Chapter 18
I remembered the last timeline quite clearly, and the reactions of Davey’s family to his sexuality. An older, wiser Davey had years and years to prepare them in subtle ways. Sometimes I think he did it almost without even thinking or planning it, just presented his family with ‘learning experiences’ that nudged them in the right direction.
Unfortunately, he had none of that in this timeline. He didn’t have the experience of his first disastrous coming out, nor the memories of years of arguments and discussions that had finally led to grudging acceptance. Nor did he have the years of preparation based on those memories. Instead, he just had me, my parents, and his Aunt Bev.
As it turns out, Aunt Bev was all he needed anyway.
The woman was a force of nature with an indomitable will. According to her family, she’d always been strong-willed, but recovering from the accident that had left her paralyzed from the neck down had transformed her from merely strong-willed to something else, something more. She might not be able to get out of her wheelchair without someone lifting her, but she was more than capable of lifting anyone by the figurative neck and slapping them around verbally until they saw things her way.
The first person she set her sights on that night of Davey’s ‘coming out’, was Davey. She grilled him for nearly an hour over the phone, and at times he was angry, blushing from embarrassment, or silent as she let him know what she thought. The second person to benefit from her opinion was me. That conversation was far shorter, and after a few questions that started with “When did you know you were homosexual?”, most of the conversation was her warning me to not hurt her Davey.
“I really don’t want to go to school today.” Davey said early the next morning when I went to his room to wake him up for an early morning run. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Your stomach is all tied up in knots.” I stated flatly and he nodded with a miserable look on his face.
“I feel like I’m going to puke.” He really did sound miserable.
“You always feel this way when things are like this.” I said with a shrug. “You told me that it just got worse as time went by and you had to learn to ignore it, to just move forward despite the yuckiness. You told me that if you hadn’t learned to do that, you’d have never succeeded in making anything better in your life.”
“I hate that me.” He said with a shake of his head before climbing out of bed and stumbling around to get a pair of sweats on. “I bet that me liked getting up early too.”
“No, he hated it with a passion.” I laughed.
“Good, at least he didn’t go totally crazy.” Davey sighed. “Let’s get the show on the road.”
After stretching out, we jogged at an easy pace for two miles. He actually managed a smile on his face when Mom served us breakfast, and we headed out the door a little early for school. Today we both went in my car, and we pulled into the parking lot nearly a half-hour early.
“Oh shit.” Davey mumbled as we got out of the car and saw Heather and Riley standing nearby. Heather had a very determined look on her face while Riley looked uncomfortable. His girlfriend was nowhere to be seen, which I couldn’t decide if that was good or bad. As they walked towards us, I watched Davey take in a deep breath before letting it out slowly.
“Well?” Heather said in a stern voice as she crossed her arms and stopped just a foot away from Davey.
“I’m sorry.” Davey blurted out and managed to look surprised at his own words. Heather cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow but otherwise remained silent, obviously waiting for more. “I’m sorry for misleading you, Heather. You’re a good person. Bright, funny, and very beautiful and you deserve to be treated better than I treated you.”
“Oh, I don’t know.” Heather said sarcastically. “You treated me pretty good except for the whole making me think you were interested in me thing.”
“I do like you, as a friend.” Davey said defensively. “I almost… I almost wish things were different so I could really be interested in you that way, but I’m not and it was wrong of me to lead you on.”
“So you really are queer?” Riley said in a neutral tone and then he looked at me with a very direct look. “You and him both.”
“Yes.” Davey said after taking a deep breath and letting it out.
“Why?” Heather asked.
“Why what?” Davey responded.
“Why did you go out with me, and the others as well if you knew you were queer and obviously have nothing against it.” Heather asked.
“It was my mother.” Davey said with a heavy sigh and he put everything on the table, although he didn’t mention Sean’s name. While he left that out, he told just about everything else in about fifteen minutes. People walked by us while he talked, but something about how we were standing kept them from approaching, even Brandon and Trevor who arrived just before Davey finished.
“I accept your apology.” Heather said when he was done while Riley stood there shaking his head. “I don’t quite understand why you’re queer and don’t have a problem with it, but at least you’re man enough to stand up for yourself. I won’t say anything to anybody, on one condition.”
“What’s that?” Davey asked.
“Homecoming is tonight.” Heather said with a steely gaze. “We made plans.”
“I know.” Davey said softly.
“Good.” She said firmly. “You’re going to carry through with them. After tonight, you and I will break up, but for the rest of today we’re still a couple. Anyone have any problems with that?”
“No.” Davey and I said in unison while Riley shook his head.
“What about you, Riley?” Heather asked. “You got any problems keeping quiet about this stuff if Davey follows through with tonight?”
“I don’t understand this whole queer thing, but I’ll keep my mouth shut as long as you don’t try anything with me.” Riley said quietly.
“Good, now Davey, put your arm around me and walk me to class.” Heather commanded with a questioningly look at me. I just smiled and waited for them to move off. When they were gone, Riley stayed put, giving me a searching gaze.
“You know, I’d have never thought you were a queer.” He said with a disbelieving shake of his head. “Then again, after that shit you went through with Marcie, I might have given up on girls altogether too.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a little more complicated than that.” I said with a shrug. “You going to be okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” He said before walking off. As soon as he was gone, I was swarmed by Trevor and Brandon, who had hooked up with Sean and Todd. Everyone wanted to know what was going on, and when they heard that it sounded like we weren’t going to be outed to the entire school, they all looked a little relieved.
As expected, Heather won Homecoming Queen, and Davey was King. She seemed to be very happy with the day’s events, and the fact that we won the game that night made it even better. What was best of all was the fact that she kept her promise, as did Riley (and his girlfriend). There was no public outing for us at Downey that year, although there were whispers and by the time baseball season rolled around, we were pretty sure everyone guessed that Davey and I were a couple.
No one brought it out in the open though, and as long as we didn’t do anything too public, it seemed like people were fine with leaving it as just a rumor. I heard a few rumors about Sean and Brandon towards the end of the year, and even I was surprised about Todd and Trevor. The two of them somehow became thick as thieves, and by the time of Davey’s eighteenth birthday it was readily apparent they were a couple.
Davey’s family more than made up for the lack of drama at school. Frantic middle-of-the-night calls from an angry Sandy woke all of us up several times until Mom took the phone off the hook. In November, Davey’s father stepped into the mix, at Sandy’s request, and the fireworks really exploded between father and son. We all did what we could to support Davey, but he would fluctuate between being overly happy and depressed.
It was after Thanksgiving that things really came to a head. Both of Davey’s parents insisted that he get ‘counseling’ at a local church. Davey kept refusing, and his parents pulled the law into the fight. They reported him as a runaway, and we got a visit from the local police department one night. Legally there was nothing we could do immediately, and Davey left with the two officers who took him back to his mother’s house where his parents were waiting with the pastor of the church offering counseling for ‘troubled youth’.
The next morning, both Mom and Beverly ‘quit’ working for Sandy. Dad, at my urging, called the local Social Services department and a figure familiar to me made a visit to Davey’s home, just in time to see the action. After Davey had rudely rebuffed the efforts of the pastor the night before, the man had convinced Sandy to order Davey committed for ‘treatment’ as a ‘rebellious, out of control teenager’. They made up all sorts of things about drug and alcohol abuse, that might have been true two years ago, but were not true now.
Mary Lou Hacker walked in just as three burly men were attempting to subdue Davey and get him into a van that would take him to the ‘treatment center’ in another state. Sean, having been subjected to a similar treatment by his own parents had done more than enough to warn Davey, who fought as hard as he could. Mary Lou, hearing screaming and shouting, had entered the house and immediately called the police to come and sort things out.
It was Pete who entered the scene and ended the chaos of that day. Sandy had called her mother in tears and the two of them had driven over immediately. By this time the police had arrived and Mary Lou was trying to figure out exactly what was going on there. Pete walked into the house while Monta went right to Sandy who was crying. Mary Lou, a shrewd judge of people, immediately focused on him.
“Who are you?” She asked Pete.
“I’m Sandy’s father.” Pete said gruffly as he eyed the woman. “Who are you?”
“I’m Mary Lou Hacker, with Social Services.” She said and then quickly explained how she’d gotten involved.
“Those idiots.” Pete grumbled at once, giving a glance over to where Sandy and David Sr. were sitting. Davey’s father looked offended, but stayed silent. “If the boy’s a queer, he’s a queer. Trying to beat it out of him ain’t gonna do no good.”
“What do you mean?” Mary Lou asked him sharply. “The complaint is that he’s been rebellious, drinking, using drugs, and running away from home.”
“Hah!” Pete laughed. “Sandy told the boy to get the hell out of her house when he told her he was a queer and he’s been staying with some good people since then. Hellfire, one of them works for Sandy!”
“Not no more she doesn’t.” Sandy interjected at that point with an angry tone.
“Your loss, girl.” Pete told her with no sympathy. “I’ll admit Davey had a little spell with drugs and alcohol a couple of years back and I was mighty worried about him, but since he met up with this new group of friends he’s finally gotten his life put back together, even if he’s decided he’s a queer. Hell, I can live with him being a queer if it means he ain’t going to piss his life away. There’s worse things in this world than fudgepackers.”
That last he said with a glare at Davey’s father.
“You’re saying he’s not a runaway?” Mary Lou asked Pete.
“That’s what I said, lady.” Pete grumbled, hating to have to repeat himself.
“As far as you know he hasn’t been using alcohol or drugs?” She pushed further.
“Well, I know he’s had a beer when we go fishing, but just one.” Pete admitted gruffly.
“Once in a while we’ll have some wine with dinner at Brian’s.” Davey added, gambling that honesty would win him more points rather than get him in trouble.
“That’s definitely not alcohol abuse.” Mary Lou said with a sigh. “Now, what’s this about him being gay?”
“I am gay.” Davey said sharply. “They don’t like that and they’ve been insisting I see this Christian counselor. They made up all the other shit so they could commit me the same as Sean’s parents did to him.”
“Sean Rule?” Mary Lou asked with a sharp look at Davey. “Do you know him?”
“He’s a friend of mine.” Davey said simply and she nodded.
“The boy is lying.” The Pastor of First Baptist broke in at that point but he got a stony stare from Mary Lou in response and eventually closed his mouth.
“Mr. Barrow, in your opinion is there any need for Davey to be committed?” Mary Lou asked his grandfather.
“Hell no.” Pete said firmly.
“Do you think you might be able to take him in while his case is reviewed by Social Services and he’s seen by a professional?” She asked.
“Wait a minute!” Sandy exploded.
“There’s no need for that.” Pete shook his head. “The boy has himself some good people to stay with where he has his own bedroom, which he wouldn’t have at my place. What’s more, he’s got money in a trust fund that Sandy set up, and she named me as the trustee on it so she can’t cut him off.”
Sandy didn’t even bother trying to protest against her father. She just started crying again. Mary Lou took all that in, before nodding and suggesting that Pete call these ‘people’ so she could talk to them. An hour later, Davey was back at home, and I was holding him while he cried.
We were all lucky that day. Somehow it stayed out of the local papers, and outside of the families involved, no one seemed to know what happened (except for our friends, of course). Davey was less than two months away from his eighteenth birthday, and so he got a lot of leeway that Social Services wouldn’t have been able to give him otherwise.
It was the week before Christmas before Davey spoke to his parents again. Bev and Pete had harangued everyone until they had all agreed to apologize to Davey. What’s more, Bev had talked them into family counseling, with a counselor recommended by Mary Lou. By the end of the school year, they had all changed in some surprising ways. In February, Davey moved back in with his mother, at the same time that his father was invited to move into the home.
Jenny had been the one to make the final call on that decision, and while she would forever be affected by what had happened to her, the family counseling had done a lot to heal her of the worst affects. She was a lot closer to the young woman I remembered her being than when I first had arrived in this timeline.
High School Graduation came around far sooner than I had ever imagined possible. Davey and I celebrated together, along with our friends at a private party. The next day we spent a lot of time saying goodbye to our families in the typical teary-eyed farewells that happen when kids finally grow up and set off on their own. It was my father who drove us to San Francisco where we boarded a plane that took us on a two-hour flight.
Todd, Sean, Brandon, and Trevor would all be following us to the same school, but they weren’t coming until later. Davey had insisted we share everything with them, and all of them had demanded they wanted to be a part of our plans. Trevor had turned down the USC scholarship and instead gotten one for ASU. Sean had qualified for several academic scholarships, as did Todd.
Davey’s father, who was becoming more like the man I’d known as time passed and he mellowed out, was overjoyed that his son would be going to Arizona State University. The man had been born and raised in Phoenix, and was already planning a trip out to visit. Luckily he wasn’t planning on staying with us.
With all of us pitching in together, we were more than able to afford an off-campus house. Truth be told, Davey and I could have afforded it by ourselves, but with all the others coming, there was no reason not to share. Together we leased a four-bedroom home that was six blocks from campus, and Davey’s mother had helped us furnish it.
Her business had nearly collapsed when Mom and Bev quit, and I think at least some of the reconciliation with Davey had been to get those two women back to work with her. She’d been lonely without their company, and although she hated to admit it, she needed them far more than they needed the work.
“Jesus it’s hot!” Davey murmured as we walked out of the air-conditioned baggage claim area. The heat hit us like a brick wall, and both of us immediately started sweating. I’d been to Phoenix a few times in the last timeline, mostly to visit Trevor and his family, but I’d never gotten use to this heat.
“Just wait.” I mumbled. “It gets worse.”
“Why the hell are we going to school here instead of somewhere colder?” Davey muttered as we hailed a taxi. Instead of answering I just gave him a withering glare and he had the grace to shrug off his own question. Fifteen minutes later we were at our new house, a fairly nice two-story home, and we unloaded our bags in the room that would be ours.
“I bet our air-conditioning bills are going to be horrible.” Davey complained as the air conditioner brought the house down to a reasonable temperature.
“Just during the summer, and it’ll only be the two of us most summers.” I reminded him.
“Do you really think I can cram in enough classes to graduate in three years?” He asked me with a worried look.
“If we both study hard, we can.” I assured him. “It will mean that we won’t be able to party as much as everyone else.”
“You mean we won’t have as many opportunities to get in trouble.” Davey laughed with a shake of his head. “No thanks. With my luck I’d get drunk off my ass and thirty years later someone will come up with pictures of me puking on the sidewalk. I can live without all that shit.”
“Glad to hear that.” I said with a smile.
“As long as you and I get to fuck like bunnies.” He leered at me.
“We’ve got an hour before we have to be on campus.” I reminded him. “You want to break the bed in?”
“Let’s.” Davey said with a grin.
We made it on-time, barely, to the special orientation the school had set up for the few freshmen who were getting an early start to their college education. It was a Saturday, and we had most of the afternoon to look around the school and surrounding area. On Sunday, we spent several hours on the phone to family and friends back in California, most of whom thought we were crazy for going to summer school. Then on Monday, we started our first day of classes.
That summer wasn’t easy on either one of us.
We had selected our courses for that first semester with great care. I had been through college before, and could remember what a difference it was from high school. In high school, much of the work was memorization of facts, dates, information, etc. with very little ‘opinion’ thrown in the mix. College was more about the ‘why’ and the ‘how’. That was why our first courses were the introductory political science course necessary for our major (International Relations) and the six-week intensive Russian Language course.
ASU had one of the best Russian language courses in the nation, and many of their students were recruited by the U.S. State Department for work in their embassies and other facilities. The NSA also recruited heavily from the school, another reason for why I picked that school for undergraduate work. In many ways, it was better for what we wanted than the bigger-name Ivy League schools with more prestigious programs.
After the first summer session, Davey was about ready to tear his hair out, and even I was tired. Still, we signed up for another intensive language course for the second summer session, which would put us a full year ahead in the foreign language requirements. We didn’t take any other course, and so by the time our one-week break between the second summer session and Fall semester arrived, we were both only half-crazy. Trevor showed up by himself several weeks into the second summer session for his football training camp, and complained non-stop about the heat.
Davey’s parents, and his sister showed up for that one-week break, and we spent the entire time following his father around to all of his old haunts. The home he’d grown up in was now an apartment complex, but his school was still there. It was odd seeing his parents back as a couple, but both of them seemed happier.
His father had used some of his wife’s lottery money to open up a rental car company in Modesto. Instead of focusing on just the rental car market, he also rented larger trucks and multi-purpose vehicles. After just a few months, he was already in negotiations to open franchises in three other towns in California. Jenny talked about going to ASU, but I had a feeling she was really thinking about going somewhere else for college.
My parents made it out for the weekend, along with Brandon, Sean, and Todd. It was nice having our friends around again, although the late August thunderstorms put a damper on our sightseeing both Saturday and Sunday. Davey and I knew to do our runs very early in the morning, when the temperature might get down to a cool ninety degrees. Trevor did too, and we all laughed the one time our roommates tried to go running as late as eight in the morning when the temperature was inching into the mid-nineties and above.
The first day of the regular semester started early for both Davey and me. Davey had an eight o’clock three-day a week political science course while I had a math course at the same time. Then there was an hour break for us before our five-day a week Russian 201 course. This was an important one, mostly because of the instructor, Professor Lee.
The Professor was a tall man with a wild shock of white hair that still had a few streaks of brown in it. We actually had him for two courses, the grammar-focused 201 course, and the culture/speaking focused 211 course. He was also the professor for a two-day a week course on Soviet History that we were taking. It was part of the Soviet Studies Certificate that was highly prized by the U.S. State Department in potential employees.
“Brian, and David, please stay after class for a moment.” He told us in Russian towards the end of the 201 course. After the bell rang, we waited and he nodded briefly to us. “I do not normally see freshmen in this course.”
“We took the summer course.” Davey replied to the statement in the language it had been spoken in, Russian. His accent was still off, and the phrasing a bit clunky, but it sufficed.
“Do you speak?” Professor Lee asked me.
“Of course.” I replied, using the word konyechna. He smiled before grilling us for a few minutes to make sure we really did have a decent grasp of the language.
“You will do fine.” He said with approval in English. “What other courses are you taking this semester?”
“We are in your 211 course.” Davey answered.
“And the Soviet History course as well.” I added.
“How interesting.” He said in Russian before switching back to English. “Are you going to major in Russian?”
“International Relations with the certificate in Soviet Studies”. Davey answered. “I’ll probably take all four years of language though.”
“Same with you?” He asked me and I shook my head.
“I’m majoring in Economics with a minor in Russian and of course the Soviet Studies.” I answered. He cocked his head.
“Interesting choice.” He said. “Why?”
“I know this is going to sound crazy, but I think that within five years the Soviet Union will no longer exist.” I stated in English with a shrug. He just blinked.
“What gives you that idea?” He asked slowly and carefully, as if speaking to someone he was worried might go crazy at the drop of a hat.
“Gorbachev’s reforms are a starting point.” Davey began our argument. He and I had been over this time and again over the last year. Oddly, it was our favorite topic after sex, and we’d spent a lot of time lying in bed, the room smelling like sex, and discussed the end of the Cold War. “He’s playing with fire in a forest that hasn’t seen a drop of rain in seventy years. Sure, he’s dug a fire pit, ringed it with stones, and is trying to clear away any nearby underbrush, but he doesn’t realize that all it’s going to take are a few gusts of wind and a few sparks, and there’s going to be a forest fire so big nothing can stop it from burning down the forest of communism.”
“Nice alliteration.” The Professor said with a slight smile. It was a good alliteration. Davey always had a way with words.
“I think it will start in the Eastern European Republics.” I added. “Most likely it’ll be Poland that starts the ball rolling. Solidarity is gaining in strength, even if it is still mostly underground and being supported by the CIA and the Catholic Church. From there it’ll probably head to Hungary, and eventually to Germany. That will really be the death knell of communism, if Germany can reunite.”
“Hard-line communists in Russia will probably try to stop it from happening, maybe even try to take down Gorbachev.” Davey added. “But, it’ll be too late.”
“That’s what we think, at least.” I said with a shrug.
“If you think this, why are you studying Russian and the Soviet Union?” The Professor asked. “If you’re right, any careers you might have planned will not really be needed.”
“Russia, and the former communist states will need to adjust to a post-communist form of governing.” I said with aplomb. “They’ll need to learn the basics of a capitalist economy, and they’ll want advice. There will be plenty of opportunities for work, and for making money.”
“I think I’m going to enjoy having you two in my classes.” He said after shaking his head. “Maybe we’ll find a few holes to poke in your theories. The Soviet Union has been around a long time, and they’ve gone through periods of reform before. I’ll want you to pay close attention to the sections between Lenin and Stalin, and the Khrushchev years.”
“Thank you.” I said with a nod of my head while Davey smiled at him. We talked for a few more minutes before heading out for lunch. Todd was shaking his head after his first lessons in Arabic. Sean was babbling about something from his physics class, Trevor talked about football, and Brandon was mostly silent. Of all of us, his courses in Computer Science were the least developed at this school, and he could have done a lot better by going somewhere else, but this was the school that seemed to allow us all the best opportunity to attend as a group.
Our first year in school was tiring for all of us. While no one else was taking eighteen units like Davey and I were, we all had a great deal of focus on our studies. Trevor, Brandon, and Todd attended a few parties, and Trevor was offered to pledge one of the fraternities, but he turned them down. Because we were all in fairly steady relationships, we did a lot less partying than most freshmen, and were slower in making new friends.
That wasn’t to say we didn’t have new friends. Of all of us, Trevor was in the most delicate situation. He played ASU football, and they were a team that got a lot of attention. There was intense pressure on him to have a girlfriend, but he quietly refused and people quickly began to realize what was up when they always saw him in Todd’s company. One of the coaches even pulled Trevor aside and made a few ‘suggestions’ that Trevor didn’t even pause to consider.
“You’ll never be picked up professionally if you don’t at least play that game.” The Coach warned him. Since I remembered Trevor as having fallen in love, gotten married and having kids with a woman, I was surprised by how he stuck with Todd. Not that it was a bad thing. It was just unexpected.
“You know, I could dump Todd and date women, maybe even get married.” Trevor said after he’d come back from that meeting with one of the coaches. We were alone in the house, since Davey and the others had all gone out to see a movie. I’d stayed behind to re-work an essay for my English Lit course. Having lived a whole lifetime already didn’t necessarily provide any assistance when it came to writing this damn essay, and Trevor wanting to talk was a good diversion.
“Why don’t you?” I asked him. “I know you’ve always dreamed of being in the NFL, and it’ll be next to impossible if you don’t at least appear to be hetero.”
“Do you think I should?” He asked me with a raised eyebrow.
“Are you happy with Todd?” I asked him. “I mean, you know most high school romances don’t last forever.”
“Look at Davey’s parents.” Trevor countered with a shrug. “His mom married his dad right out of high school, and then he went and did all that shit. Now they’re back together and planning their re-marriage during winter break. Look at my parents. They met in college and they’re still together.”
“But do you think that you and Todd have what it takes to last that long?” I asked him.
“The last timeline, you and Davey lasted that long, didn’t you?” He asked me.
“Yes.” I agreed.
“Do you think the two of you will last that long again?” He asked. “I mean, for you it’s going to be two lifetimes with the same man. Don’t you get bored?”
“No.” I said emphatically. “I could never get bored with Davey.”
“I don’t think I could get bored with Todd, either.” Trevor stated. “He’s fun to be with, and we’re constantly doing things together. He loves football, or at least watching it, and we both love music. There are so many things we have in common, and some things we don’t. It’s like we fit together.”
“Okay, if it makes you happy, then I say go for it and damn the consequences.” I told him with a smile. “You know, I think that might have had something to do with me coming back in time. I was looking at the end. Davey was probably already dead, and we’d had such good times together that I didn’t want it to end. So I came back to start over again, to have another lifetime with him.”
“Kind of selfish, huh?” Trevor said with a smile. “You say you came back to save the world, but you really came back just to be young enough to pork Davey for another sixty years.”
“I’ve been caught at last!” I laughed and we both chuckled before he went to find something to do while I went back to that damn essay.
Was I really that selfish? Well, maybe I was, but then a part of me believed that Davey had come back over and over again for me, so why shouldn’t I come back for him?
This story brought to you by a lot of hard editing from Emoe, and
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