Remembering Tim - 8. Chapter 8 - I Didn't Love Kiel

Kiel was waiting for me when I got home from school. I hadn’t seen him all day, but there he was standing at our back door. He had a coil of rope in one hand. He didn’t look happy.

“Tim called me last night and chewed me out for threatening you,” Kiel said, flatly. “You’ve wanted me to fuck you for a long time, but when I’m finally ready, you said I was trying to rape you. You’ve been raped so many times you don’t know when someone just wants to have sex with you. Well, Geoff, ol’ buddy, time to pay the piper.”

“What do you mean, Kiel?” I asked, suddenly, inexplicably, very afraid.

“I’m never going to fuck you, never,” he said angrily. “But I am going to help you get over it. Come on, let’s go in the garage and get this done, now.”

“I’ve got to go inside and let Mother know I’m home,” I said, getting more afraid.

“Just like the little kid you’ve always been. Well, time to grow up and be a man. Come on, I don’t want to have to force you, but you know I can.”

“Sure, Kiel, whatever you say,” I said, putting my books down on the porch. I saw Sally through the window in the backdoor. She gave me the oddest look. I felt a hand grab my arm.

“Now, Geoff, now!” Kiel exclaimed forcefully.

I followed him out to the garage and through the side door. Our stepladder was set up beside the workbench. Kiel was standing beside it, beckoning.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“Take the rope,” he said.

“What do you want me to do with it?” I asked.

“Take one end and make a loop,” he said. “Yeah, like that, now take the end and wrap it around and come back through the hole. That looks perfect, Geoff.”

“What do you want me to do with it?” I asked, realizing I was repeating myself.

“Put the loop around your neck and pull it tight,” he said. “Now!”

I did as he told me. I started to weep.

“I called you a cry baby before and I don’t want to have to do it, again, but you’re making it awfully easy for me,” Kiel said. “Now climb up on the ladder and tie the other end to that beam up there.”

“Geoff, what are you doing?” Sally asked. I turned and looked at her as I was tying the rope to the beam.

“Get out of here!” Kiel yelled. She ran.

“Have you tied it good or do I have to come up there and check?” Kiel asked.

“It won’t come loose,” I said.

“Now, we come to the easy part, Geoff,” Kiel said calmly. “It’s been nice knowing you, but you’ve got to jump off the ladder, now. Come on, Geoff, do it!”

I stood there suddenly realizing what I’d just done. I was going to hang myself. I was trying to commit suicide, again. I looked at him, pleading with my eyes. He stared back full of a hatred I’d never seen before.

“Jump!” he yelled. “Jump!”

“Geoffrey! Get down off that ladder, now!”

I turned and saw Mother. She looked like she was mad at me. I didn’t know what I’d done.

“Jump!” Kiel yelled, again.

Mother was coming toward me like she was going to hit me or something.

I stepped off the ladder.

I stood at the door. I knocked.

No one opened the door.

**********

“Doctor Randall, I want you to know I appreciate what you’re doing for me, but I don’t think this will help. I can’t remember. I can’t remember hardly anything.”

“What do you remember?”

“Mother yelling at me to get down off the ladder. She was so scared and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t get down, Doctor Randall. The rope was too short. And, Kiel, Doctor Randall. I remember Kiel yelling at me, too. He kept yelling, ‘Jump! Jump off the ladder. Jump!’ I was afraid, Doctor Randall. I jump off bridges, Doctor Randall. I don’t know how to jump off a ladder. And, Mommy yelling at me to come down off the ladder. Oh, god! I jumped! Doctor Randall! I jumped. Oh, Mommy! I’m sorry, Mommy! I jumped! Kiel told me to jump and I did it! Oh, Mommy! Mommy!”

As happened each time I reached this point, I collapsed into a sobbing, incoherent blob of flesh until Doctor Randall gave me an injection sending me into an empty oblivion.

**********

The doctor in the emergency room said the rope burn around my neck would heal, in time. “You’re young; it will fade away to where it’s hardly noticeable.” It’s only bandaged on the bad places where the skin is torn so bad that it seeps. They put some salve on it and, now, I have to do it myself. The scar of another failed suicide attempt.

Mother caught me, yet I nearly died, anyway. She had to lift me up enough to loosen the slipknot Kiel told me how to tie; except, Kiel was dead. All that time, Kiel was dead. He wasn’t a ghost, either. It was my mind playing tricks to get me to jump, to die. I was so crazy my mind wanted to kill me so it wouldn’t have to suffer anymore. That’s about as crazy as you can get while still being allowed to walk the streets alone until you do something stupid like try to off yourself.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” Doctor Randall said. “Your sister saved you.”

“Sally will hold it over me until the day she dies. She’s that kind of sister.”

“She’s not that kind of sister; she’s just a sister.”

“Do you have a sister?” I asked, obviously feeling better after that cathartic moment, which I was already having trouble remembering because I’d been having so many of them. Or, had I? I didn’t know what day it was. I didn’t know what time of day it was. I talked with Doctor Randall until I broke down and then received an injection which knocked me out until the next session, whenever that was.

“Five, I’m the only boy, they’re all older.”

“Shit, they must have babied you for years.”

“Yeah, but you’re here to talk about Kiel and why you had to believe he was still alive.”

“Uh, huh,” I mumbled, suddenly, strangely very afraid, of what I hadn’t a clue.

I wasn’t in County. Doctor Randall had me transferred to a private psych hospital on the east side of Lake Washington where he had quite a few pediatric psychiatry patients. He wanted better control over me. He didn’t want County bugging him. He didn’t want me getting attacked. He knew about those people at County. I told him. He believed me.

I was in a four bed pediatric ward. Peter was thirteen. He was a junkie. He did sex with older men to get money to pay for his shit. He was cute, but lived in a world I never imagined existed. He talked about doing things that gave me pleasure, but he did simply for money. Although Peter was thirteen, he could have been twenty. Johnny was fifteen, almost a year younger than I was. His mother controlled him so much he couldn’t control himself. Sam was too laid back. Sam was too cool. Sam was so secretive I didn’t know a thing about him.

Most of the time, I slept. Drugged, dreamless sleep. Nightmares kept at bay, mostly. I’d nod off at meals and the nightmares made me scream; Kiel was in every one beckoning me to join him. Sam and Peter didn’t care. Johnny was scared. I felt sorry for Johnny. Peter sucked Johnny’s dick at night to help him go to sleep. I was too drugged out to do anything except watch. I couldn’t even get hard.

There was a rope around my neck when Sally came into the garage. She’d seen me going in there with the rope and wanted to know what I was doing. Luckily, she went to get Mother. I was standing on the second step of the ladder. Kiel made me tie the rope to the ceiling joist so that when I stepped off the ladder the knot would tighten and possibly, he hoped, snap my neck. I must have done something wrong because my neck didn’t snap, but I did nearly suffocate. Mother saved me. Sally saved me.

I nearly killed myself because I didn’t want to believe Kiel jumped because he knew I wouldn’t.

Mother grabbed me and held me up until she could get the rope from around my neck. I don’t know how she did it. I was unconscious, but I could hear Kiel saying, “Damn! Damn! Damn!” over and over. She called an ambulance, then Doctor Randall. That was the most important call. He got me out of County, early.

I was not allowed visitors, not even Mother. I couldn’t even talk on the telephone, Doctor Randall’s orders. I could get cards and notes, but no letters. “Have them send you a postcard saying everything is fine,” Doctor Randall told me. He wanted to keep me away from outside suggestions. He wanted to find out why I did it.

Only problem was, I couldn’t remember anything except knowing Kiel was going to kill me because he believed I told Tim of the almost attempted rape; and, yet, the whole time Kiel was already dead. Was my desire to have Kiel’s big cock fully inside me so strong that my mind kept him alive until he nearly killed me?

I couldn’t believe I was that crazy.

“He had to be alive because I couldn’t believe he could jump from that bridge so easily. The guys with the knives said one of us had to jump and Kiel said, “I’ll go,” and he was over the railing before I could stop him. He jumped because he knew I couldn’t.”

“Do you really believe that is why he jumped?” Doctor Randall asked.

“Why else would he jump?” I asked. Why else?

“Maybe he had a reason of his own. Maybe his life wasn’t going as he thought it should. Have you thought he might not have done it because he felt you didn’t have the guts to actually jump? You’ve never actually jumped or made an honest effort to do so until you stepped off the ladder.”

“But if I jumped, I’d be dead,” I said as a wave of realization swept me off the deck of the ship and I fell into another slobbering mass.

**********

“How are you doing today, Geoff?” Doctor Randall asked. He had an office at the hospital. It was quite large with a broad cherry wood desk, green vinyl couch, a couple of comfortable side chairs, and a big bookcase. There was a window overlooking the inner court where difficult patients were allowed to get out into the sun. Good patients had a fenced lawn and rose garden at the back of the hospital.

Doctor Randall was stretched out on his couch. The curtains were pulled tight. The only light came from a desk lamp. “Come here and lie down beside me. I think we need to explore a different avenue to help you discover the truth.”

I sat in one of the side chairs staring at the outline of his cock in his gray slacks. I couldn’t tell if it was hard, or if his pants were pulled tight so I was able to see it. I didn’t know if he’d done this on purpose, or if it was only my psycho imagination trying to make something of nothing. All of the trust I’d placed in him was on the couch where his hand was patting the place I was to sit. I felt tears in my eyes.

“Come on, Geoff. Stand up and take off your robe. Come on, Geoff, we haven’t got all day. There are other patients here who need my help, too. That’s it, stand up.”

I couldn’t help myself as I stood and let the hospital robe fall from my shoulders. It lay in a crumpled pile on the floor at my feet. I stepped to the couch.

“That’s it, Geoff. You’re doing great. Just a little more. Come on, turn around and unbutton your pajama bottoms. You’re a good boy, Geoff. Just remember you’re a good boy. Sit down.”

I didn’t know why I was doing this. I couldn’t stop following his instructions. The light went out. I couldn’t see anything. I felt hands pulling my pajama top up over my head. Hands were touching me, pulling me down onto the couch. I didn’t want to do this, but I couldn’t stop. And then, he was on top of me. His hands around my neck. I couldn’t breathe.

“You like this, don’t you Geoff? You like my hands around your neck. I’ve got a rope right here.”

“Don’t Kiel! Stop it! Kiel I don’t want this. My god, Kiel! God, not that. I can’t breathe. Help me, Kiel. I didn’t tell. I didn’t. Oh, stop, Kiel. Please, god, Kiel, stop. If I say I told Tim, will you stop? Kiel? I told him, Kiel. Stop, oh, god, Kiel, stop.”

And, then I wasn’t there. I was in my bed in the ward. I was lying on my side, my knees pulled up to my chest. I was crying. I was holding onto my pillow like it was a big teddy bear and I was crying into it. I saw Mother sitting in the chair beside my bed. She looked sad. It must be hard for a parent to see their child acting like a psycho.

I stared at her. She looked up and smiled. I felt safe in that smile; except, Mother wasn’t there. She wasn’t allowed to be there. I was hallucinating. I was so crazy I could hallucinate my mother.

I woke up later that night to the sound of Peter sucking Johnny’s dick. Someone; was it Sam? Was in my bed holding me. His head was behind mine. I could feel his warm breath on my neck. I thought he was asleep. I watched Johnny come and I felt the person behind me relax, the arm across my chest went limp. I went back to sleep.

The next morning I ate breakfast with the boys, but I wasn’t there. They weren’t there. I remember the nurse handing me a little paper cup that had two pills in it. I put them in my mouth and she gave me a bigger paper cup full of water. I went back to sleep.

Later that afternoon or maybe it was the next day, I saw Peter kneeling in front of Sam, blowing him. Johnny was sitting on his bed watching them. He looked at me and smiled. I saw Kiel standing behind Johnny beckoning me to get out of the bed. As soon as my feet touched the floor, the orderly, a big guy with lots of muscles and bad breath, had me by the arms and was forcing me back onto the bed. The room was empty. The other boys were somewhere else. I went back to sleep.

It was morning, again, and I was lying on the couch in Doctor Randall’s office. I was naked. Kiel was naked, too. His erection was staring at me while his hands were around my neck choking me. Only, I wasn’t on the couch, I’d hung myself from a ceiling joist in the garage. Mother was struggling to keep me from suffocating while Kiel cut the rope. No, it wasn’t Kiel. It was Sally. No, it was Kiel’s mother. No, it couldn’t have been her. They moved away soon after Kiel died.

**********

The orderly came for me a little earlier than usual, but the others boys had already left to wherever it was crazy boys went during the day. I wasn’t out there long enough and I was so drugged up, I never figured that out. I put on my robe and shuffled along behind the orderly. I never learned his name, but he always seemed to be there when I needed him. I was beginning to think he was a figment of my imagination, like Kiel.

The door to Doctor Randall’s office opened and I could see him sitting on the front of his desk. Mother was sitting in one of the side chairs. Tim was in the other. There was an empty chair between them. I went in and sat down. I heard the door close behind me.

“Good morning, Geoff,” Doctor Randall said, getting to his feet. “We’ve been talking about letting you go home. What do you think about that?”

Mother reached over and took my hand. Tim looked nervous. I didn’t know why he was there.

I looked at Tim. He shrugged his shoulders like he always did. He looked sad. I didn’t know if he was sad because I was crazy or because I finally knew Kiel was dead. I hadn’t known him long enough to guess what he was thinking. I wanted to take him in my arms and hold him to me. I wanted my mother to do the same to me. I didn’t know which I wanted more. I felt a tear dribble down my cheek. Tim handed me a tissue.

“Thank you,” I whispered.

“I’m sorry, Mother. I thought Kiel loved me. I couldn’t believe he jumped off that bridge. I couldn’t accept his death and then my mind used him when I put that rope around my neck. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, honey. I don’t think anyone knew how much you loved Kiel.”

“But, I didn’t love him,” I whispered, purposefully not looking at her. “And, that, Mother, is the problem. I didn’t love Kiel, at all.”

Tim came over and squatted down beside my chair. He held my hand. There were tears in his eyes, too.

“I’ve missed you,” he said, sounding too sweet. I looked into his eyes and he smiled. “I’ve been helping take care of Sally when your mother needs time to herself. Sally actually misses you, if you can believe that. She wants you to come home.”

I looked at Doctor Randall, he was smiling. I noticed he had quite a bulge in his jeans. Maybe I was going to be okay, if I could check out my shrink while being comforted by the boy who was going to become my new boyfriend. I felt good, but I was sorry Kiel was dead. I guess I didn’t know that much about him, after all. It was like I didn’t know much about Stevie, either. I was going to get to know Tim. I was not going to let him die. I had to stop going to psychiatrists, especially good-looking ones like Doctor Randall. And, I missed Sally, if it’s possible to miss a little brat of a sister.

“I’d like to go home. It’s been fun here, Doctor Randall. We’ve had a lot of laughs. Peter, Johnny, and Sam are great kids, a little crazy maybe, but fun to be with. I would like to go home, anyway. Is that okay, Doctor Randall?”

“I think that is the best therapy I can give you,” Doctor Randall said, getting to his feet and stepping up to me. He took my other hand and held it, gently squeezing with half a smile and, was that a wink?

Did my shrink wink at me? Was my shrink coming on to me? God, this place was making me crazy to think like that. What did he do to me after I passed out? Did I remember my ass being sore afterwards? How many days was I out? How long had I been there?

“Can I go home now?” I asked, feeling myself being pulled into a hug. There was love in that hug, not the kind of love I feared, but a warm, soft, gentle love. A love I could handle.