Nemesis - 12. Chapter 12: Gangs of Chicago Part 2: Kenny and Viktor

Gangs of Chicago
Part 2: Kenny and Viktor

Kenny

Viktor was two years older than I was, but we were in the same grade. He had been born after October, and started first grade with kids mostly younger than he was. He was always the oldest boy in the class. I had skipped the second grade, and was always the youngest boy in the class. Viktor was a lot bigger than me, too. We both knew that we were out of place and different. We lived in the same apartment building, just close enough to Lakeshore Drive to qualify as middle class but not close enough for good police protection. Viktor and I went to the same school. We barely acknowledged each other—until the first day of sixth grade.

I was wearing new clothes: cargo pants, a pullover shirt with a collar, athletic shoes. The shoes were seconds, but at least they looked like the ones that were popular. The pants and shirt were seconds, too. Mom was a sharp shopper. I think she knew I had problems in school, being little and all, and tried to make up for it by making sure at least I didn’t look like a geek or something. That took a lot of money and we didn’t have much.

I made sure the door of the apartment building closed behind me. Once, someone had left it open a little, and a bunch of kids had gotten in. They’d surprised Old Mrs. Murdoch in the laundry room, and hurt her pretty bad.

Leroy and his gang of Crips-wannabes were waiting for me at the bottom of the steps. They were always looking for someone littler than them to pick on. They’d gotten worse over the summer. Leroy pulled a switchblade partly out of his pocket.

“Lunch money, sucka,” he said.

“I don’t have any lunch money,” I said. “I brought lunch. Peanut butter sandwich.” I tried to push by. That had worked last year; it didn’t work, now. One of Leroy’s toadies grabbed my backpack and started going through it. Two more grabbed me and pushed their hands into my pockets.

“He ain’t got no money,” one said.

The one with my backpack threw my sandwich on the ground and stomped on it. It squished out from the waxed paper. “Nothin’ here, either,” he said.

Leroy grabbed me. I heard the apartment building door slam shut, and then a voice. “Leave him alone, Leroy. He doesn’t have any money. Leave him alone!”

I saw Leroy curl his lip. I watched his eyes flicker. Then, he snarled. “Come on, he ain’t got nothin’ we want.”

Leroy and his gang faded from sight. Viktor replaced them.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “No lunch … ” I pointed at the sandwich, spread over the sidewalk.

“You can eat with me,” Viktor said. “I’ve got more than I need, and a couple of quarters for milk. Come on, we don’t want to be late the first day.”

I ate lunch with Viktor. He bought me chocolate milk, and shared his sandwich with me. And broke in half his cookie. And walked me home. And walked me to school and home again every day until the middle of soccer season.

“Kenny?” Viktor said. We were at lunch. We had split my peanut butter sandwich and Viktor’s bologna and cheese sandwich, like we always did. I tore my sandwich in half, and gave him the bigger half. Viktor tore his sandwich in half, and gave me the bigger half. Neither of us ever cut the sandwiches in half at home; it was part of our ritual. I wondered if Viktor realized that it was ritual, and knew how much it meant to me.

“Kenny,” he said. “You know I’m on the soccer team. Coach wants to add an after-school practice, every afternoon except Friday. I don’t want you to walk home by yourself. Can you come to practice? Watch? Do homework, or whatever?”

My tummy felt funny. I knew Viktor was worried about me. I knew he cared about me. He did an awful lot for me, and I knew he cared. This was the first time he’d ever said anything, though.

“Sure, Viktor. Mama works a swing shift; she doesn’t know what time I get home. Sure, I’ll wait for you.” I’ll wait for you forever, I thought, and wondered what that meant.

From then on, I watched soccer practice from the bleachers in the gym, and then walked home with Viktor.

Viktor

I don’t know what it was about Kenny. He seemed so helpless, so defenseless. I’d seen him being picked on for the past couple of years. Yeah, I knew who he was, even though I don’t think he ever gave me a second look.

After running off Leroy and his gang, I realized I’d made Kenny a target. I had created a problem for him. I was obligated to protect him. I knew that, in my mind. Somehow, I knew it in my heart, too, and that made it easy to accept my obligation.

And, I got to spend 30 minutes with him every day, walking to and from school. At first, we didn’t talk, much. Eventually we started talking. I’d opened a faucet. It was like Kenny didn’t have anyone to talk to but me and had saved up everything that had ever happened to him. It didn’t bother me to listen; I was kind of happy that Kenny trusted me enough to tell me what was important to him.

I had my first cum in the summer, and jerked off at least once a day, usually just before I showered. At first, I didn’t think of anything, really, but after rescuing Kenny from Leroy and his hoodlums, I started thinking about Kenny.

At first, I thought about Kenny; then, I thought about what Kenny would look like naked; then, I thought about what it would feel like to touch Kenny, and for him to touch me; then, I got scared.

I’m gay, I thought. I don’t think about girls when I jerk off; all I can think about is Kenny. Oh, shit! My father’s gonna have a fit. No, he’s not, ’cause I can’t tell him!

My father never made a secret of his dislike for homosexuals. If he were flipping through the sports channels and accidentally tuned to figure skating or men’s gymnastics, he’d leave the TV on that channel only long enough to say something about guys who pranced around in tight clothes that showed off their dicks. And that was tame compared to what he said if the TV ever landed on a channel showing guys doing ballet.

He read the newspaper out loud at the breakfast table. And, he editorialized. Usually it was about how the president had turned the USA into a socialist country and destroyed the economy, and how the bleeding heart liberals were making it worse. Sometimes, it was more … more specific.

“Here we go, again,” he said. “School teacher arrested for having sex with one of his students. This time, it’s a boy.”

He looked at me over the top of the paper. “Any of your teachers tried to touch you?” he asked. “That soccer coach of yours … he ever walked in on you in the shower? If he ever touches you, you start yelling and screaming … after you kick him in the nuts, you hear?”

What if he knew I loved Kenny, and wanted to rub him, kiss him, do sex stuff with him? I thought. “No, sir. He doesn’t come in the showers.” was all I could say.

“Well, if he does, you kick him in the nuts, you hear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Kenny

Mr. Mossberg was the coolest teacher we had. He was just out of college. He told us at least once a week how hard it had been to get a job with a degree in history. But he also told us how important history was.

“Those who don’t remember history are not necessarily doomed to repeat it,” he said. “But they are certainly doomed to be taken advantage of by those who do remember history.”

And then, he showed us why that was true. He talked about the causes of the Vietnam War, and how they went way back to the end of World War II, when the USA, in an orgy of “we’re the greatest” plus sympathy for the “noble French” decided to help France rebuild their Indochina empire. So much for encouraging democracy throughout the world. He showed us how Viet Nam, the failed Russian invasion of Afghanistan, and the failed American invasion of Afghanistan were similar—and different—and how if we’d learned the lessons of Viet Nam, we might have kept out of so many wars in the Middle East.

He told us lots of stuff about the Obama depression, and how it was like the great depression of the 1920s and 1930s, which had really begun right after World War I. He told us about how it was different, too—and how the lessons of the great depression might have kept us out of this greater one.

On Monday after Thanksgiving, Mr. Mossberg walked up and down the aisles, passing out slips of paper. The first kids to get them groaned, and then started looking around the room. I couldn’t figure out what was going on.

Then, he handed me a slip of paper. It had my name on it. It read, The problems facing the United States in 1933 were nearly the same as those facing Germany and Italy at that time. Those two countries became nationalistic, socialistic dictatorships. How was the United States similar and different and why? Viktor Tchekov.

Huh? was all I could think. Then, I understood. We had to write a research paper. We would have a partner. This was the topic. My partner was going to be Viktor. I got a quivery feeling that ran from my toes to my head, and made my penis hard.

Yes, made my penis hard. I had fallen in love with Viktor a long time ago … probably the first day of school when he had rescued me from Leroy and the Kiddy-Crips. It just took me a while to realize it.

I loved walking to and from school with Viktor. I loved eating lunch with him. I loved talking to him. But that was it, for Viktor. To and from school, lunch hour. Almost as if it were a duty. Now, I was going to have to study with him. And he was going to have to study with me!

Oh! Maybe he won’t want to …

Viktor

“Viktor?” Kenny’s voice was soft, but I could hear the tremors. “You don’t have to do this project with me, if you don’t want to. I could tell Mr. Mossberg that my mother said I needed someone my own age … for a partner, I mean.”

I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. As soon as Mr. Mossberg had passed out the assignments, I was walking on air. I wanted a way to spend more time with Kenny, but with school, soccer, and my father, I didn’t know how. Now, I had been ordered to spend time with him.

“Uh, no, Kenny. Uh, I want to be with you … I mean, I want to work on this project with you,” I stuttered.

Then, something seemed to take over my brain and my tongue.

“No, what I mean is that I want to be with you. I want to be your friend,” I said.

Kenny

“But, we are friends, aren’t we?” I asked. I was scared, even though Viktor had said he wanted to be friends, I was afraid he didn’t really mean it.

Viktor blushed. “Yeah, but I don’t mean just friends-friends. I mean, like, best friends?”

Best friends? Guys don’t do ‘best friends,’ I thought. Whoa! Does he mean what I think … I hope he means? All I could do was nod, though.

Viktor

I knew I couldn’t bring Kenny home to work on our project. I wasn’t allowed to have friends over, and my father would absolutely freak at a friend who was two years younger than me, and a little … well, put it this way, Kenny didn’t even come close to my father’s idea of what a real man’s friend should be. He wasn’t girlish, but he wasn’t very macho, either. His hair was longish. My father made me get a buzz-cut. Kenny wore cargo pants or Dockers that were tight enough to show off his butt. I had to wear loose blue jeans. Kenny was a little boy. I was … I wasn’t sure what I was, but I knew it wasn’t a little boy. At least, that’s not what my father wanted me to be … not what he had ever wanted me to be. I hadn’t been a little boy in years.

So, I was happy to agree that we’d work together at the library and at Kenny’s apartment.

Kenny

It was easy to figure out that the biggest difference, the difference what had kept the USA from becoming Nazi or Fascist was the difference between the three charismatic leaders of the era: Roosevelt, Hitler, and Mussolini. It wasn’t the USA constitution, since Roosevelt trampled all over it—and got the Supreme Court and Congress riled up in the process. So, Viktor and I decided to focus on Roosevelt … but agreed that we’d not cut him any slack: we’d point out his failures as well as his successes.

Viktor was lying on his back, on my bed, reciting from memory some of the words from Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, and pretending Roosevelt’s aristocratic, Yankee accent.

“ ‘First, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear, itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes efforts to convert retreat into advance … ’

“Crap, I forget what comes next. Gimme!” Viktor grabbed for the book I was holding. I swung it out of range of his grasp. So, Viktor grabbed me.

I tumbled onto the bed, and landed on top of Viktor. He wrapped his arms around me, and pulled me tightly into his chest … and tummy … and crotch.

By now, I had dropped the book. Our faces were only inches apart. I should have been struggling: boys don’t lie on a bed together; they don’t lie on top of one another; they don’t get erections that press against their pants so hard the other one can feel it; they don’t …

They don’t kiss. But, we did.

Viktor pulled my face to his and pressed our lips together. I didn’t resist. I didn’t resist when his tongue pushed between his lips, and then between mine. I didn’t resist when he grabbed my bottom and pulled our hips … our dicks … together. I didn’t resist, and I was happy.

“Okay, Kenny?” Viktor asked.

“Okay, Viktor,” I said.

Then, I said, “I’m so glad you didn’t say I’m sorry. I’m so glad you knew I wanted that so much that you didn’t have to say you were sorry.”

Viktor

Kenny surprised me with that. For a kid two years younger than me, he was pretty smart. And he had to be smart to understand and to say that. There was only one thing I could do.

“Kenny? I love you,” I said. “I can’t tell my father … I can’t let anyone know but you. How … ?” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

“I love you, Viktor,” Kenny said. We were lying side by side, now. He put his hand behind my head and pulled us into a kiss. Not a sexy kiss, a gentle kiss, a brush of the lips across one another.

“I love you, and I know that’s not allowed.”

It was the next day that Leroy and his gang grabbed us, dragged us into that alley, and cut Kenny bad. I really thought we were dead, and that the boy who rescued us—Nemesis—was an angel. He’s not an angel, but he is something different, something magical. I thanked him for healing us, and he said that wasn’t him. So now, there are two magical people who helped us. We promised not to say anything and we don’t, even to each other.

I almost lost Kenny. I was so afraid. And, I was so happy that I did something really stupid. I kissed him in the hallway in front of his apartment door—and heard a click behind me.