Chapter Ten: On Any Given Friday

The rest of that week was pretty much that same thing. Go to school with the armor on and come out in style. Already, we knew who our enemies were. And we were systematically taking them out. We didn't even have to become the instigator. They would push us around and we would push them down. There was never a time that I left Scott or Andrew alone. There was also never a time that they left me alone. Brett and his group were doing the same thing. Travel in two's, at least.

Everyone stared at us. Everywhere inside that fucking school, I felt them watching me! I love attention, but I hated that. Then, Charles Anglis starting withdrawing from friendship with me. He would just say hi and split. He wouldn't give me props. Not even a friendly punch. I had to do something to prove my worth as a man! My respect must be restored. Not just mine. My lover's and all of my gay friends also.

Most of us were athletic. The others would just do all that they had to. As everyone knows, sports and hunting are the keys to respect of a man. Football! That's exactly how we would earn respect! We invite some macho males to play some football. Then, we kick some straight ass! Brilliant! (Not to be too modest, of course.)

I discussed this over with Scott, Andrew and Brett. We all decided that it would be a good idea. It's just, we had to find people who were willing to play us. Like that would be hard! We told everyone else in our huge group and moved on our plan the next day. We only need five people per team. So, our first person was Cory Gardgi.

"Hey Cory." I greeted him. "What's up, man?"

He recoiled into a corner. Geez, talk about fear. Well, about 6 people did approach him, in formation, I might add. And those people weren't incredibly, oh I don't know, straight!

"Umm, pretty good." He replied, "What do you guys want?"

"Well," I started, "We noticed that no one thought we were equals in this little 'straight' community. And since you're the head leader, the six of us are inviting you and five of your friends to a game of football."

"Umm, I don't know . . ." He said Oh no! Mommy warned me about people like you and told me that we shouldn't play together!

Andrew came beside me, "Whatever. We don't have time for this. You can play, or you can leave with the humiliation that you were afraid some fags would kick your ass at football."

Everyone in my group gave a chorus of, "Yeah" "That's right!" "Chicken!"

"Fine!" He gave in, "Get ready to get your pansy ass whooped!"

Don't you just love what peer pressure can do? "You're on. Shake on it." I held out my hand.

"This will be a massacre!" He shook my hand and ran off to his little goonie friends.

This would be interesting. We all walked to a table where a bunch of people were sitting. We sat down on the close end. Everyone except for about three people left.

"God, somebody's got issues." Brett said.

"Nah, they just think you'll rape them." Mason Shaw said.

"That's pathetic. Those shits would be lucky if we even gave them a second look." Chris laughed.

"What do you have against straight people anyway?" Aaron Boyd asked Chris.

"Well, maybe the fact that they have just ostracized us from the status quo." Chris stated.

"And make fun of us." Brett added.

"And hit us." Andrew rubbed his jaw.

"You see," I said, "We would be perfectly cool if they just gave up with this mach shit. But they aren't. They want to make out lives hell and we hate them for it."

"Oh," Mason.

There was silence then. It only lasted for a few seconds. We all dug into our food. A wide variety. Not, sandwiches, noodles, hot dogs and pizza. Cafeteria food sucks. That's a given for any school; taken in this one. Our school's food is so bad, that not even Ms. Ramen would eat that food!

After lunch. All of the remaining periods went as usual. Save the little comments in P.E. and Mr. Turner's uneasiness around me. That's right you son of a bitch, I thought, I hold the power and I'll use it. Just takes one complaint. Ooohh! Headache, the power was getting to me. Mr. Turner finally announced our sport. It was football. YAY! Give that jerk a taste of things to come!

We got to pick teams. People had to raise their hands to be team captain. Well, quicker than pulling straws. I raised my hand and was picked to be captain. We just gotta have some diversity, right? Right! Well, we had to do that girl, boy, girl, boy switch off. On my team was Chris, Sandra, Joseph and Emily. Good players actually. Emily was on a constant sugar high, I could use her as receiver. Sandra could throw really well, so she would be quarter back. I can do anything, so, I'll snap just to be fair and let Joseph run around like a chicken with his head cut off. YAY! Another plan! Little did I know, that there would be no training period before games started. No problem right?

Of course there were problems. Emily was freaking out. And Sandra didn't exactly have good aim the first few times. Ouchie. But after the opposing team scored three touchdowns, we started whooping ass. No one scores against "Absent" (our team's name). We won, 27 to 4. Woohoo! The first thing I did after school was gloat.

"You should have seen me on the field! I was all over the place!" I over dramatized, "I caught, I pulled flags. I was like, super player or something! It was awesome!"

Scott said, "That's cool. We're playing Football too. But we lost our first game."

Sympathy, "Awwww, I'm, sorry Scott, that really sucks."

"Yeah, I know." He replied.

"But," I tried to cheer him up, "We're still gonna kick ass on Friday!"

We all went to go buy some energy bars for the game. The straight team would not win. We would have to win. Those were our only options. That's how it would be.

The three day wait went by until it was Friday. The big game would be at lunch. We found out that Cory, John, Kyle, Adam, Sean and Zach. We had Chris, Brett, Andrew, Scott, James and me. Four periods of waiting in apprehension of what could happen. Four hours of stares and gawks. Four hours of staring back and growling. Everyone got together at lunch.

"Okay," Brett said, "The game's at the detention bell."

"Coolness!" Chris exclaimed.

"Yeah, I guess." I asserted, "Do we know our plan?"

"Andrew, everyone spread out. One person to take care of the rusher. Everyone open. When we're on defense, spend a few seconds after scrimmage and find the receiver. Then knock the shit out of him!" Scott recited excitedly.

"Good, let's go!" Me.

We all headed out to the field. A good size crowd was hanging around where we were to play. The "Straights" were on the field practicing. Well, not exactly, they were just throwing passes. They stopped immediately as we stepped on the field.

"What are the rules?" Chris asked.

"Tackling's okay. Someone gets hurt, someone on the opposing team gets shoved out." Cory told us.

"Good, let's get read to play." Scott walked past the center of the circle we had made, "You guys can get ready to be beaten."

"Yeah, right, Peterson." Zach called out.

We all got into formation and Scott snapped the ball to me. Everyone scrambled around. Except for Scott and Sean. Sean was rushing and Scott was just holding him off.

"Get off Sean and run like hell!" I yelled to Scott as I stepped back to throw the ball.

Scott let go of Sean. Sean took off right at me. He wasn't moving that fast, I probably could have covered a few yards. But he was running straight at me. I stepped back again, saw my target, Chris. He was standing wide open, running back with his eyes on me. An effortless throw straight to him. Milliseconds after the ball left my fingertips, I remembered that there was still a very large object bounding towards me. I looked down just in time to see Sean ram into my side. I went down like a sack of potatoes, but luckily I blocked most of the blow with my fore-arms. I quickly jumped to my feet and took off to get to Chris. Who had just scored. Check it out, already a touchdown.

Chris ran up to me, "And the 'The Screaming Queers' pull ahead!"

I was happy that we scored, but it was still the beginning of the game with 45 minutes left on the clock. We got back into formation for the kick off. Suddenly, James yelled out to us. "Okay guys, when Gabe kicks it, we all run for them screaming our heads off."

'Okay." The agreement was among all of us.

Everyone got into their stances. I stepped back, let the ball drop and booted it. Flying in the air as fast as a rocket. It spiraled vertically up towards . . . Zach. Within jumping distance, Zach jumped up and snatched the ball out of the air as if it were a cherry from a tree. 15 yard line. They were running towards us. Now was the time for our battle cry. Brett started running and screaming and, then all of us. Andrew tackled Zach. BAM! He hit the ground like a sack of potatoes.

The game lasted like that. We would get the ball, we would usually score. They would get they ball, we would knock the shit out of them. During the last ten minutes, the "straight" team became sore-loser. They were hitting us as hard as they could. Chris had to go to the nurse because he sprained his wrist and I was given a bloody nose, compliments of John.

None of that mattered. Both teams gave their all. We just gave more. And along those lines, one team had to win, we did. The score was close enough 21 to 10 . A few extra points from conversion here or there. I think that after that game, people were angry at the opposing team for losing. I mean, common, how hard is it to beat a gay team? Especially a team called "The Screaming Queers". Not hard, right? Oh well.

"Nice game Gabe." Zach came up to me to shake hands.

"Yeah, you guys played really well." I replied.

"I guess," He said, "You guys really kicked ass."

"Whatever." I didn't want to offend anyone. "We just tried our best."

"I don't think anyone on our team tried very hard." Zach said. "We all thought you guys would be easy to beat."

"That sucks." I said, looking for Scott. "But you guys played really good for the last few minutes. John was able to give the invincible Gabriel Duncan a nose bleed."

We both chuckled at that last comment. Two friends laughing together at their own abilities.

"I hope no one on your team is hold any grudges." Scott was with Andrew, talking to Chris. "It was just a game, after all."

"Yeah." Zach agreed, "But this did seem like a really big game. Everyone was talking about it."

"I know." I affirmed, "I hope no one gives everyone a hard time."

At that time, Scott and Andrew came up to me.

"We kicked ass!" Andrew exclaimed.

"Woohoo!" Scott high five'd me.

"I guess," I said, "But what if people are giving Cory's team a hard time after this? They'll get pissed at us for winning."

"Not my problem", Andrew said, "If they get pushed around, it's there own fault."

Something inside me clicked. I knew how it felt to be pushed around. To have people fear you. To have people try and hurt me any chance they get. To have people practically spit on you everyday. I knew how that was.

"Andrew, do you even know how it is to be harassed like I was?" I asked Andrew.

"Well," He thought, "No."

"Ah." I went on, "Okay. Then you don't know how it is to be called names everyday, for almost a whole year?"

Andrew shook his head.

"Then, you wouldn't know how it is to be hated so much that you fear going to school?"

"No" Andrew professed.

"Hmm . . . well, then you must know how it feels to be watched upon every where you go? Or referred to with indignant words? Or being left out because you are- are not-did not do-or did do something that makes everyone hate you?" I paused to catch breath, "Are you telling me, that after saying something so sure, in such a manner that would imply experience on that part. That you have no experience to see how it is to be ostracized from a community?"

"No." Andrew looked down.

Everyone was watching once again. The spotlight was on Andrew. Who was just about to break down.

"This isn't about proving that anyone's better. This was part of my own agenda." Admitted I, "I wanted to let you, and Scott, and everyone else in Brett's group to have an equal chance. I didn't want anyone of you to see how it was for me."

I stepped back to face everyone, "You can see it right now. Even though you probably will not have the chance to see for sure how it was, you will see someone that had to live with be called names, pushed around and excluded for almost a whole year. Yes, a year of people not like me. Some people hating me. That's how long it lasted. And you know what. It almost broke me. I almost committed suicide. But you know what kept me going?"

"What?" Andrew asked through clenched teeth.

"The thought that I would be able to help someone out of a position like I was in. The thought that, I could help somebody to not commit suicide. That's why I was doing this. Now, if Cory's group is going to get harassed by being beaten by a bunch of 'sissies' or 'pansies' or 'fags'! I won't have it! I won't stand for it." I started breaking down.

I turned to Brett, who was now behind me. "We went to the counselor to help us come out. And I will go to the principal to make sure that no one, gay or straight has to go through this type of treatment again! Our last principal may not have helped, but I will work this one until he does!"

At that point, my feelings were overwhelming me. The fact that I had stopped breathing several sentences ago fueled my dizziness. The ground was twirling, it was becoming hard to see. The ground left me and . . . Blackness.