Brian and Pete: The Power Within

Chapter Eight

Game Face

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I awoke early and was unable to go back to sleep.  It was still dark outside which meant it was before six.  A chill had fallen over the bedroom that had nothing to do with the frigid morning temperature.  Rolling out of bed, I pulled on my sweats before I got too cold, and then went to the kitchen for a glass of orange juice.

I debated on going for a run and decided a few miles were in order.  Finishing my drink, I got my vest and strobes out and headed out into the morning gloom.  Frost covered the grass in the corral and puddles of water were encrusted with a thin coating of ice.  The cold air stung my face and my breath produced plumes of steam in the still morning air as I set off on my run.

Several miles later, I returned to the house, my mind discontented.  I had been unable to find my focus while jogging, and that made me irritable.  Jason was sitting in the kitchen eating a bowl of cereal and reading the morning paper.  He looked up as I came in.

“Morning, Brian.  They caught them.”

I blinked.  “They did?”

“Yeah. Two of them.  Listen: ‘Shepard, a 21-year-old, met Aaron James McKinney and Russell Arthur Henderson in a bar.’  It says they found him along a road eighteen hours later.”

I shook my head, trying to hold down the anger I felt growing in my chest.  The more I heard about the events near Laramie, Wyoming, the more I wanted to lash out.  I would have to keep a tight hold on my emotions to get through the day.  I couldn’t afford to let anything take my mind off the game.

“I don’t want to know any more right now,” I told Jason.

He looked at me as I stood there, motionless, uncertain what to do next.

“This really bothers you,” he stated.

“Yes.  I… after hearing what those guys were saying yesterday…  it makes me so angry, Jason.  All I want to do is… is…  I just want to kill someone, you know?”

“I understand what you’re saying, Brian.  You can’t let it get to you, though.  They caught the bastards that did it.  They’ll pay for it.”

“No, Jason, this goes way beyond what happened in Laramie.  This is what’s happening right here.  Langley and Krogh said that the only good fag is a dead fag.  That’s a threat!  They want me dead.  They want us dead for something we have no control over.”

“And the more you let it get you worked up,” said Pete from behind me, “the more likely you’ll be to give them an excuse to try.  I tried to tell you that last night.”

I glared at him, not trusting myself to respond verbally.  I didn’t understand how Pete could be so passive about the whole series of events.  A man, not much older than we were, had been viciously attacked, brutalized, tied to a fence and left there to die.  How could Pete feel nothing?  How could he simply pull back into a state of fear and not confront it?  I didn’t understand it.

Turning on my heel, I stalked past Pete to get my shower.  I didn’t want to discuss it with him any longer.  He had made his position clear the night before.  Pete and Jason took up a conversation as I left, Jason informing Pete of the arrests made in the Shepard case.  I ignored it.

When I was done in the bathroom, Pete went in after me without a word.  If he wanted to be petulant, that was fine with me.  I didn’t have anything to say to him, anyway.

Pete and I didn’t really speak all morning.  None of the usual banter or affection was present in our interaction.  Everyone had noticed something was wrong when we sat at opposite ends of the table during breakfast.  Kevin obliquely asked what was going on, and I bluntly told him we had a difference of opinion.  Pete all but exploded.

“Brian, what will you getting all pissed and mouthing off to Langley and Krogh get for us but trouble?  How are you going to explain to them that you aren’t gay when they start asking?  How are you going to keep from outing us, huh?”

“Maybe it’s worth it in this case!” I responded hotly.

“Brian, for God’s sake!  Listen to yourself!  You want to out us for something that happened a thousand miles away, and the only thing we’ll get out of it is abuse!  Get off your fucking high horse and get real!”

He spun on his heel and walked out, leaving everyone but me stunned at his outburst.  Me, he just left me angry and frustrated.  I could see that this issue was not going to go away, and it had the potential to damage our relationship in a major way.  I knew that something had to be done to heal the rift between us.  I followed him to our room and shut the door behind me.

“Brian, I don’t want to argue about this any….”

“Neither do I.  I understand what you’re saying, Pete.  I can’t change the way I feel, but I can try to control my reaction.”

“You need to do more than try, Brian,” Pete grated.  “Once we’re out, we’re out.  There’s no going back.”

“I know.  I’m sorry that I got so worked up.”

He watched me for a moment.  I dropped my eyes and stared at the floor when I could take it no more.

“Hey.  Come here, Bri.”

When I didn’t move he came to me and pulled me into his embrace.

“I’m sorry I went off on you, too.  It’s just that this really, really scares me, Bri.  I don’t want anything to happen to us.”

“Me either,” I murmured.  “I just feel helpless, and I hate it.”

“I know you do, and I’m sorry.”

I pushed Pete back onto the bed and we lay down, resting in each other’s arms until it was time to go to school for the game.

When we arrived at the school around noon, the JV game was already in progress.  We found our places next to Will, Sterling, Terry and Tomas.  Unfortunately, Lasko and his crew were behind us.  I sat in front of Tomas and Terry in an effort to shield myself from Krogh and Langley.  Of course, this did not protect me from the questions of my friends.  Tomas started in.

“All right, Kellam, what was up with you yesterday?”

Pete glanced at me, a warning in his expression.  I didn’t know what to tell them except a partial truth.

“Krogh and Langley were talking shit about how that Matthew Shepard guy in Wyoming got what he deserved and he should die.  I went off on Krogh because no one deserves what happened to that kid, whether they’re gay or black or whatever.”

“Is that all?” Terry Green asked.

“Oh,” I said lightly, “I forgot about how Krogh and Langley said they’d do the same thing, and that all fags deserve to die.”

“Actually,” came Krogh’s slimy voice, “I said the only good fag’s a dead fag.  If you’re going to quote me, at least get it right.”

Tomas and Terry stood and turned around.

Tomas said, “Krogh, if I ever hear you say anything like that about anyone, you’ll have to answer to me.”

“To us,” Terry asserted.  “You’re a fucking ignorant son of a bitch, you know that, Krogh?  I thought you were halfway intelligent, and then you go prove me wrong with that bullshit.  Just sit the fuck down and keep your fucking mouth shut.”

“Fuck you, Green,” Lee said defiantly, but he sat down anyway and was silent until we headed to the locker room.

We went straight to the caf, where some of the parents had set us up with another steak and potato dinner.  Our group commandeered our own table and talked about everything except the conflict we had with Lee Krogh and Todd Langley until the very end, when Terry confronted me.

“Brian, you going to be able to concentrate on the game?”

“Sure.  Why wouldn’t I?”

“Those assholes sitting over there,” he answered.  He did not have to tell me to whom he was referring.

“As long as they keep their comments to themselves, yeah.”

“And if they don’t?” asked Pete ominously.

“Then I do my best to ignore them and keep my head in the game,” I replied levelly, meeting my boyfriend’s gaze.

“You better do more than try, Brian.  You can’t let them distract you from what’s important,” Pete said caustically.

“I know that,” I answered in kind.

“Whoa, guys. Is there something going on here that we need to know about?” Tomas asked, interrupting us.

“No,” Pete replied, still staring at me.  “Nothing that we can’t deal with.”

“Well, deal with it,” Terry commanded.  “We have a game to win.”

“Don’t worry,” I answered, more to convince and reassure Pete than anyone else.  “I’ll stay in control.”

The only person who wasn’t satisfied based on his expression was my boyfriend.  Somehow, his lack of trust angered me.  I stood up, dropped off my tray and stalked back to the locker room to change.  We didn’t speak again until sometime during the game.

The contest was a long, hard fight on both sides of the ball.  Sterling had a pass picked during his first series and was forced to make the touchdown-saving tackle himself.  I saw Lasko say something to him as he came off the field, and Sterling responded, but neither seemed hostile.

As the game progressed, we found that we were evenly matched at just about every position on the field.  It wasn’t until four minutes before the half that we finally scored a touchdown, and somehow held the other team at the fifteen-yard line when the half ended.

I had managed to stay away from Langley and Krogh for the entire first half of the game.  In the locker room, I kept myself surrounded by my friends and avoided looking around as much as possible.  I was conscious of Pete’s eyes on me the whole time, and when I looked at him, his hard gaze reminded me how seriously he took my promise to maintain.

We kicked off to start the second half.  The kick returner fumbled the ball when he ran into a wall of our guys and we managed to recover it.  Sterling and his offense took the field, and he led them to the goal line in two long passes and then handed the ball off to our backs to drive it into the end zone.

Coach Sarvino gathered the defense to him for the usual encouragement.  After the special teams kicked the extra point and the following kickoff, we took our places.  In the defensive huddle, Tomas was calling the signals.

“Okay, let’s keep up the intensity. Forty-four split.  Kellam, look for them to come inside.  If they do, nail ‘em.”

“Yeah,” Krogh added, “stick it to those faggots!”

Only the shock that Krogh would actually say anything like that in front of everyone kept me from reacting.  Tomas lashed out and hit Lee in the side of the head.

“I’m not telling you again!” Tomas growled.  “Keep your trap shut!”

“Fuck off, Garza.”

“Hey, they’re coming up,” called Rick Hurst, one of our safeties.

We broke and made it to the line just in time.  The ball was snapped and the quarterback pitched the ball away from me to their halfback.  He was led to the eight hole by the fullback, who blasted through, knocking Tomas out of the way.  Krogh and I converged on the halfback as he made it past the line of scrimmage, me hitting him in the torso and Krogh wrapping up his knees.  We all went down in a heap with me on top.  As we separated, Krogh and I walked back to the huddle together.

“What’s up with you anyway, Kellam?  They’re just fags.  They ain’t worth nothing.”

“Worth more than you, Krogh!” I retorted tightly and trotted the rest of the way to the huddle.

A few plays later, Krogh and I again came into contact.  I tried to jog away, but he kept up with me.

“You like faggots, Kellam?  You a fag lover?”

I stopped mid-stride, faced a very surprised Lee Krogh and shoved him backwards with all my strength.  He flew back a foot or so and then fell on his ass.

“Back the fuck off, Krogh!”

“You boys better cool it or I’ll flag you,” said the official who happened to be standing right there.

I turned around and jogged back to the huddle.  Tomas pulled me aside.

“Jesus, Brian, what are you trying to do?”

“I had to do something.  He won’t leave me alone.”

“Shoving him?”

“Kellam!”

I looked toward the sideline and saw Langley running in calling my name and someone else calling Krogh’s name. 

“Fuck!”

“Get going,” Tomas said, patting me on the ass.

The jog to the sideline gave me time to figure out what I was going to say.  It was unfortunate that my mind was rather fixated on how angry I was at that particular moment.

Coach Folds and Coach Sarvino both were stalking toward me.  I stopped somewhere in the middle and waited for the coming blast.  Sarvino got to me first.

“What the hell were you doing out there?  Are you trying to lose us the game, let alone get kicked off the team?”

“Kellam!  I don’t know what your goddamn problem is, but you better lose it right now!” shouted Coach Folds.

I nodded to both of them, hoping that was the end of it.  Fortunately, Lee Krogh showed up just after the two coaches had blasted me and got his turn on the firing line before the head coach addressed both of us.

“If I see anything like that from you two again, here or in practice, you’re both benched.  I don’t care if you are our best dee-bees, you’ll sit right there until I say otherwise. Got me?”

“Yes, coach,” I replied, meeting his gaze so I wouldn’t glare at Krogh.

“Good.  Now get your heads and your asses back in the game.”

I managed to keep Krogh out of my head for the remainder of the game.  If he spoke to me, I chose not to hear it.  I was still angry about his statements, and I took that anger out on our opponent, hitting them harder than was strictly necessary.  In my eagerness to deal out punishment, I hit an opposing receiver slightly before the ball got to him, earning a pass interference penalty.  Tomas, Folds and Sarvino all unloaded on me for that one.  The smirk on Krogh’s face made me want to wipe the ground with him, but I managed to put it aside.

The ride home was silent.  When Pete looked at me, his jaw was set and his eyes were hard.  He knew exactly what had happened without me having to tell him, and he wasn’t happy about it.  I had promised him I would keep my head, but I had let him down.  I felt terrible about it, but at the same time I felt justified.  Krogh was badmouthing gay people on a regular basis and no one was standing up to him except me, with some help from Terry and Tomas.  I felt I was honor-bound to do something about it.  Obviously, Pete disagreed.

When we got home, Pete turned off the car but didn’t get out.  He sat still, staring at the steering wheel.  When he spoke, his voice was accusatory.

“You promised, Brian!”

“I know.”

“Yet you did it anyway!”

“Yeah, I did.”  I let a silence grow

“Well?”  I turned my head to look into his glaring, burning eyes.  “Are you going to say anything?”

“Like what?” I asked calmly.  “I blew it.  He said something and I lost my cool.  I’m sorry.”

“Like you’re sorry you outed us to Sarvino?” he demanded.  “How much longer until Krogh and Langley and Lasko put it together, Brian?  How many more times will you be sorry before they figure out we’re gay?  Huh?”

“If they do, then we’ll deal with it.”

“No!  If they do, you’ll deal with it!  I’m not going to let you set me up so they can beat the shit out of me whenever they want to!”

“They couldn’t do that…”

“They could, and they would!  Did you forget Curt already?  You forget what he put me through?  I will not go through that again!  Ever.  Not for you… not for anyone.”

I stared at him, waiting to see if he would realize what he was saying.  Instead, his glare intensified before he got out of the car and walked inside, leaving me sitting there staring after him.  I was at a loss.  What could I do?  Was I supposed to ignore all the pointed comments from those people as if they didn’t bother me, swallow all the anger and frustration that their blatant, ignorant taunting evoked?  It was becoming apparent to me that if I was to keep Pete happy, that was exactly what I would have to do. 

I sat in the car for quite some time, adjusting my thinking, preparing myself to do what would be required to maintain my relationship with Pete.  He was the most important thing in my life, certainly worth this minor sacrifice – if it was truly a sacrifice I was making.  What was I giving up?  Something that had a nasty habit of getting me in trouble, anyway: my pride.

Kevin came out sometime later.  I’m not certain how long I had been sitting in the car, but I had watched the rain begin, as the weather had turned foul.  Pete’s father was wearing a calf-length rain slicker that he was holding closed around him in the swirling wind.  He knocked on the window, and I looked up at him for a moment before rolling it down enough so I could hear him.

“Dinner’s just about ready.”

“I’m not hungry,” I replied.  “Go ahead.”

“Brian, this is… come on in, now.

“I’m not ready, yet.  Still have some thinking to do.”

“Can we please have this conversation inside where it’s warm?” he asked plaintively.  “I know you and Pete are having some issues…”

“No, Kevin,” I interrupted with a shake of my head, “I’m the one having the issues.  I’m the one letting what happened to Matthew Shepard affect my head and letting those assholes get to me.  I’m the one with the problem.”

“Well, come in, now, so we can talk about it, okay?  If you want time alone to think, you can use my room if you don’t want to use yours.  All right?”

I shrugged.  There was no reason to sit in the car. “Whatever.”

I rolled up the window and Kevin opened the door for me.  I got out and followed him into the house, ignoring the pouring rain that soaked me in the short distance from the car to the porch.  Stripping down to my shorts to avoid tracking water into the house, I paid no attention to the curious expression on Kevin’s face, nor did I pay any attention to the glance I received from Jason in the kitchen, nor the flat look on Pete’s face from where he sat in the living room.

Once in the room I shared with Pete, I closed the door and leaned against it, wondering if I was being stupid about the whole thing.  Matthew Shepard might as well be a million miles away from where I stood at that moment.  His situation and our situation were nothing alike, so why should I let what happened to him in bum-fuck Wyoming affect me in bum-fuck Oregon?  Why should it be a big deal?  No one had attacked me – not recently, anyway – and not for being gay.  So why did it bother me so much?

“Brian?  Dinner’s on the table.”

“Okay, Mom.  I’ll be right there,” I answered through the door.

Why did it bother me so much?  There were a lot of reasons.  No matter what else had happened or what he was, Matthew Shepard had been brutally attacked for something he had no control over, just like Tony Braden had, and no one deserves what had happened to Matthew and Tony. 

The connection I’d made brought it all home for me.  Tony’s assault and devastating beating suffered at the hands of people I had known and gone to school with took on a new significance in my mind.  I knew there were people at my school capable of the same thing.  Pete and I played on the same team with some of them.

I put on some sweats and joined my family at dinner.  The conversation centered around our victory and included several moments of criticism for the penalty I received.  I accepted their words with humility and agreed with their assertions that it had been an avoidable mistake.  Pete was especially vociferous in voicing his disapproval of what he termed my “lack of control”.  Under normal circumstances I would have defended myself, but I knew that Pete was justified. His enthusiasm for chastising me drew some surprised looks from the rest of the room, and my lack of response must have caused some amount of puzzlement.

I finished my meal, took my dishes to the kitchen, and without a word walked up the stairs to Kevin’s room.  I looked around for a moment before sitting on his bed.  I felt so awkward that I slipped over the bed to lay on the floor behind it, staring up at the ceiling, trying to put things in perspective and thinking myself into circles.  I knew that I had to adjust the way I was dealing with the homophobic element around me, but I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to change that quickly.

“Bri?  Are you in here?”

“Yeah.  Back here, Pete.”

“What are you doing back there?” he asked as he came into view.

“Thinking.  Or trying to think.  Pete, I…”

“Bri….”

“Go ahead,” I prompted him.

“I’m sorry for what happened in the car and at dinner.  It’s just that this whole thing has me so scared that I don’t know what I’m doing.  The way I’m reacting… I can’t control it.”

“I know,” I said softly.  “I’m trying to control how I’m reacting, too, but it’s hard.  I’ve never backed down from a challenge like this in my life, Pete, and that’s what you’re asking me to do.  I’m going to try harder,” I said, interrupting his half-formed response, “as hard as I can, to ignore it.  That’s all I can do.”

“And if you can’t stop yourself?” he asked coldly.

“As you said, I’ll deal with that if it happens.” He frowned.  “I don’t want to fight about this, Pete.  I know you’re scared, and I think I have a pretty good idea why.  I can only do my best.”

My boyfriend sat on the bed above me, looking down at nothing.

“I know you’ll try.  I’ll try not to give a knee-jerk reaction, too.”

“We’ll both try.”  Pete met my gaze, and I could see the fear in his eyes.  “We’ll work this out, Pete.”

“Yeah…”

He stood and offered me his hand.  I took it, using his assistance to stand.  Pete hesitated for a moment and then pulled me into an embrace, wrapping his arms around me.  I hugged him in return, soaking up the feel of him being near me.

“Oh.  Excuse me,” Kevin said from the doorway as he turned to go.

“It’s okay, Dad,” Pete said.  “I think we’re okay.”

“We’re on our way out,” I added.

“All right, if you’re sure.  No hurry.”

“No, that’s okay.”

We went downstairs, said good night to everyone, and then went into our room, where we tried to repair the breach that had opened in our relationship.

Monday was one of the most trying days of my life.  All around me people were talking about the events that had occurred in Laramie, Wyoming.  Most of the people seemed somewhere between sympathetic and outraged.  A small group seemed to be indifferent, and yet another small group quietly voiced their approval.  It was this last group that drove me to the edge.  Every time I heard something that I thought I couldn’t handle, Tomas, Will, Terry, or Pete was there with me to keep me balanced, even if they did express their disapproval at the need for their presence.

I made it through the day, able to maintain myself with help from my friends.  While we were dressing down for practice, however, Krogh walked straight up to me.

“Are you a faggot, Kellam?” he asked with malice.

Caught completely by surprise, my rage had no time to build before my brain kicked into action.

“Why, looking for a piece of ass?” I asked with calm indifference

“Fuck you!” he spat with venom

“Guess so,” I muttered, more to myself than anything.

Krogh stepped up to me and shoved me back into my locker, and was immediately grabbed by Tomas Garza.

“That’s it!  You’re going to explain to Coach Folds why you went out of your way to provoke Brian, and when he didn’t rise to the bait, why you attacked him!”

“Fuck off, Garza, this is between me and Kellam and ain’t got nothing to do with you!” Krogh growled as Tomas forced him toward the office in a hammerlock.

“You can tell the coach all about it….”

They were drowned out by the usual locker room noise as they walked further away.  I continued to dress down, and was again surprised by a voice from behind.

“What was that all about, Brian?” Pete asked harshly.

“What, Krogh?  He came up to me and asked if I was a faggot,” I explained as I pulled on my pads.  “I asked him if he was looking for a piece of ass.  He got pissed and shoved me.”

Pete asked, “Why didn’t you just ignore him like you said you were going to?”

“It was kind of hard to do since he was already in my face, Pete.”

“Didn’t you hear a word I said last night?”

“Didn’t you hear anything I said?  I’m trying, but I can’t ignore it if they shove me into the lockers.  If I do, it gets worse!”

“I don’t care!”

“You don’t…  You weren’t the one who was just shoved into the locker!”

“No, I was the one who was just about killed!  Remember?” Pete demanded.

He turned his back on me and stomped away, leaving me standing there, frustrated and discouraged.  He didn’t speak to me again during or after practice, and not again until we were getting ready for bed that night, when I started to take my pillows to the couch in the living room.

“Don’t be stupid.  You’re sleeping in here.”

“No, I don’t think so,” I replied.

“Look – I’m sorry, okay?  I did what I said I wasn’t going to do, too.  I reacted and didn’t think first.”

“Yeah?  Well I didn’t have a chance.  He got in my face before I could do anything.  All you had to do was ask Tomas, but you didn’t bother to find out what happened.”

“Don’t get all pissy, Brian,” Pete said angrily.  “I said I’m sorry.”

“Good night, Pete.”

I walked out of the room and to the couch.  He followed me.

“This is bullshit!”

“No,” I rebutted calmly, “what’s bullshit is that you owe me an apology and you can’t or won’t see it.  I did what I could to stay out of it with them, even when Krogh tried to shove me through my locker.  He attacked me, and I didn’t do one damn thing to defend myself.  If you can’t see that, then you need to start thinking about what’s going on in your head, because you have more problems than just being afraid of getting outed.”

Pete glared at me, but he didn’t turn away.

A moment later, he said, “Okay, you’re right, and I’m sorry.  I didn’t see what happened and I should have found out before I went off on you.”

“Thank you.”

“Will you come to bed now?  Please?” 

“Okay.”

    Matthew Shepard died that night.  I tried to push it away, as though it were something that had absolutely no impact on my life, but I couldn’t.  He was a gay person who had been killed solely because he was gay, and that I could not live with. 

Pete had withdrawn completely upon hearing the news, not responding to anyone.  Ray had walked out to the barn and let loose with a stream of curses so foul that I won’t repeat any of them here.  Mom sent Dawn to eat her breakfast in the living room in a vain attempt to keep her from hearing Ray.  Jason got up from the table and went to his room.  Kevin stared at the paper without reading it.  Mom made herself busy doing trivial things, and me, I ran to school in the rain, carrying my clothes in a waterproof bag.

I arrived at school in time to shower and change.  The entire place was abuzz with the news.  I tried to avoid everyone I knew as I went to my locker, and then to the library to hide out until first period.  When the bell rang, I managed to make it to class and sit down without talking to anyone.  I was praying that my luck would hold when the bell rang to release us to second period, but of course, it didn’t.

I was walking toward my math class when something caught my eye down a side hall.  It evoked a memory of a day at the end of the last school year, and as on that day, I acted without thought and charged down the hallway, shoving people out of my way as I went.  When I reached the disturbance, I managed to cushion the impact of the slight boy being brutally shoved into a wall by sliding behind him and catching him.

“Are you okay, James?” I asked the sophomore I knew only from passing through the halls.

He nodded, looking at a group approaching us through eyes wide with fright. I followed his gaze and saw the people that had been shoving him around like a pinball.  Pulling him around behind me, I faced them as they squared off with us.

“What is it with you and picking on people smaller than you, Krogh?  Can’t win a fair fight?”

“Kellam.  I should have guessed you’d show up.  You here to defend your fudge-packing buddy?”

“No,” I said with a smile.  “I’m here to stop you from harassing people simply because you’re bigger than they are.  Or is it something else?  Are you trying to hide something, Lee?  Are you accusing everyone you meet of being gay so you can hide the fact that you’re the fag?”

“I ain’t no faggot!” he barked.

I smiled grimly.  “Sure you’re not.  That’s why you’ve been coming on to me since the football season started.”

“I’m going to kick your ass, Kellam.”

“Sure.  So, are you going to come out now, or are you ashamed of being gay?”

With a roar, Krogh charged me.  He cocked his fist back and then let it fly.  I brushed it aside and pushed him away from me.  James took off at a run as Langley came toward me, his attack more deliberate and coordinated than Krogh’s.  People around us were calling their encouragement as Todd Langley unleashed his first punch, directed at my head.  I pulled back far enough that it missed by a fraction of an inch and then moved in on my own offensive, throwing a combination to the body and an uppercut once I was inside his guard.  When my fist impacted his jaw, Langley crumpled to the ground.  Jesus Garza jumped me from the back, wrapping his arms around my neck.  Without wasting a second, I stepped backward and pulled forward on Jesus’ arms, flipping him over my back, causing him to land on the back of his head with a thud.  As I recovered my feet, a fist grazed my cheek.

“Come here and fight me, you faggot!” bellowed Krogh as he followed me.  “I’m going to do you like they did Shepard!”

Time slowed, everything stopped.  I could see nothing but the face of the person who had just threatened me.  Krogh might have been fighting me because I had made him angry – I don’t know.  I, on the other hand, was no longer fighting because I was angry, or even fighting to defend others.  I was fighting for the life Krogh had just threatened.  In my mind, at that moment, I was literally fighting for my survival.

I felt myself pulling pack, balling my fist, moving as though in a pool of molasses, slow yet under perfect control.  My opponent’s hate-filled face floated in front of me, inviting – no, demanding –  me to slam my fist into his nose with extreme force.  As I began to move forward, I noticed his punch coming my way.  It was a simple matter to block it aside while continuing through with my own.  The impact ran through my arm and into my shoulder.  Blood sprayed everywhere with amazing rapidity, even in the sluggish timeframe I was in.  I watched Lee Krogh slide to the ground and land in a heap.  A quick look around told me no one who had attacked me remained standing.

I stood up as time lurched into its normal progression.  I heard some people yelling and saw a teacher headed my way.  Looking down, I saw Krogh on the ground holding his nose and moaning, Langley all laid out and Jesus Garza lying on his back, not moving.  As the teacher arrived, I realized that Tomas Garza and Terry Green were now holding me by the shoulders, and would have prevented me from either going after anyone or running away.

“What happened here?” asked Mr. Johnson, the vice principal.  He had come up from behind me somewhere.

“They were harassing James Kuhns,” Tomas said.  “Brian stepped in and stopped them.”

“Why were they harassing him, Mr. Kellam?”

“Because they think he’s gay,” I grated.

“And so you proceeded to attack them?” Johnson asked, surprised.

“No, I told them they weren’t going to pick on him anymore.” I was having trouble keeping my voice calm.

“I see.  And then?”

“And then Kellam called Krogh a faggot!” came a voice from the side.

“Did you?”

“I guess it could be seen that way.  I accused him of hiding behind his harassment of James.”

“And then?”

“He said he was going to kick my ass and attacked me.  I don’t remember what happened after that.”

“I saw it, Mr. Johnson,” Tomas said quietly.

“Very well, Mr. Garza.  Out with it.”

“Langley came at Brian, and Brian took him down with one punch to the jaw, then my brother jumped Brian from behind.  Brian flipped him and I think he hit his head.  He didn’t get up again.”

Mr. Johnson waited for Tomas to continue, and then prompted him.

“How did Mr. Krogh’s nose become broken?”

“He, uh, he threatened Brian.”

“What was the threat,” the vice principal inquired.

“Krogh said, he was ‘going to do Kellam like they did Shepard.’”

“And then Mr. Kellam hit him?”

“Well, yeah.”

Again from the side came, “Only after he yelled, ‘Not this faggot!’”  I looked over to see Blake Scoggins, one of Lasko’s and Krogh’s friends, glaring at me.  “Yeah, that’s right.  Kellam’s a fag, and he even admitted it!”

Behind Blake I saw a familiar figure turn around.  Pete did not look back as he walked away from me.