I remember…words on a bridge, and afterwards

 

“HOW…HOW COULD they?” Johnny looked up at me, tears streaming down his face. Tears matching his, though with a different pain, were streaming down mine.

I was holding him because he’d called me, terrified in a way I’d never have believed possible if ever asked. Talking in a broken whisper, begging me to come help him.

I was holding him because I left my house with a yelled “Johnny needs me!” shouted over my shoulder, all the notice my folks were going to get, and drove at Indy 500 speed to the bridge over Little Creek. As I pulled up, my highway-bright lights flaring out at a clothes-torn, bloodied shape half falling over the railing, he slid down and collapsed to the wooden floor.

I was holding him, because how could I not, while he told me how his father and brother had beaten him, calling him a queer and a faggot and a cocksucker, accusing him of sucking me off as I’d sucked him in the parking lot. How they ignored his denials, his pleas, his tears. How his mother watched the first blows struck, watched a few more, he couldn’t remember how many, before walking away.

How his father and brother threw him down the basement stairs into a stack of dozens of old boards propped up against some shelving, most of them with lots of rusty nails sticking out.

How his father shouted down Johnny could just stay there until he figured out what to do with him and slammed the door.

I was cradling him, as gentle as I could be, as he said, “He’s my dad.

Jimmy’s my brother. How could they?”

And then he winced and gasped, his hand feebly grasping my arm with no strength at all. His voice had even less strength. “Mikey? Help me?”

He passed out and I realized what a fucking idiot I was, what I should have been doing all along. With all the things they did to him, with walking more than a mile in the cold and the wet to get to the bridge, I wasn’t sure he had enough time to wait for an ambulance.

I don’t say I pulled one of those adrenaline-surge stunts where an old man lifts the front of a car to save a loved one caught underneath, but I used all of my shifter strength and more to get him into my car, interior be damned.

I got in, turned the engine on, called nine-one-one. It wasn’t a call I was willing to make while driving the way I was planning on driving.

“Nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

“This is Mike Nelson. A friend of mine named Johnny Meyer’s been badly beaten by his fucking father and his fucking brother. He’s unconscious and in my car. I drive a black 2015 Mercedes SL550 convertible. The plate is RAVEN16. We’re at the Little Creek bridge. I’m going to fucking break every fucking speed limit and run every fucking red light to get him to the hospital.”

“Sir, you need to remain calm. An ambulance—”

“No. He doesn’t have time to wait for you to get a goddamn ambulance out here. And I swear to God if fucking Sheriff Powell or any of his deputies slow me down, they will fucking regret it.”

I hung up, put the car in gear and floored it.

Halfway there the sirens-wailing cop cars arrived, but while they followed me, not one of the bastards moved ahead to act as an escort and clear the way. I only tried a perilous, hand-out-the-window, waving them forward, once.

Did the shitheads want me to crash, hope I would? A safe-for-them way to eliminate me and the boy who might wake up and repeat those horrible lies about a devout, prominent citizen, with an unblemished reputation? The same lies the boy faggot spewed in his nine-one-one call?

At least the bastard shitheads radioed or called ahead. Or more likely, someone at the hospital monitored police frequencies. Doctors, nurses, whatever, were waiting with a gurney and medical…shit.

They opened the car door and gently got him out and up on the gurney, started to move toward the hospital doors. I was already out of the car and following when Sheriff Powell stepped in front of me. He put his hand out like he was going to grab me.

I looked up at him, spoke softly enough only he could hear. “Battery. Excessive force. Section 1983. Mean anything to you?” I was so glad I’d paid attention to Paul’s plaintiff’s lawyer war stories.

He stopped reaching, clenched his fist. Dropped his arm to his side. “I’m going to go inside and tell the doctors what I know about his injuries; what Johnny told me. Then I’m going to call my folks since I’m underage, and you can’t question me without them present. Then I’ll give you a statement. You wanna risk Johnny’s life, or his health, keeping me standing here?”

If he’d been a dragon, I’d have been incinerated. “You can’t slander a fine man like John Meyer with your lies, you little fag.”

I’d had it. “Try arresting me for telling the truth. Or for calling you an asshole, asshole. You gonna keep me here any longer?”

His humiliation over his inability to hit me, or arrest me, had been kept between the two of us, so he felt it only slightly less than if the other officers and some stray people avidly watching were close enough to hear. He stepped aside.

I ran.

I did what I told the sheriff I would do, about talking with the doctors. I already knew I couldn’t go into the hospital with Johnny, knew they wouldn’t tell me anything since I wasn’t family. Even though it was family who did this to him.

As the medical people started away, I grabbed the arm of the man who seemed in charge. His name tag said “Murdock.”

I let his arm go as soon as he turned around. He looked down at me with not quite a sneer on his face. I couldn’t tell if it was a queer issue or something else, perhaps even concern about getting to a patient who needed help. “I don’t have time to talk to you, young man, and I’m not going to tell—”

“Yeah, yeah, not family, patient confidentiality, yada, yada—got the picture.” I stared up at him.

I wasn’t the Raven Prince, but from somewhere deep inside I dredged up, or maybe I fabricated, something which felt like the power a Raven Prince—one in truth, not one in waiting—would have. Should have. I poured it all into my body language, into my words. With soundless whistles I “Happy Tuned” myself into believing I had the right to use the Raven Prince’s power, believing I could use it—not for me—for Johnny. It must have worked, at least a little. He stayed but moved a half step back.

“But you listen to me, Dr. Murdock. His father and brother beat the hell out of him, threw him down basement stairs where he got hit by old lumber and punctured by rusty nails. He managed to get out of there by himself and walk more than a mile, as hurt as he was, to get to me for help. If you let those bastards, or even his mom who watched for a while and walked away without calling for help, be alone with him, hurt him again, I don’t know what I’ll do, but you, sir, will regret it. Deeply.”

I don’t know whether it was me, or whether Raven Himself loaned me a bit of the Raven Prince, but the doctor’s expression changed. “I’ll take care of your friend. He is your friend, right?”

There was a tiny twist to “friend,” but it wasn’t an ugly one. “Friends, but not ‘friends,’ sir.”

He gave me a polite nod. “We finished here? Okay for me to leave?”

I smiled. “Sure, sure, doc.” I waved him away.

I sagged when he turned his back, realized I didn’t know who was behind me, with or without a metaphorical knife. I straightened. Pulled my phone out. Somebody in scrubs started to tell me I “wasn’t allowed,” but apparently there was enough leftover Raven Princeness for my glare to shut him up.

I told Mom what was going on. As calm in an emergency as ever, she said she and Dad would be there as fast as they could. She even asked me what previously would have been an adult-only decision not involving any opinion of mine: whether I wanted her to call Paul. I hesitated and then told myself not to be stupid. I asked her to make the call.

Phone off, but still in my hand, I pushed open the doors to the Emergency Room waiting area. The sheriff and a deputy were waiting for me. Sheriff’s Son was a little behind them, smirking.

I stopped within lunging distance, but not reach-and-grab distance. “My folks are on their way.”

“Fine, son, they—”

“I’m not your son. Thank God.”

His face was a snarl, but he didn’t let the sound out. He stepped forward, I stepped back. “Your parents can follow us—”

“Nowhere. I’m going nowhere. Not with you, not with Deppity Dog behind you. Or are you arresting me?”

He nodded, smugness back. “Speeding. Reckless driving. Suspicion of driving under the influence.”

I smiled, which seemed to unnerve him. There were a fair number of people in the room, some there because they needed help, some the ones who brought them or joined them, some hospital folks. I raised my voice.

They all looked at me when I said, “The sheriff here wants to arrest me for speeding to get my injured friend here. Take me away before my parents get here. Before my lawyer gets here. Anyone willing to take some good pictures of me so I’ll have proof of what I look like before he gets his hands on me…uh…takes me away?”

Some were intimidated by who he was, but enough phones got lifted and pointed in our direction. I dropped to the floor, sat cross-legged while the phones kept recording.

“I’m not resisting arrest, Sheriff. I won’t fight. But I’m not helping you either. If you want me out of here, you’re going to have to drag me or carry me. And if you carry me, I better not feel your hands messing with my ass.” There was a tiny, tiny bark of laughter from one of our watchers, immediately suppressed.

If passive resistance was good enough for Gandhi, according to Professor Taylor last year, it was good enough for me.

I never got to find out how good it was. John Meyer, Jimmy Meyer, and Mrs. Meyer all showed up. I guess they decided it wouldn’t look good if the whole “loving” family didn’t come to the hospital. Mr. Meyer was in the lead.

He spotted me and ran toward me, yelling, “Sheriff! There’s the little faggot who hurt my boy. Why haven’t you arrested him?”

When he got to me, he lashed out with a steel-toed boot. Fuck shifter secrecy.

I used shifter strength and speed to roll away, twist, get my legs under me and stand up, somehow managing to restrain a sneer at his human ineptitude (notebook entry, check!) when the boot didn’t connect with my face or belly or somewhere else vulnerable.

He overbalanced, followed by his personal version of the well-known—at least to shifters—Stupid Human Balance Dance. The dance usually ends with the stupid human—most often male—flat on his face or his ass. I wasn’t so lucky. He recovered.

Poor Sheriff Powell. Getting old and slow. So slow he couldn’t stop Meyer from attacking me. I wondered if any of the phone cameras caught the fact I caught despite my rolling: the sheriff stepped aside enough to be sure he wasn’t in Meyer’s way.

Meyer might have started another lunge, but since the sheriff wasn’t acting I did. “Smile, Mr. Meyer.”

I gestured to all the people eagerly recording, including several who’d hesitated earlier. Perhaps they were now thinking of who they might sell the recording to, how much they might get. Surely this was all newsworthy: big, burly father of a maybe dying son, takes time out to go after short, slender fairy boy who may or may not have had public sex with the son, but probably did, because you know what fags are like—attacking with daddy’s heavy boots and swollen hands, the ones with bruises and abrasions on his knuckles.

I stood ready to move away if Meyer tried again but looked right at him. “Look nice for the cameras, Mr. Meyer. You, too, Jimmy. They want to get some good shots of the father and son who beat up a sixteen-year-old and threw him down some stairs.”

My words were followed by shocked gasps. What? Were they newcomers to the scene, or hadn’t they been listening? Pay attention, people! There will be a pop quiz later.

Maybe Mr. Meyer was heading for good old-fashioned apoplexy, what with the way his face turned such a bright red, and with the vein pulsing on his balding head.

“Sheriff! Are you gonna let that…that…”

“Faggot? Fairy? Queer? Cocksucker? Fudge-packer? C’mon, Mr. Meyer, you oughta be able to come up with a noun or two.”

He started another lunge, but the sheriff finally realized he was on the candid cameras as well. He stopped Meyer.

“Shut your mouth, Nelson,” the sheriff said.

“In a minute. Show us your hands, Mr. Meyer.” I gave him a singsong taunt. “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours. Hell, I’ll show mine first.”

I raised my arms, my sleeves sliding down. My long, slender white hands gleamed in the fluorescent lights and a couple of camera lights. I turned them slowly so everyone got a good look. Some dried blood from holding Johnny, but not a single break in my skin, no scrapes, no bruises, no battered knuckles, no spots showing blood which leaked from inside me.

“Anyone think these look like the hands of someone who recently beat his best friend to a bloody pulp and shoved him down some stairs? Anyone? Anyone?” I asked in my best “Bueller…Bueller” voice.

“How about you, Mr. Meyer? How about you showing—”

“Michael Paul Nelson, shut the fuck up!”

The booming voice which three-named me reverberated through the room and silenced not only me but everyone else as well. Paul Jamieson took a few steps into the room and took command of the space. A bear shifter who was a bear in human terms, too—six-seven, three hundred, mostly muscle, bearded, looking maybe forty with no grey flecks in his dark-brown hair—he was Dad’s best friend and my middle name was his. So three-naming me was one of his rights, though he didn’t often exercise it.

Dad and Mom, stepping around him so they could be seen, clearly approved of what he said.

I was safe. Not forever, but for now, and knowing I was safe, whatever Raven Princeness had been in me, real or imagined, drained away. Ignoring the audience, and the assholes who were a part of it, I didn’t give my folks any sixteen-year-old, don’t-embarrass-me-with-public-affection shit. I was grateful when they ignored shitty sheriffs, abusive fathers, cameras galore, and came right to me, enfolding me in a double hug.

I will deny to the end of my days there was even one sniffle. Paul continued taking control of the waiting room.

“Folks, I’m Paul Jamieson, the lawyer for the Nelson family.” All three of us hid smiles; Paul never had qualms about getting his name out, although he was so good, he’d never chased one ambulance and didn’t need to. “I’m pretty sure the show’s over, but you can keep right on recording if you want. God bless the First Amendment.”

He walked over to us, separated me from my folks, and gave me—what else?—a bear hug. The kind which warms a frightened-for-his-best-friend godson right to his bones. The kind which makes said bones creak and their raven owner remind the bear hugger in a whisper, “Bird bones, bird bones.”

I don’t know if anyone besides the four of us heard his softly sung, rumbling bass, “Bird bones, bird bones, dem bird bones, now hear the word of the law.”

We didn’t crack up, but all three of us felt at least a little tension drain away. Paul would never joke if something affecting any of us was dire.

He let me go and turned to the sheriff, his bulk blocking any view the sheriff might have wanted of me. “Are you going to charge my client—a boy driving a car which was a de facto ambulance in a possibly life and death situation—with anything?”

Paul was polite, and cold. The cold which can only be properly conveyed by a pissed-off savvy lawyer whose family—a real family though not by blood or law—had been attacked.

Everyone who was here earlier knew the sheriff wanted to. His face made it clear. But he had the sense to say he didn’t.

“With no charges being pressed, I assume you wish my client to make a statement?”

Sheriff Powell managed a nod.

“Then with your permission—” Everyone could see and hear Paul’s or without it “—we’ll follow you to your office. I’ll consult with my client on the way, and we’ll be ready to talk as soon as we get there.”

Paul didn’t wait for any agreement from the sheriff. He just shepherded the three of us out of the hospital and into the crisp air. “I need to talk to Mike alone.”

Mom and Dad knew what was what with real lawyers and not just TV ones. They both hugged me again and got in their car to follow us.

I told Paul everything, or rather, as much of everything as I could compress into the fairly short drive. The immediately important stuff was first: what happened from Johnny’s call to Paul’s arrival and his shutting me the fuck up. The background stuff. And though he would never have asked, I made sure he understood Johnny and I were best friends and nothing more. Johnny had no need to know about shifters, and he wouldn’t ever know.

We sat a moment in the parking lot, the soft classical music always on in Uncle Paul’s car washing over me, soothing me. Paul reached over and gave me the finger-and-thumb cheek squeeze he used to tease me and annoy me out of a mood. “Tell the sheriff everything, Mike. Just not how much you love Johnny.”

“Uncle Paul! You can’t think—”

A shoulder squeeze. “I know, boy. And yes, you’ll be a boy to me when you’re a hundred and twelve and strutting around being the Raven Prince. But humans, and these humans in particular, aren’t going to understand how a gay guy teenager can love another guy teenager without perversions and sex being involved. He’s your good friend, your best friend if you want, but he’s only a school friend. He’s not a boy you’ve ever invited to your home, and he hasn’t invited you to his.

“Friends, Mike, but not a hint you feel anything more than you would for anyone who was only an in-school friend. Whatever they know, or think they know, don’t make them a gift of any information—especially not how much you care.”

He was right, damn it. My sigh acknowledged it. “Yes, sir.”

He smirked at me. “That’s my good and obedient nephew.” He paused. “What a remarkable change from how I remember him. Can you say doppelgänger?”

I pronounced it for him, with the special middle-finger accent I could get away with only with him, and only in private.

We got out of the car, met Dad and Mom at the entrance, went inside.

The sheriff didn’t want my parents present, telling Paul, “Surely you are enough to protect the—” little fairy boy “—child’s rights.”

The way Paul didn’t look at me told me he was holding back an Airport “Don’t call me Shirley.” I managed not to snicker.

“I represent this young man, Sheriff, as a sixteen-year-old cannot normally enter into a binding contract, even for legal representation, although I would enjoy testing the theory under the doctrine of necessaries…” He let his voice deliberately trail away. “Well, perhaps some other time. Right now, his parents have the final decision. John, Linda…stay or go?”

My mother’s “Stay,” was firm. The kind you associate with the movability of a mountain range. The Himalayas, say.

The sheriff was down but not out and did his damnedest to trip me up, to make it appear I was guilty of something, anything, whether it was beating up Johnny, or speeding or erratic/reckless/wild/out-of-control driving, or drunk driving or drugged driving. Anything which would undercut my credibility when I said Johnny’s father and brother beat him.

Paul dealt summarily with the drunk driving charge by demanding one or more field sobriety tests be administered then and there, and over the objections of the sheriff they were done. I really liked the one about standing on one leg and then the other. Standing on one leg, with the other up under your feathers is relaxing, and while I probably wouldn’t have lasted as long in human shape as in shifted, I could have stood there without falling over for a much longer time than any human.

Paul’s only-to-me twinkle let me know he knew what I was thinking. I also blew mightily into a breathalyzer and passed.

Paul dealt with the erratic, reckless, etc., driving by asking me how fast I was driving. His only-to-me glare told me I better tell the truth.

“Um. A hundred. A little over. I, uh, wasn’t paying too much attention to the speedometer.”

There were joint huffs from my parents and I knew speeding would be a topic for later discussion, although I was fairly sure it would be along the lines of “Don’t—retroactively—scare us to death driving that fast, Michael Paul Nelson” followed by hugs rejoicing in my survival.

“Have you ever driven that fast before on city streets?” The last three words were added because, come on. Sixteen? Hot, hot, hot Mercedes convertible? Please.

And don’t try to tell me you wouldn’t have done the same. I dutifully and truthfully answered I had not.

When asked if I’d ever had to drive with an injured, unconscious, bleeding friend in the passenger seat who needed immediate medical attention, as any fool—even a teenager—could see, I dutifully and truthfully answered I had not.

“And your decision to speed?”

“Uh, well, I’m not a doctor. But I didn’t have to be one to know Johnny needed help and fast.”

He turned to the sheriff. “Don’t you think it likely, Sheriff, even if you file any of these driving charges, Rick will just dismiss them when they get to court? And refuse to refile?” The “Rick” was a not-too-subtle jab about Paul’s friendship, both professional and personal, with the city’s prosecutor.

That ended the difficulties. Those difficulties.

I said what I had to say, quietly, calmly, though I wanted to scream at all of them to get this fucking thing over so I could find out about Johnny.

My statement was recorded, subject to an agreement I would review and sign a transcription, with my signed, notarized version being the authoritative one. I told the truth, nearly all of the truth, and what I said was nothing but the truth…so help me a deity in which I didn’t believe.

At Paul’s insistence, “official” photographs were taken of me, mostly of my hands and wrists, front and back. But Paul also insisted on ample photographs of what I was wearing, and then he shocked me by telling me to take off my jacket and shirt.

I’m a shifter. We have no nudity taboo, so my folks had seen me far more bare than what Paul was telling me to do. He wanted a clear record there were no bruises, et cetera, hidden by my clothes, the kind of bruises et cetera I might have gotten from a fight with another teen my age. A stronger teen, trained to maneuver quickly, to defend himself, perhaps an athlete. Someone like Johnny, maybe?

When the photographs of me waist-up naked were done, I teased Paul by putting my hand to the button of my jeans, and tugging it almost open. They were tight jeans, and anyone reasonably astute in the room could figure out I was commando underneath them. Mom was more than reasonably astute and didn’t approve of flaunting. Dad and Uncle Paul were ditto in the astuteness department, but neither one cared. Uncle Paul might’ve winked a teasing approval.

The astuteness of officious official assholes? Who knew?

“Don’t you want to be sure Johnny didn’t kick or bruise my balls or anywhere else, while he was, uh, fighting me off? I could drop my jeans.” The words were said with all the innocence I could muster. I can rarely muster much innocence, and there wasn’t much mustered then.

All three of my loving blood and godson-style relatives started three-naming me at the same time: “Michael Paul—”

“Okay, okay. Just kidding.” I got dressed all the way again, and with only a shirt buttoned but left hanging—forget the tucking in, no way I was unbuttoning after such a cold reception to my innocent suggestion—and a jacket, it didn’t take long.

We left following the sheriff’s somewhat sullen agreement: (a) the transcription would be done the next day, (b) he would notify Paul when it was ready, and (c) any further communications with me were to be arranged solely through Paul. Mom and Dad imitated ventriloquist dummies and agreed to everything Paul said.

I cried all the way back to the hospital to get my car.

I cried all the way home with Dad’s hand on my shoulder—Dad who absolutely, positively, unequivocally, in the interest of safety, never drives with just one hand on the wheel—while Mom drove my car back.

I got my shit—or as Mom would say, my “act”—together as I walked into the house.

Somewhat. Sort of.

More hugs, more kisses, in a Goldilocks amount, and I went upstairs to bed.

I didn’t cry myself to sleep, but it was a near thing. What the fuck.

I lied.

I cried.