Brandon Smiling: From the Billy Chase Chronicles (1) - 45. Entry 45

Weekly Wrap Up

Well, let’s see . . .

Monday had me in a weird sort of way. You’d think that after what Marie and I did/almost did at the park on Sunday that I’d have been obsessing over that all day. But, actually, that part of my weekend was, kind of, a ‘step out of time’ as Rod Serling from The Twilight Zone might say. Our ‘thing,’ I suppose, feels a lot like a Twilight Zone episode. It seems somehow unreal! Almost dreamlike or like a movie! It all seems out of place somehow. It had a nice resolution, anyway, where Marie and I, sort of, treated it like a game or just a part of a ‘play date’. Does that make any sense? Probably not. Anyway, that didn’t take up my obsession brain cell Monday. What did was SAM!

That whole weird conversation we had on Saturday just bugged me! I felt that if I saw Billy that I’d, sort of, feel him out about Sam. The whole deal of me being, somehow, a wedge between the two bothered me. Why would Sam even think that I would come between him and Billy? Is there something there that I don’t get? Is there something there there that I’m screwing up? You know what I mean! Maybe something there that isn’t just friendship?

Now, I know that Billy is supposedly straight and so’s Sam, from what I gather, but, Sam’s reaction to me and his going out of the way to, I guess, hunt me down to make his concerns known to me about Billy was telling me something. Sam’s actions were those of a guy who is really worried about losing someone important to him. Friends don’t generally get jealous of other friends making new friends. Especially among the guys I’ve known that has been true. I suppose jealousy can happen, though, if someone substitutes you with someone else as a friend. Maybe that is what is worrying Sam. But, then again, Sam’s feelings Saturday felt stronger than that! Like I said, I could really see the pain behind his bluster! This was killing Sam inside!

The only thing I know that can make someone that desperate is . . . love!

So, when I got a chance to see Billy, I had prepped a little test to possibly show how he might really feel about Sam. I didn’t want to weird Billy out with the fact that Sam actually stalked me to ask after him. I did, however, want to see Billy’s reaction. I remembered feeling similarly when I wrote that little girly note I gave to Billy a bit back. His reaction was strange! What would it be this time?

I went to the Library, our usual meeting place at school, and waited for him to find me. I had a feeling he’d look for me today. I just had a feeling, you know? Then, there he was, as golden and beautiful as ever. I swear when he walks into a room and I seem him, it’s like he’s walking in slow motion! I sometimes expect him to flip his hair like in some bad hair commercial. You know what? Hehehe! Sometimes he does! It’s one of those cute little things Billy does that just grabs your attention and makes it stay there. You know? I doubt he even knows he does it. That’s what makes it so, um, authentically Billy!

See? One flip of Billy’s hair is enough to send me into a panic where having Marie literally SIT on my ding-dong only makes me feel embarrassed and uncomfortable. There’s nothing for it, until I find a boy that can take the place of Billy in my heart, I’m going to be his invisible love-slave for always! ~sigh~

With these thoughts swimming through my head, I tried to clear the stars from my eyes so that I wouldn’t be quite so obvious. That usually makes me tuck my head so I can hide my eyes with my hair. LOL. Stupid, huh?

I broke my tension by asking: “Hey, Billy? Would it be ok if I called you? Like what we talked about?” I managed to lift my head enough to look into that beautiful face! My brain almost froze inside my skull and I wasn’t sure I could continue having a conversation that would make any sense. The only thing my brain could fix on was the thought of Billy getting on top of me and doing me and making that butt-thing happen again only better! I squirmed a bit in my seat as my thing-thing went ding-ding. I could almost feel his naked skin on mine like something I was remembering as actually happening once! Maybe, Marie messed me up more than I thought she did!

“Oh, sure! That’d be great!” Billy’s smile almost pushed me over the edge. I had a mind to reach over and pull him onto the table where I could straddle him like Marie did to me! I managed to pull myself together though. It didn’t look like Billy noticed that I was, basically, mentally raping him as we sat together. The thought of it had me smiling and the thought of being able to talk to Billy, all by myself, in my room with my phone, possibly naked, excited me to no ends!

But, coming back to my senses, I felt the pit of fear sink in my stomach as I geared myself up to take a chance on, possibly, finding a real clue about how Billy feels about boys and about Sam in particular. I could feel the smile melt away and my eyes cast themselves down onto the desk in front of me as I gathered my thoughts. Billy waited expectantly for me to say something.

So I asked: “Do you remember that little note I gave you a little while back?”

“Uh, yeah. I think I do.” Billy seemed surprised by the question, like it was something he wasn’t expecting. He also seemed to be having some trouble remembering. It worried me a bit that the note might have meant so little to him that he wouldn’t even remember it.

But, I pushed on: “You know...the one about coming between you and Sam?”

I didn’t want to give away my bumping into Sam on Saturday. That would have messed up everything. I could tell Billy was a bit weirded out by this line of questioning, but I really wanted to see his reaction to how serious this was for me.

Billy’s eyes brightened as it finally came to him: “Ohhh, yeah! I remember.”

I was relieved that he, at least, had some memory of it. I can’t expect Billy to have made much out of such a seemingly small thing, especially with the whole Jimmy thing and all the other craziness going on.

I sat a second trying to think of how to put the next thing I would say in such a way that I could see how Billy felt about Sam. Up to that point, Billy seemed just confused and that wasn’t telling me much. Of course, he’d have been confused by these questions. They were out of the blue and all. However, that was part of the deal. He couldn’t hide as well from something he wasn’t prepared to answer!

So, I put it this way: “Well, I really meant that, ok? I can understand why he wouldn't want me hanging around you and stuff. So I just...I wanna be a friend. Ok? I just like talking to you . . . Billy.”

More confusion, and a hint of being annoyed or suspicious of something. I read these in the changes in Billy’s expression. I did get the feeling that their friendship was really ‘off’ somehow. But, I didn’t see any glimmer of panic, or jealously, or hurt there. He only showed that he didn’t understand where this was coming from.

So, I am still in the dark about Billy’s true feelings. I seem to have a better idea of how Sam feels about Billy than I do about how Billy feels about Sam! I am getting to understand the one boy I didn’t really want to understand, but I am still no closer to cracking Billy’s riddle.

Billy the puzzle. I wish I liked puzzles better. Unfortunately, they tend to frustrate the shit out of me!

So, I made plans to call Billy the next evening. I’d have liked to have called him that night, but Dad, Sharon, and I had the dinner with my Grampa planned. The dinner was actually nice! Grampa looked pretty good for a guy that has managed to live over eight decades! He got a little tipsy from some of the drinks he got. Fortunately, he’d brought his wheelchair and it was in the back of his rental van. I got to push him along which he thought was the greatest thing, hehehe. He said that the last time he saw me I had trouble pushing doors closed by myself but now, I could push him around no problem! He talked and talked and talked! He’s had so many experiences in his life! I got a better idea why he felt the way he did about Gay people, for instance. He doesn’t like them not because he doesn’t approve of their lifestyle, but because the young ones are so rude to him back home! “They don’t respect anyone,” he said. That was a surprise! I wonder when he had this change of heart?

Apparently, it was a surprise to my Dad too! He made mention of my Uncle and there came another surprise! My GAY Uncle is now living at HOME with Grampa! He takes care of Grampa and what is more, my Uncle’s BOYFRIEND is living there too and does all the cooking and a lot of the cleaning!

My Dad looked almost like he was about to cry at that one! He wondered why Grampa hadn’t made mention of it to him before and Grampa said he just didn’t think about it! It was perfectly natural that a son, living close by, should give his dad a hand at an old age! I think there was a bit of a barb in that somewhere, like maybe Grampa wouldn’t mind it if Dad and I moved back to California to be with him too! I guess parents of all ages are great with guilt trips, huh?

Anyway, now maybe I can talk to my Uncle about, like, . . . gay stuff or whatever! Then again, I don’t know if my Uncle would be able to keep my secrets or if he’d blab them to my Dad. I have Chandler now and he’s already sworn to secrecy about me. But, then, my Uncle is family! If I’m gay and he’s gay, shouldn’t he know that there’s another queer in the Temple House? Hehehe!

Oh, well. It’s something to think about. What a development!

Tuesday

Ok. C O N F U S I O N ! C O N F U S I O N ! C O N F U S I O N !

Can you tell I’m confused?

Can you guess about who I’m confused about? I’ll bet you fifty Skittles if you can’t guess!

(Keeps the Skittles.)

You guessed right. Too bad for you! Ha freakin’ ha!

I’m confused about Billy *again*!

So, Tuesday started off pretty miserable, actually, and didn’t get much better until I got to get out of that prison of a school. First off, I got a B- on my Science final! That lowers my grade in there to an instant B from an A-. My GPA is going to plop down to 3.5 now. Dad wasn’t upset, exactly, but he gave me the speech about needing to try harder for excellence. If I’d gotten that in English or History or something he probably wouldn’t be so hard on it, because he understands that those classes are often graded ‘ambiguously’ as he put it. I had to look that word up. I get what he means by that now. Basically, because there’s a lot of creative writing, test scores depend a lot on the teacher’s opinions and not facts. Science, however, is basically all math and facts so if you get things wrong it’s because someone is not paying attention!

Well, ‘someone’ was paying attention! I read all the books, did all the labs, learned as many facts as I could stuff into my teeny pea brain, and STILL fucked up on his test! The fuck-up came from me having to ‘apply’ my knowledge to some scientific problems he pulled out of his ass! Learning facts and shit don’t teach a person how to actually put them all together to make any kind of sense ya know! Unlike Geometry, where Mr. Webber teaches formulas to figure things out, I’m supposed to just ‘know’ how to fit everything together to make out the difference between a carbon molecule and a not-carbon molecule! Um, that was not covered, Dad! It was a set-up and I feel royally screwed by this teacher! FUCK Science! I’ll go into writing history books. I got an A+ on that final, not that anyone cares!

~blows out Italian Temper Tantrum through mouth. 1, 2, 3 . . .~

Ok, now for the Billy deal.

So, I couldn’t help noticing him and Joanna. She was all over him! I was afraid she’d pull his pants down right in the lunch line and do him right there! Having just had my brush with a horny teenaged girl myself recently, I had a strange sympathy for Billy. He didn’t look that comfortable with what was going on either! He was, kind of, cringing a bit when she’d start, um, licking on him like a dog! But, also, he was giggling and smiling at her antics. He seemed to be enjoying the attention almost as much as he was not enjoying the attention. Sort of like me enjoying Marie’s nearly raping me in the park. It was weird. It was embarrassing. It was ‘wrong’. But, it was still, um, like one of the best orgasms I’ve ever had! So, I think Billy is in for something similar soon, if he hasn’t already. I was always raised with the idea that the boy was supposed to be the hunter on the make to take down the innocent young girl. I never dreamed it could be vice versa! Why is it the things we’re taught about love are rarely how love really works?

Of course, watching him getting mauled in the lunch line was painful. I can’t help it, really. My head may keep telling me that I need to stop feeling things for Billy like this, but then my heart just ignores that and goes on . . . wanting.

So, I was sure that I’d lost him for good after figuring that Joanna had dragged Billy off somewhere to mate with him like in one of my creature feature movies.

Despite that, I lived up to what I wanted to do in the evening. It took quite a bit of courage to do it, but I did, finally actually call Billy. I was sure I’d sound like an idiot, somehow, but something in me just told me I couldn’t blow this off. I had to call him. We had made a deal, after all! So, however the conversation went, would be what would help decide things for me where Billy was concerned.

I dialled the number, figuring I’d get his mom or dad first, or whatever, and that I’d have to not chicken out if they sounded cross or something. To my surprise, Billy himself answered. In fact, he sounded like he was right next to the phone. Like he was, maybe, waiting for a call? I had to wonder! He answered awfully fast! That encouraged me and made me feel a lot less weird about what I was doing.

“Hello?” Billy’s chirpy voice is cuter on the phone even than in real life! The electronic static adds to the ‘chirpiness’ somehow. Hehehe! It was cute! So very cute!

For a second, I didn’t know quite what to say. It was like I was talking to the President or something! I must have gotten a little vacuum bubble of being starstruck, because I could almost feel my babbler start to babble! Fortunately, I got control of myself before I said anything stupid to scare him off! I don’t know why I’d feel that way on the phone and not in person at school, but, I guess . . . well there’s something kind of intimate about having a phone conversation with someone you like . . . a lot. He was right in my ear, ya know? He was also ‘in my room with me,’ sort of. It was like having him right there in bed with me and I had to control the flutters in my stomach just thinking about it.

I was talking to THE Billy Chase! The one and only! He was ‘in’ my room with me and I had him all to myself and I had this for the very first time! My voice must have shown how special this was for me, because I could hear that little lower pitch happen in my voice and my talker started talking, um, a little seductively, I guess. Billy seemed to notice because he giggled nervously and told me I sounded different on the phone. I really couldn’t help it!

We were on the phone for a while too! Mostly, for the length of an entire CD I liked. It was the older one by Greyson Chance that I like so much. It turned out Billy had the same CD too so I got the idea that maybe we could, like, synch up and be listening to the same CD at the same time like . . . if we were really in the same room together listening!

It was subtle, but I wanted more of Billy with me than just having him on the phone. If we listened to the same songs at the same time in our rooms, then it would be like we were together. Together for real! Together in bed. Together with my body and his next to each other sharing something . . . cool!

Greyson also has an effect on me. His sweet voice makes me horny as hell! It has since I got the CD! Because my Dad was out for a while and Sharon was with him, I felt comfortable doing something, kind of, naughty while on the phone with Billy. I shucked off my sweats and boxer briefs and laid in bed pantsless as we talked. We listened and compared notes on what songs were good or not. I, kind of, made sure that I agreed with him on the songs that were good or not, despite what I really thought about them. I generally love EVERY song on Greyson’s first album! They all hit me deep! It was one of the reasons I chose the CD to play and was so happy Billy had the same one. As it turned out, I didn’t have to pretend too much with Billy on the songs. There was only one instance where he and I completely disagreed about a song and I, instead, agreed with Billy about it. For the most part, we both really did share the same taste in music, it seemed.

It was funny, but while we were talking, I was snuggling into my bed with my pillow between my knees and I noticed Billy’s voice get a bit softer and sweeter as we talked. It didn’t seem weird at all and neither of us seemed to get self-conscious about how, um, intimate the way we were talking was.

We must have said goodbye about ten times before hanging up.

I went to sleep with him on my mind and in my dreams and in my pillow . . .

So, there lies the pit of the confusion for me for the rest of the week. That conversation was so meaningful and yet Billy goes with Joanna and lets her, basically, dry hump him all over school!

The way we talked, it wasn’t like how guy friends talk to one another. There’s a deeper thing going on when we talk. It’s like he knows who I am! It’s like he’s always known!

Can guys be that way with each other and still be straight? I have to ask Chandler. He might be able to tell me something. I hope he can, anyway.

That sweet ache I have in my chest every time I think of Billy has only started to throb harder. It isn’t even entirely sexual anymore. I long to talk to him on the phone again! I could talk to him about anything no matter how meaningless!

I’d do it just so I could hear that chirpy voice so close to my ear one more time!

~sigh~

Wednesday I wanted to connect with Chandler to, kind of, go over things with him as to what my experiences with Billy have been. He wasn’t available to talk, apparently, so I left him some texts and voice messages but he didn’t get back to me. I hope he’s not avoiding me! I hope I haven’t, finally, done him in with all my ‘dumb kid’ questions! It’s weird how dependent I’ve become on him. He may feel that. I may be being too needy for him. Some of this stuff I’ve just got to figure out for myself, you know? It would be easier if I knew what I was doing or even what I was really feeling or should be feeling. This Twilight Zone of not really knowing what’s up or down or sideways is really distracting and I should be focused on school. These are Finals, after all. I have my last one coming up next week. I can’t keep letting this stuff get in the way of things.

Thursday was a weird day. Of course, Jamie can make a ‘mashed potatoes’ kind of day become weird if you let him. I can see why so many kids like to hang around him. It’s like he has this golden aura around him that warps reality like an X-Man, or something.

Anyways, I’m eating lunch out on my grassy area outside and I hear an excited, “Guess what!”

I literally jumped and lost two whole Fritos! Grrrr!

“Dude! Give a guy a heart attack, why don’t ya! Are they teaching how to be a ninja over there on the football field these days? Geeze!” I have gotten comfortable enough with His Highness to actually lip off now! But then, Jamie insists on dragging me into his ‘family’ so I guess I should start talking like one of them. Marie is rubbing off on me and not just in that way either!

“Oops! Sorries. Anyways, you wanna play baseball with us this summer?” Jamie blurted at me.

“Uh . . . sure. I guess.” That took me off guard. Summer was coming up fast, but I’d not given much thought about it to be honest. I had a half-hope that my Dad’s company would be planning a trip to England or even France over the summer and then I could see Cedrick and possibly Franc. But, I’d not heard anything about that sort of thing lately. Dad seems to be connecting to his international guys the same way I do with my friends and that’s through Skype or Game Chat.

“Oh, cummon! It’ll be fun! Marie even plays!” I still don’t get why Jamie wants to drag me into these things. I mean, I can’t think of any worse way to spend an afternoon than with the Goon Squad dodging baseballs thrown at me! Granted, only Jamie can throw a ball any good and his ‘team’ couldn’t throw anything to save their lives, but, even so, they have the numbers and the numbers increases the odds of a hit, as it were.

Jamie, seeming to be able to sense my feelings like some Jedi or something, picks up on what I might be worried about.

“Oh, shit! You think my football team might be playing too? I can, kinda, get why that wouldn’t be any fun. They don’t know how to play baseball at all! I swear, except for Jeff Winters, that they all think that football is the only sport there is. I guess, being quarterback, I have to get myself into all kinds of things coz I have so much I have to do on the field. The others don’t so much. Except for Jeff, that is.” Jamie said, shaking his head sadly.

“Jeff’s your wide receiver, right?” I asked and Jamie perked right up like he was flattered I’d even know these things! I swear he is so weird sometimes!

“That right! You know Jeff?” Jamie blinked his big baby blues at me and I couldn’t help but smirk. He is fucking adorable, goddammit! He gave me a lopsided grin, but like he didn’t get why I’m smiling. So clueless.

“No, I can’t say I know him personally, but when I do go to the games I see that only you and he seem to be doing any of the running, throwing, and catching. Except for Karl and his uber-aggressiveness as a linebacker, I don’t see much action from the rest of the team. Oh well.” I must have been staring off into space while I was remembering because Jamie kept wondering what I was staring at. LMAO! He kills me.

“So, like, Jeff is the only one that actually joins us in Baseball. The rest of our team is made up of folks from the neighborhood and Church, mostly.” Jamie said. That makes sense. One of the better baseball fields in town is actually on the Church property.

“So, you’ll be using the church field?” I asked.

“Oh, no! Monsignor Young gets too excited these days about Baseball. He always has to go out and ‘coach’ us and cheer us on. Father Dillon closed the field off for a while for ‘maintenance,’ but I think it is really because he’s scared for Monsignor. I think he isn’t doing too good these days. I’ve noticed he’s missed a lot of masses lately.” Jamie said with real concern. Awww. Jamie is starting to grow on me. His undeniable cuteness, but also his sweet personality are making the whole package for me. That’s another thing, Jamie is packing! I’ve seen him in the shower. I couldn’t help but look. He’s fucking gorgeous naked! I had to be careful as I was thinking these things because I could feel myself hardening up sitting next to him. I didn’t want Jamie to catch on. No telling what he would have thought or done!

“Well, I’ll mark you down. You wanna do outfield or do you think you can handle Second Base?” Jamie pulled me out of my mental ‘hay-rolling’ with him. I actually have played catch quite a bit in the past. I said I could handle Second Base and a Pinch Hitter since I used to kill at softball in Junior High. I could sub for one of the other big hitters if needed.

“Coolness! POUND IT!” We did fist bumps. Then a towering shadow covered us!

“SooOOOoo! This is where you’ve been hiding, Mr. Cross! Should I be jelly?” I remembered her slightly deeper womanly voice from the dance. This is only the second time that the female version of Jamie would come close enough to me to actually see me. It was Leanne, the Captain Of All Cheerleaders and undisputed Queen of all she surveyed.

“Oh, hi Goldilocks! Yeah, me and Branster were just making plans for the summer.” ‘Branster’? Oh, groooan! What was that ancient 80s phrase? Oh yeah: ‘gag me with a spoon’!

“Hehehe! ‘Branster’, huh? I guess you’ve been thoroughly adopted now, ‘Branster’. Jamie only gives nicknames to people he likes. I’m ‘Goldilocks’ as you just heard.” Leanne surprised me about this honor so I was doubly surprised to hear another one.

“You know what Goldie? Dimples likes The Ramones!” Jamie said excitedly as he stood up so she could take her king’s arm. ‘Dimples’?

“Oh no! You did not just call Billy Chase ‘Dimples’ again!” Leanne said as she guided her golden boy away without saying so much as a ‘goodbye’ to me.

“Yeah! Maybe I have someone to trade records with! Chan Chan will be so impressed! Last time he smuggled me into Exit they were doing a playoff between The Ramones and Sex Pistols! It was, like, no other kind of music I’ve ever heard in my entire life!” Jamie was practically bouncing.

Billy Chase? ‘Dimples’?

I wonder what he’d think about having his very own Jamie Cross pet name? Well, from the last time I saw him staring Jamie down, I think Billy would fall over dead right there! He has such a hero worship for this goofball. Really, if he only knew.

“Cya, Branster! Chan Chan got your message. He’s workin’ right now on somethin’. He says he’ll get back with you soon. Oh, and Marie expects you at dinner on Sunday!” Jamie said over his shoulder and waved at me while facing forward and walking away. Leanne turned and winked at me as they went. Uhhhhhgh!

Ok, Marie is ordering me to dinner now?

Oh boy.

Speaking of ‘Dimples’, Billy himself found me, Friday wandering the halls while waiting to get into a study lab for Period 0. He surprised me and I must have gotten the stupidest smile on my face because it made Billy giggle! I swear I could bottle that giggle up and put it in soda to make bubbles. It’s so fizzy!

I then remembered I was eating gummy bears, a particular weakness of mine. The vending machines just got a fresh batch and I couldn’t resist. Plus, they gave me something to do while they made me wait outside so I could go in to the class room. I don’t understand. First they order you somewhere you don’t want to be and then they make you wait to go in? We are being trained to be a bunch o lemmings, aren’t we? I wonder what a lemming is.

In any case, I felt stupid because I thought I might have had gummy bear guts on my teeth which made Billy giggle. I blushed. I couldn’t help myself. Billy just freezes me up, sometimes. He’s so incredible I can’t believe he actually seeks me out to be with!

Oh, if only!

Then his giggling gets me to giggling and then we’re both giggling like little kids. Only he can make me feel that giddy. Marie can make me out and out scream with laughter, but she can’t make bubbles in my chest that then have to bubble-up and giggle out of me like Billy can!

On a more somber note, he mentioned that he and Sam are fighting still. I don’t know why, but I feel I’m the cause of this somehow. That just this fact that Billy wants to be with me at all messes with Sam something awful. His words keep coming back to me from over the weekend: “He avoids me? What did I do?” The pain behind those words lingers in me for some reason. I don’t even like Sam, but this desperation makes me feel bad for him.

Now, Billy goes on asking why Sam is being the way he is. I don’t friggin’ know!

“I sure don’t want to be the cause of any of this, Billy. Like I’ve said before, I’d be the last person in the world that would want to come between you two! What you guys have is, kind of, precious! Ya know? Friends like that? Not too many people find those kind of people in their whole lives!”

Billy insisted that this just confused him and made him more mad at Sam for dragging me into this somehow. Billy said Sam was having troubles at home and that this might be a part of why he’s being so weird.

Billy also told me that Sam’s ditching class. I can see why his Mom would be upset about that sort of thing if she found out! This time of the year isn’t great to be ditching anything! It’s the end of the school year! Why ditch now when there’s not much left to deal with? We’ll all be free by the end of next week!

It’s very confusing. Billy just looks at me weird when I figure I’m in this at all.

Well, it’s Friday and Dad’s managed to get a reservation for us to eat at the local seafood place. Not my favorite, but Sharon likes fish and is trying to eat more of it. My Dad is convinced eating more fish will help us all live longer. I’ll probably just get shrimp or something. I don’t like fish.

More later about any more Sam and Billy developments. I hope they work things out . . . I really do!

This is Brandon The Fishless.