“FUCKERS,” MIKE whispered to himself. “Fuckin’ bigoted cowards.”
He’d parked the pickup at the far end of the school parking lot, the end that looked down on the valley, the lights of Summitville, the dark snake of the Ohio as it wound through the town, separating it from West Virginia. It could have been a calming view, but what Mike was seeing in his rearview was making him see red.
Even though he faced away from them, the protestors in his rearview mirror, milling around outside the auditorium, were making his blood pressure skyrocket. He was about ready to hurl himself from the truck and kick some ass. It was getting close enough to showtime that people were arriving to see Harvey.
Classmates.
Family.
Friends of the families.
Proud parents.
Even from this distance, Mike could see they were taken aback by the protestors—and their hateful, crude messages written out on poster board—but at least none of the people who had tickets for the show turned away, which must have been disappointing for the protestors.
“Fuck them,” he whispered to himself. He reached down toward the center console and lifted the can of Iron City and took a swig. “Narrow-minded dicks. What? This gives them a thrill? Picking on a high school kid?”
His heart ached for Truman.
He should have known this town would pull a stunt like this. Mike was only surprised they’d waited until now to do it. Why hadn’t they gone to the school board early on, when it was generally known Truman was taking on the part of Myrtle Mae? Because, Mike answered himself, they’re too stupid and disorganized to use their poison in a rational way. A logical way. That would take planning, some thought.
He wished he hadn’t drunk the beer. He’d only had a couple from the six-pack bought by an older guy for him from the deli and party supply store downtown, but they were already making his head a little fuzzy, his body a little too relaxed.
He needed a clear head. He needed to help Truman.
He knew he’d been a shitheel, being out of touch since the night his dad told him not to associate with Truman. He’d been so furious at his dad, wanting to just do something to hurt him, punch his lights out, take a baseball bat to his prized Ford F-150.
But he’d done nothing. Was it because there was a small part of him that agreed with his father? A little self-loathing part that maybe saw the sense of what his father had said? It was true, after all, that Mike’s high school life, of which he only had this year left, would be much easier if he simply stayed in the closet, passed for white, so to speak… and was just one of the guys. There were plenty of girls who wanted to go out with him, Tammy Applegate first among them. He could pretend for a while—pretend to like sports, girls, cars—all the things Truman would say normal boys liked.
It would be easy. He could skate by the next few months, not put himself out there, be one of the jocks, one of the motorheads. A dude.
He hazarded a glance in the rearview mirror and watched the people milling around outside the auditorium, placards held high, so sure of their purpose and of their hate. Dimly their chants floated over to him through his open window, along with the cold autumn night air. “Keep freaks out of our schools.” “Boys should be boys.” It made him sick. And he realized that for him to pretend to be someone or something he wasn’t made him a lot like those people. Even if he didn’t mean to take sides, he was.
Being silent on things that mattered—that put him on the wrong side of love too.
With them. The haters. The losers. The people who had nothing better to do than piss on someone, just because he was different.
Never mind that he was beautiful. Sexy as hell. Kind. Funny.
A boy I love. This last thought caught Mike up short. It caused a fluttering of both his heart and his gut, the places he realized his truest emotions were located.
Is that who I want to be, huh? Them? At least Truman has the courage to be himself. Hell, he’s more of a man than I could ever hope to be. More of a man than my dad. Because he’s a true man, true to himself, not backing down because somebody says who he is, is wrong. How could who he is be wrong when he was born that way? Just like I was….
Mike straightened up a little more in his seat. He finished the beer he was drinking in one long swallow. He set the rest of the six-pack in the space behind the front bench seat, knowing he would drink no more tonight.
Maybe it was the cold of the night air sobering him up. After all, there was a frost warning out, and temperatures were forecast to go below freezing.
But Mike thought the real thing clearing his head was simply realizing the truth.
He was a young gay man in love, maybe for the first time, with another young man. And what on earth could possibly be wrong with that?
By being silent, by avoiding Truman, he’d been avoiding himself and his own feelings. He’d been a discredit to his own self. And he’d been, in his quiet, do-nothing way, complicit with his dad, letting him set the tenor for Mike’s own moral code.
And that was just wrong.
Mike crushed the beer can in one hand and flung it to the floor. He started the truck’s engine with a roar and put it into gear.
Smiling, he made a U-turn and headed, at a pretty good clip, out of the parking lot. He hummed to himself as he headed down the hill and away from the school, toward the house he shared with his mother.
She, of course, wouldn’t be home tonight. Wonder of wonders, she was actually out for dinner with his dad. They’d headed up to Boardman and the Olive Garden there to, as she said, see where they were at, see what could be “salvaged.” Mike laughed at that.
It didn’t matter if she was home. He was going to do what he was going to do. Whether his mom, dad, or those fucked-up protestors outside the school liked it or not.