I remember…the tipping point

 

THERE CAN’T BE a god, whatever name and flavor the humans call him, her, or it—and I won’t capitalize the pronouns or the word even in my head.

No deity worth the name, worth worshipping or at least respecting, would be such a fucking bastard shithead as to allow what happened to happen.

I had an assigned space in the student lot. When my dad caught me one afternoon waiting for the bus to take me from school to the municipal garage where I’d been quietly spending some of my allowance to pay for parking, he took matters in his own hands and had a conversation with the principal the next day.

Dad is the equivalent of a wolf-shifter alpha, though he’s not the head of our flock. There was no way the principal’s intimidation tactics could work on him, though he refused to give me any details of their talk. His summary was succinct.

“I spoke with your principal. I explained your qualifications under school policy. I rejected the idea you should be subject to the whims of another family for getting to and from school. I offered him a choice. Either he assigned you a parking space, or I’d instruct you to pick an empty one and park there. And he could accept the consequences if he took any action against you. We reached an agreement. You’re in B17.”

When I said, “Bingo!” Dad just smiled.

It was a day version of Snoopy’s dark and stormy night when it all went wrong.

I got out of my car, pushing the remote to lock it and set the alarm. As I started toward the building, I saw Johnny pull in, about ten spaces closer to the building than me. I headed in his direction. He saw me, hesitated. He should have turned his back on me and walked away. He almost did, but firmed his lips and didn’t. As I got closer, he said, “Hey, goth boy!” His voice was soft, as if even out here in a lot empty of everything but cars and us, he might be heard.

I gave him the same softness back. “Hey, ya dumb jock!” Pleasantries taken care of he stood at his rear bumper, facing me,

waiting for me to catch up. I hurried too much in the last couple of steps, slipped on rain-slick asphalt and maybe oil, and slammed onto my knees right in front of him. My head headed toward his crotch but he let his book bag slide to the ground as he grabbed my shoulders and prevented a hard shifter-boy skull from bashing his balls.

I stayed on the ground, catching my breath. My damn knees hurt. “Ow! Just…fucking ow!”

I was still staring at the ground, his hands holding me up, when Johnny said, “Uh, hey, goth boy, while you’re down there anyway, wanna do a bud a favor in a B-J flavor?”

Since we both knew who was straight and who was gay in what used to be a friendship…might still be sort of one?…and who would never do what to whom, we laughed at the silliness, and I accepted a helping hand up.

A helping hand I might have held onto a little too long, though my holding on had help from the owner of the helping hand.

“Miss ya, goth boy.”

“Miss ya, too, ya dumb jock.”

We squeezed, released and we went…hurried…our separate ways.

I didn’t bother looking, but I knew the knees of my slacks were a mess, obviously wet. I figured once I was inside I’d be in for some as-polite-as-teens-get—and from the Four, some vicious—ribbing.

But since nothing had happened, I’d survive. Johnny almost didn’t.

Preacher’s Son saw us, I later learned. I don’t know if he was close enough to hear Johnny’s joke, but he was the one who started the story I’d given Johnny a blow job in the parking lot, about us holding hands after I was done.

A blow job in the parking lot! Before school.

With security cameras around to prove our innocence. Ridiculous bullshit.

No one could possibly believe it.

Except…they did. Once the Four got into full swing promoting the lie. With the added fillip—again from Preacher’s Son—of Johnny offering to do me, too.

And by purest chance and nothing more, of course, the security camera which covered right where we were happened not to be working that day.

I damned the Four then, but not as much as I did later.