Читать книгу When Boys Kiss Boys - Richard Crlik - Страница 2

The station platform was seething with high school kids. The boys hot, sweating and loud, still full of pubescent energy despite the warm, humid afternoon and the fact that they had just finished two hours of sport. The girls just as loud and just as energetic, the school week was over and the weekend was here.

Ben stood at the platform entrance debating whether or not to take the train which was still ten minutes or more away, or, to walk home, avoiding the stares and quiet whispers of his school peers. He liked the solitude of the forty minute walk home. Past the golf course with its manicured green lawns and distant view of the bush, past the older houses near his primary school and along the bush track by the railway line, which once he crossed took him down another steep track and home.

Normally he walked to avoid the predictable jeering of the other kids which had become an unwanted routine of his afternoon trip home ever since he had started high school. He had been shocked when after about three weeks of starting he had been labelled as being a 'poofter' by a group of boys in his year.. In primary school he had been one of the most popular boys. Always in the top class and surrounded by friends. He had even been the school captain in his final year there.

He had assumed that it would be a passing thing and at first had not really been troubled by it. He was tall enough and strong enough that no-one had physically threatened him, not like some of the other kids who had also become targets because they were fat, or had red hair, or couldn't play sport, or were chinks. It seemed that high school was a place where manhood was both prized and something to be proven. To Ben this was reason enough not to prove it. He never tried to deny it, he never tried to acknowledge it, he never tried to fight back. He just tried to avoid it.

It had been over 4 years and still the taunts had persisted. Sure most of his school peers had moved on from him, finding others to test their manhood on or vent their frustrations at, but there was still the 'gang of four' who persisted at every opportunity and who seemed particularly intent on making his life a misery. He was never sure why and he didn't really want to know why. He would have just preferred if it had stopped. It was embarrassing and annoying. It was harder because it was true, but he would never let them know that.

The low rumble of thunder overhead decided for him. He took a deep breath and pushed his way through the mass of kids weaving his way through the crowds, heading for the end of the platform. Normally he would have been jostled and bumped by dozens of kids all so intent on what they were doing that they didn't look around as they joked and jostled with each other. Today, as they had every day in the past few weeks, the adolescent yells and raucous movements came to an abrupt end as Ben approached. Kids pulled apart from each other, some looking away, others nodding awkwardly, some even saying 'hi' as he passed.

Ben looked straight ahead. He didn't want their sympathy. It was even more embarrassing than their scorn. He just wanted to be left alone. Up ahead he could see 'the gang of four' in their usual hanging spot. Ties already off, shirts hanging out and cigarettes in their mouths. His only source of personal victory was that he had never let on that it upset him. He could have avoided the jeers and humiliation easily if he had walked to the front end of the platform. In nearly five years he never had. Whenever he caught the train he ran the gauntlet and walked past them despite the inevitable outcome. It had never stopped them, possibly it encouraged them more?

He braced himself, took a deep breath and continued walking anticipating the predictable shouts of 'poofter' or 'hello honky tonk' as he walked by. Before he reached them he felt a light squeeze on his shoulder. Lesley James, the prettiest and most sought after girl in his neighbourhood was looking at him with her big,blue heavily kohl lined eyes.

'Hi Ben. Are you okay honey?'

Shit, that was the last thing he needed. He could just see the 'gang of four' getting even more pissed off with him now that Leslie was breathing all over him.

'My mum says tell your mum that if she needs anything just to call'.

There was a slight pause before she took his hand and said,

'You too Ben, If you need anything, just call me, alright?'

Ben was fairly sure Leslie was hinting at more than help as he extracted his hand before replying.

'Yea, sure I'll tell my mum'.

He walked on closing his ears to the barely hushed giggles of Leslie's friends.

The 'gang of four' loomed and for the first time Ben made eye contact. Maybe today he wouldn't ignore them? Maybe he would get just one good punch in? Maybe.

They thought they were so cool. Ben just thought they were a bunch of ugly thugs with their short, stocky bodies, long, greasy hair, pimples, big teeth......well three of them were for sure. The ring leader, Michael, wasn't. Blonde, almost white, hair, piercing blue eyes, cocky white toothed grin and tanned face, Michael could have been a pin up poster boy like the ones Ben had on his bedroom wall. As much as Ben hated him he had always been fascinated by him.

'Hey Felix'.

Ben knew that this was meant for him. Felix stood for Felix the Cat, the cartoon character with the high squeaky voice - therefore gay in the minds of his yobbo peers. He walked on. One of the gang had started singing..'whenever he gets in a fix, he reaches in and grabs a dick....' He couldn't believe those guys had actually stayed on to senior year. Behind him he could hear one of Leslie's friends explode with laughter and Leslie trying, not too hard, to shush her.

He walked on, the colour rising and leaving a hot sensation on his face.

'Hey Felix, you want a smoke?'.

He turned. Michael had moved away from the gang and was close behind him.

'Come on man, don't make this harder for me. Take a smoke'.

Ben challenged his stare with one of his own waiting for the expected slur, which didn't come. Michael's eyes fixed with his and he felt a strange rush course through his body as he took the cigarette with a brief nod and headed on to the end of the platform.

Had that just happened? As he lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply he knew that it had. Almost 5 years of copping shit from them and all it had taken was one dead father to stop it.

One dead father , dragged up the street, brains and blood splattering all over the road, hit by an unknown driver who had failed to stop, and now everyone wanted to be his friend. He dragged deeply on the cigarette, eyes fixed on the train tracks as he waited for the train and escape to come.