth wasn’t prepared to take the chance. Even though I tried to tell him it would be better if his father found out from him, rather than hearing the rumors that were bound to start spreading like wildfire, he still wasn’t ready to tell him. Although he agreed with me in principle, he just couldn’t bring himself to face his father, at least not yet.

That evening, I told my parents I was gay, although my father already knew, but I also told them about what had happened to us at football practice. They were both upset about how we had been treated, but they were also extremely supportive and sympathetic, as I knew they would be. They even offered to go to school and talk to the coach or the administrators on our behalf, but I told them that wasn’t necessary, at least not yet.

Then, I informed them that Seth wasn’t ready to tell his parents just yet and they agreed to avoid mentioning anything about this while Seth’s parents were around. They did this because they felt Seth should be allowed to choose his own time for when he wanted to ‘come out’ to them. They were merely concerned, like I had been, that his parents might hear about it from someone else first, before he worked up the nerve to say anything.

The remainder of the week passed by fairly quietly, especially football practices, since no one dared to invoke the coach’s ire by attacking us in any way. Over the weekend, however, Seth and I started to become very concerned about what types of things might happen at school the following week, once classes started. We knew how other kids had been treated in the past when someone merely suspected them of being gay, and there were a few guys out there who thought they had proof that Seth and I were definitely gay.

My dad explained it wouldn’t do us any good to keep worrying about such things before they happened and doing so wouldn’t prevent something more from occurring. He said dwelling on what might happen would only help to make us feel worse, so he suggested we should try to find something else to think about that would take our minds off any possible problems. Try as we might, we were unsuccessful in finding anything else that would distract us from our current predicament.

As it turned out, we had good reason to be concerned, even though the problems at school started out slowly. At first, there were only whispers and giggles when we walked down the halls, but then the pointing and staring started, as people would focus on us as we sat in our classrooms or ate in the cafeteria. Then, unfortunately, our problems suddenly began to escalate.

The next level of harassment included finding notes pushed through the vents in our lockers or even stuffed in our books. These notes varied in style and content, because some were simple and direct. This group included such things as ‘Gays will burn in Hell,’ ‘Gays have no right to live,’ ‘God hates fags,’ ‘It was Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve’ and ‘Boys loving boys is an abomination.’

Others left jokes for our benefit, such as ‘How can you tell if a bank robber is gay? He ties up the safe and blows the guard.’ Another read, ‘How can you tell if you’re in a gay church? Only half of the congregation is kneeling.’ Another read, ‘How do you know if you’re in a gay bar? The bar stools are turned upside down to seat four.’ A different one asked, ‘What’s the difference between a freezer and a fag? A freezer doesn’t fart when you pull out the meat.’ The last one read, ‘Which is better, being born black or gay? Being born black, because you don’t have to tell your parents.’

Some of the other notes were very graphic and described the acts, in detail, that the writer found objectionable. Some were not notes at all, but merely a collection of derogatory names and phrases. The creative ones even included a picture or pictures that the author or one of his friends had drawn, while the more perverse ones included threats of violence and even death.

There were also obscenities written on the doors of our lockers in magic marker, nail polish or paint. This, however, came under investigation by the school officials, because of the damage to school property issue, although there didn’t seem to be much concern about how any of this was affecting us. Seeing the school was investigating those types of activities though, this form of harassment quickly abated. In its place, notes were soon being either glued or taped to our lockers instead, and even though these items could easily be removed, they still spread the same hatred the other graffiti had symbolized. It was becoming a constant and chronic problem, because new signs were appearing almost as quickly as we were able to take the old ones down.

Things weren’t exactly going well at football practice either. Since Randy’s friends blamed us for getting him kicked off the team, they were doing their best to make us look bad. When we were scrimmaging and a play was called where Seth or I were to carry the ball, then Randy’s friends would only bump or brush block their assignments. This meant the defender was coming through virtually untouched to tackle us and sometimes multiple bodies hit or fall on us during the same play. Sure, the coach would scream at them and they’d look bad too, but Seth and I were the ones having to survive the hard, almost instant tackles that were being doled out. We were getting hammered play after play and the physical abuse to our bodies was beginning to add up and affect our play dramatically. This meant their tactics were starting to have the desired effect on us.

Things were beginning to escalate in school as well. The non-violent harassment, such as the notes, signs, jokes, comments, etc. were starting to be replaced by a more physical aggression. Suddenly, Seth and I found ourselves being bumped and shoved in the hallways, as we passed between classes. Small groups of guys would knock us into walls, trip us or knock our books and other things out of our hands. In the classroom, someone was constantly knocking our things off our desks or trying to knock us out of our chairs. The first few times we ignored the abuse, but then we began to fight back, although that didn’t work either. There would always be three to four guys for each one of us and one or more of them would pummel us, as the others restrained our defensive instincts. It was quickly becoming more than we could handle gracefully.

One of the worst acts against us happened in the cafeteria. Seth and I were sitting and eating the school lunch when one of Randy’s non-athletic friends came over and spoke to us.

“How can you guys stand to eat the crap they serve here?” he asked. “They shouldn’t even call it food it’s so bad, but then again you guys like licking assholes and sucking dick too, so maybe in comparison it’s not so gross.”

He smiled at us, and while we were concentrating on his face, we missed his next move. He had a test tube hidden in his right shirtsleeve and inconspicuously reached over and removed the stopper that sealed it up. Once the stopper had been taken out, he emptied the contents of the test tube over our plates. When we realized what he was doing, we looked down and saw a white creamy substance on our food and knew immediately that it was probably a semen sample that he had donated for this purpose.

“There! That should improve the flavor for you. You boys always like your meals with a little cream, don’t you?”

He began to laugh and I became furious. I flipped my plate of food onto his chest and started to crawl across the table toward him, but Seth pulled me back, because the kid’s friends were rushing toward our table in his defense. Both sides started screaming at each other and throwing punches across the table, before several teachers and administrators started streaming into the area.

Over the next few minutes, the adults asked multiple questions, in a quest to determine culpability, and then both the instigator and I got detentions for inappropriate behavior. The detentions didn’t seem to faze Randy’s friend at all, since he had no place else to go after school, but they were definitely going to interfere with my football practices. Seth promised he’d explain the situation to the coach and would try to lessen the effects of the incident with him. I had no other option, so I agreed.

When I finally got there, practice was half over and the rest of it went horribly for me. Between my nerves, my anger from having to serve detention and the continually actions of Randy’s loyal friends, Seth and I looked totally pathetic and completely inept when playing our offensive positions. How could we look good when we were getting hit almost as soon as we were handed the football.

As much as we’d discussed this situation, Seth and I had been unable to come up with a solution to our problem, so we were beginning to resign ourselves to the fact that we would probably be riding the bench the entire season. This would be a bitter pill for us to swallow, mainly because we were used to playing, but it was made even worse because the reason it was happening was beyond our control. To have this occur due to the fact that our teammates were trying to make us look bad just because we were gay and not due to our abilities on the field only made it an more difficult for us to accept.

After practice ended, Seth and I hung back so we could talk to the coach. We informed him about all of the things that were happening to us and explained how it was affecting us, both academically and athletically. We then told him that we weren’t sure if we’d be able to continue playing football under these circumstances and had even considered transferring to another high school. This last consideration had been put on hold for the time being, since it would mean that Seth would have to tell his parents about why he wanted to transfer. Seeing he still wasn’t ready to do that yet, we held off moving ahead with that idea, but we didn’t tell this last part to our coach.

The coach, however, was sympathetic. He never asked if the rumors were true and didn’t seem to care one way or the other. His primary concern seemed to be Seth’s and my welfare and how we were coping with what was happening to us. He said he would support any decision we made, but if we still wanted to continue playing football, then he’d do whatever he could to help us, because he said there was no question in his mind that we belonged on the team.

After we cleaned up, Seth told me that he had to get home and eat quickly, because he needed to go to the library and do some research for a report that was coming due. Once he told me this, we said goodbye and set out in opposite directions. When I got home, I discussed our situation with my parents over dinner and we agreed that we should start looking into some viable alternatives, like checking out some of the other high schools in the area.

Mom and Dad said they’d both provide taxi service for Seth and me, if we decided to do this and Seth could convince his parents to allow him to transfer with me. My parents were very helpful and we agreed that I should take some time off from school the following week, so I could go with dad to visit a couple of the other schools. He told me to talk to Seth and see if he wanted to join us, but I’d have to convince Seth it was time for him to admit things to his parents first, especially if he wanted this to happen. Since I knew he’d be at the library for quite a while, I decided to discuss this option with him the next day.

I was just getting ready to head up to bed when the phone rang and my dad answered it. He then called me over to take the call and said it was for me. I couldn’t imagine who’d be calling me at this hour, but I took the receiver to find out.

“Hello.”

“Hello, Logan? This is Seth’s father. Something happened to him on the way home from the library and he’s really upset,” he told me. “He won’t talk to his mother or me as to what it was about, so I was wondering if you would be so kind as to come over and see if you can find out what happened. I’m hoping that since you’re such good friends that maybe you can get him to tell you what is wrong. I hate to bother you so late, but I couldn’t think of anyone else that Seth would be likely to open up to if he had a problem. I’ll drive over and pick you up, if you’re willing to do this for me.”

“Would you please hold on a second, Mr. Eldred? I want to ask my dad if he’ll bring me over instead,” I explained and he quickly agreed.

I then spoke with my dad and he volunteered to drive me over, so I could look in on Seth.

“Mr. Eldred, my dad will bring me to your house and we’ll be there in a few minutes,” I told him and then hung up.

I then explained more about the situation to my dad as we drove to Seth’s house, but I left him downstairs to talk with Mr. Eldred, while I went up to Seth’s room. I knocked on his bedroom door and slowly it opened. The room was dark and Seth stood back in the shadows, where I couldn’t see him clearly in the light from the hallway. He asked what I was doing there, so I told him that his dad was worried about him and called to ask me to help out. Seth reluctantly let me into his room at that point and I turned on the light as I entered, while he was shutting the door. As soon as each of us turned around, I was shocked by what I saw, but even more so after he explained what had happened.