Rounding Third (34 page)

    
“Rob, I don’t know how that happened. Robby, please say something.”

    
Again he tried to move toward Rob and again Rob backed away. Rob turned and
started walking. He could hear Josh’s footsteps behind him. Without turning or
looking back, he held up a hand to stop Josh. The gesture worked. The footsteps
stopped. Rob kept walking until he found something to support himself. He
looked around at the beautiful surroundings of Josh’s secret spot, the gurgle
of the waterfall in the distance still filling his ears, and he wondered if he
could ever enjoy this place again. He leaned his head against the tree and
closed his eyes as he fought for some notion of what had just happened.

    
He shouldn’t have yelled at Josh. He should have known how vulnerable and
fragile Josh still was, but Josh had a lot of nerve telling him he was leaving
next week. He thought they’d have the summer together. He thought Josh would’ve
given him some notice. Josh should have called from Florida the minute he knew
he’d have to start for the summer session to make the team. After all Rob and
his family had done for him, Josh at least owed them that.

    
“Rob?” Josh’s voice grew closer. “Please don’t run away. Please let me talk.”
Rob stiffened but didn’t move away from the tree. “If I say I’m sorry again, I
know it’s still way too little. But I am sorry. I don’t know what happened.”
Josh paused. “Actually I do. You never yelled at me before. I snapped. I’m
sorry, but, oh God. This is how my father was. Someone pisses you off, you hit
them.” Rob didn’t turn around. “I know it’s not right, and I pray that I’m not
really wired that way. I think I scared me more than I scared you. I’m sorry.
You have to know I didn’t mean that.” Rob took a breath. “Please, Rob, say
something.”

    
“I want to go home.”

46

 
Rob put a suitcase into the backseat of
Josh’s car. “That’s the last bag. You’re WTW,” he said. He tossed his baseball
glove in on top.

Josh looked at Rob. “Your glove?”

“Yeah. I’m not going to need it again and
you’ve worn it more for the past few months than I have. Maybe it’ll bring you
luck.”

Josh hugged Rob again. “How many more times
can I say thank you?”

Rob opened the door and Josh got in, looking
up awkwardly at his friend. Rob closed the back door and looked down at Josh
and said, “I once said I couldn’t go on living without you. Now I know we’re
both strong enough to make it on our own.”

    
“I’m only strong enough because I know you’re here for me,” Josh answered.

    
“And I always will be.” Even as he said it, Rob knew that the promised phone
calls and emails would soon dwindle.

A chapter in his life was closing as he
closed the car door.      
             

The End

Dedication

If you’re a reader who likes to
skip ahead, this is at the back of the book instead of the front because it
makes reference to some incidents in the story and I would hate to spoil any surprises,
so you may want to wait to read this until after you’ve finished the book. Just
a suggestion.

           
This story is basically true. Although this book is a work of fiction—that is,
the Wardells, Schlagels, the rest of the characters and the town of
Harrisonburg are all figments and fragments of my imagination and any
resemblance otherwise should be regarded as coincidence—all of the major
incidents, the beatings, the pool table rape, the suicide attempt, the
harassment, the parents telling the world their son was dead—are not fiction at
all. Some of the major events in this story happened to me—for instance, there
were frequent fights at my high school and I did spend my high school years
cowering in the background so as not to be pummeled and I sprinted many miles
running away from the demons that pursued me. But don’t assume it is all
autobiographical or which parts happened to me.

The other incidents actually occurred to young men I
know in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Texas, Maine, Nevada, Oklahoma,
California, Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, Illinois, West Virginia, South
Dakota and Oregon—the reason for this list is to show that things are very much
the same all over.

           
This book is dedicated to those brave young men who survived such hardship to
be able to share their stories with me. I thank them and dedicate this book to:

           
Chad, Chad, Oren, Ryan, David, Davey (the Zugrat), Tommy, Sean, Craig, Jeremy,
Victor, Josh, Zack, Jason, Cole, Josh, Chris, Kevin, Scott, Bill, Greg Congdon
(about whom I wrote in
Hero Magazine
, November, 1999), and Coach Eric
“Gumby” Anderson and his brave track team at Huntington Beach High School,
California, 1993.

The suicide rate of gay
teens is seven times that of straight youth and in spite of huge strides
forward, most kids are still afraid to come out. The average high school
student hears the word “fag” or the phrase “that’s so gay” dozens of times a
day. So far none of the tragic school shootings have been committed by anyone
who self-identified as gay, but a common theme in most of them has been that
the kid or kids who finally snapped had been called “fag” often.

The flippant
reference Brittany makes to Columbine is not meant in any way to minimize the
tragedy in Littleton, Colorado. Rather, it’s really the way kids talk and it’s
meant as a reminder that seemingly small slights can add up to very big
tragedies as happened at Santana High School in Santee, California not far from
where I live. I have talked to several of the kids who survived that school
hallway full of bullets.

In speaking at my
old high school in 2004, I was shocked to learn that in a school of almost 2000
students, there was only one kid brave enough to be openly gay. This book is
dedicated to him and another young man, Bobby Sosnowski, who was brave enough
to be out at Maplewood High School in the tiny town of Guys Mills,
Pennsylvania; and to Allan Acevedo, about whom I wrote in the May, 2005 issue
of
Out
magazine who took a leading role at Hilltop High School in Chula
Vista, California; and to the many other courageous young men and women,
fragile minorities in their schools, who risk daily abuse—both physical and
psychological—to be honest about who they are.

In the many
stories I have heard over the years, it seems that those who came out fared far
better than those who are outed. Incidents of sexual extortion such as Josh
suffers in this book are not uncommon, but it’s not possible to blackmail
someone if they are already out.

           
If you doubt the underlying truths of this story, watch the news: a young man
in New York beaten by his parents with lead pipes to drive out his gayness; a
young man in Pennsylvania murdered by his brother for being gay—and the parents
sided with the murderer, not their other son, the victim. This is not ancient
history. Those incidents occurred in 2003 and 2002. If Josh’s father’s
treatment of him seems excessive, in 2005 a man beat his three-year old son to
death for acting gay—that is not a typo, yes, he thought a three-year-old was
acting gay. Experts say that 40% of homeless teens are gay; the hell on the
streets is preferable to the hell they left at home. In 2009, a group of high
school students in Florida were charged with repeatedly raping another student
in the locker room over a period of months.