“Hey, Bro,” Pontius called, rushing up to Gideon’s locker at the Riverpointe Christian Academy in Charleston.
“Hey, yourself.” Gideon was a bit suspicious: his younger brother rarely talked to him at school. Sometimes he didn’t even accept a ride home, preferring to call one of the Gemstone drivers to avoid being seen with a “glee club nerd.” An odd insult, since Gideon didn’t belong to Glee Club.
“Are you staying after for gymnastics?”
“No, that’s on Tuesday and Thursday. Why, what do you need?”
“Well, a ride home.”
“Why – the drivers are both busy, and your pogo stick’s in the shop?”
Pontius smiled, either not noticing the dig at his age, or too invested in whatever he wanted to care. “And can we stop for pizza on the way?”
This was really suspicious -- Pontius never invited him to go anywhere. Maybe the age difference was too great for them to really be friends – Gideon was in eleventh grade, with a girlfriend and college plans, while Pontius in eighth grade still played with toys. Maybe they didn’t have much in common – Gideon was into gymnastics and acrobatics (he loved tumbling with Uncle Kelvin at the Gemstone Teen Center), while Pontius was into…well, hanging out with his buds and telling dirty jokes. Or maybe they just didn’t like each other. He must want a big favor, Gideon thought.
They climbed into the Lexus that Granddad Eli gave him for his sixteenth birthday and drove down to Famulari’s, the go-to pizza place for all of the Gemstones, probably because the delivery guys didn’t mind driving ten miles out to the Compound. The moment they sat down, Pontius said, "Ok, here’s the thing. I want to have a sleepover Friday night, and you have to come."
"No way, José! 16-year olds do not go to slumber parties.”
“You used to like them.”
“Sure, and I used to like Battlebots, too. I grew up.”
From his 10th birthday until last year, when he graduated to the high school building at the Academy, Gideon and Pontius hosted sleepovers at least once a month. They each invited two or three boys, plus their younger brother Abraham by default. They spent the night playing video games, watching tv, eating snacks, and bragging about how late they were staying up. Then they bedded down in the Kid Guest Room, Pontius and Abraham on the top bunk, Gideon and another boy “on the bottom,” and the rest in sleeping bags. Gideon always took awhile to choose his bed partner: not necessarily his best friend. Maybe even one of Pontius’s friends, if he was cute.
How did I know which boys were cute? Gideon thought, surprised by the memory. Why did I care?
"We haven't had one for a long time!" Pontus protested. "And Mom says I can't have one by myself – you have to be there, too."
The waiter came – a rather chunky, sandy-haired guy from Gideon’s Biblical History class – and they ordered their usual bacon-cheeseburger pizza (sometimes Mom and Dad called for something “healthy,” and they had to scour the menu for healthy toppings. What kind of pizza topping was healthy?).
“What will my friends say if they find out I went to a sleepover with a bunch of eighth grade dorks? What will my girlfriend say?” He and Katie had only been dating for three weeks, but Gideon mentioned her every chance he got. “Katie likes lima beans. Katie’s aunt lives in Belgium. Katie’s favorite Harry Potter character is…”
"They won't all be dorks," Pontius said. "How about if you can invite some of your friends. Whoever you want.”
"As if! My friends are way too cool for sleepovers!”
"Well, maybe not one of your friends, just guys that you like. You know, want to spend time with, like the guys that Uncle Kelvin hangs out with”
Gideon felt the anger rising. “I do not want to spend time with guys like that, Jackass! Uncle Kelvin is gay, and I have a girlfriend!”
Pontius laughed. “You dummy, no way is Uncle Kelvin a homo!”
“How do you know?”
“Number One, he’s got muscles. Number Two: he works with kids…”
“You’re an idiot. Gay guys have muscles sometimes, and they can work with kids like anybody else.”
Pontius sneered. “Number Three, he never brings a little fruity friend to the family dinner….”
“Maybe he’s afraid to bring a boyfriend around. Granddad Eli might kick him out of the church.”
“Number Four: He doesn’t live in California,” Pontius said with a flourish, as if that was a definitive argument. “Why do you want Uncle Kelvin to be gay so much? Are you in love with him? Do you want to, like, hug and kiss?”
“Dude, that’s my uncle!” Gideon said, disgusted.
“Ok, so if he wasn’t your uncle, you’d be all into him.” He made pucker sounds. “Oh, Thweetie, your muscles are so big! Kiss me again!”
“You’d better stop talking trash about me if you want me to come to your darn sleepover.”
“Ok, ok, sorry…Thweetie.” He giggled. “Now pick two guys that you want to invite. Somebody you want to spend time with.”
More after the break
“Someone you want to spend time with” made sense to Gideon. Maybe a guy who was a little standoffish at school, or constantly involved with his own clique. This could be his chance to break through and make a friend.
"Ok, let’s go for it. For my first boy I pick Derek from Gemstone Teen Time.” A tall, blond 10th grader with a round angelic face. For some reason he went to public school, not the Academy. When he got the lead in the drama club production of Oklahoma last fall, Gideon made his Mom and Dad and brothers all go to see him, but they didn’t hang out afterwards.
"No problemo. Derek and me are tight." He paused. "So...who's the second boy?"
“Manny,” he said without thinking. Then he wondered why. Manny, real name Maurice, was nearly a year older than Gideon, but in the same grade, with a tight, muscular physique, short hair, and a perpetual sneer. His parents sent him to Riverpointe Academy after he was suspended from public school for breaking into a teacher’s car. He made loud, irreverent remarks during Bible class, and skipped chapel altogether to smoke behind the gym – cigarettes and pot. He drew fake tattoos on himself and claimed that they were real. Once a perv tried to grab him in the woods, and he bit the guy’s finger off! Once he stole a police car and drove it for ten blocks before they caught him! A scary yet exciting bad boy.
“You’re crazy!” Pontius exclaimed. “No way will Mom let you invite Manny.”
"She will if I say we're going to witness to him."
“You tried witnessing before. He stuck around through 20 minutes of Teen Time, said he didn’t want to hear any more ‘fairy tales,’ called Uncle Kelvin a ‘bitch,’ and left.”
“Too bad. Derek and Manny both have to say yes, or no sleepover.” Gideon wasn’t sure if he wanted to Pontius to cancel the sleepover, or if he really wanted to spend time with Manny…and Derek too, of course.
Surprisingly, Mom agreed to the “witnessing” idea, and both Derek and Manny agreed to come. But adding a juvenile delinquent to a sleepover full of Christian boys changed the dynamic.
In between video games, they listened to Manny play his guitar and sing (badly): I'm a rock star. / All the babes are wild to get in my car/ But I say no way, I’m too cool/ I hang with my main man after school.
Instead of playing pingpong and foosball, they lit up the back yard barbecue and roasted marshmallows and melted army guy toys:
"Make America great again!” Manny yelled. “Melt a terrorist!”
At snack time, Manny mixed up Coke, Sprite, and red Kool-Aid. "This is the real stuff!" he said. "It will get you higher than a kite, if you're man enough to drink it!"
It tasted awful.
Finally it was time for bed.
“Me and my main bro Abraham on top!” Pontius exclaimed. “Gideon on the bottom. Who are you sharing with, Dude?”
“What?”
“You got to pick somebody to share the bottom bunk,” Pontius said slowly, as if he were a child. “The rest of you dorks have to cry and wish you were cool enough to sleep with a Gemstone.”
“Right. Of course I know that.” He began breathing heavily; his palms got all clammy with sweat. Why was this decision making him so nervous? He had done this a hundred times before.”
The other boys must have noticed his indecision. "I'll take the floor, no problemo," Manny said. "Nothing’s too hard for me. I slept on the ground when I was running from my Mom and Dad. They wanted to send me Christian summer camp with a bunch of dorks."
“No, it’s ok,” Gideon found himself saying. “You can share the bottom bunk with me.”
Manny smiled. “Just so you know, I don't like pajamas. I need room to move around, so I sleep nekkid. That won't bother you, will it?"
Yes, it would bother him! A naked guy in his bed, sleeping so close together that they might touch – body parts. How could it not bother him?
But he couldn’t let his brothers and their friends know. "I hate pajamas too.”
“Even the ones with pictures of Jace Norman and Captain Mann?” Pontius asked from the top bunk.
“I do not watch Henry Danger!" He looked at Manny. “I don’t watch Nickelodeon. He’s just riding me.”
Manny stripped down to his underwear – he was just kidding about sleeping naked – and climbed into the bed, his hard, thick biceps and shoulders above the covers He patted Gideon’s side. “You scared of bunk beds or somethin’?” Gideon reluctantly stripped down to his underwear, hung a bathrobe on the side of the bunk, and climbed in beside him. He closed his eyes, but he still sensed Manny’s body, a heavy warm presence just a few inches away.
“Hey, Gideon, you ever been to California?”
A weird question to ask at bedtime. “No. Dad says that it’s full of atheists and druggies and…” And Pontius said that Uncle Kelvin wasn’t gay because he didn’t live in California.
“Yeah, dude, my kind of place. The minute I graduate, I’m kissing this dump goodbye and heading out to L.A. Gonna play my guitar for movie stars.”
“I’ll probably go to college. USC, or maybe Emory in Atlanta. Mom and Dad want me to major in religion and become a preacher.”
“Naw, naw, preaching sucks, man. You should come to California with me. We can hang in Hollywood…”
“Sure, maybe.”
They didn’t say anything else. Manny turned around to face Gideon, and began to snore. Now Manny’s breath was warm against his shoulders, so he shifted…whoops, against his face! He lay on his back. The other guys were sleeping peacefully, but Gideon lay there, staring at the bunk above him and checking the time on his cell phone every few minutes. 11:30. 11:41. 11.53.
Manny shifted positions again and brushed his leg against Gideon’s. He pushed it away. Why was he trembling?
Uncle Kelvin invited guys to spend the night all the time. But he was gay. He liked to hug and kiss them, and do sex stuff.
Ulp…now Gideon was imagining Uncle Kelvin hugging and kissing a guy! What did gay guys do in bed, anyhow? It wouldn’t hurt to look it up, for research purposes – no, he didn’t want “gay sex” showing up in his browser cache, in case Mom or Dad or Pontius checked. Maybe he could figure it out logically. If he was gay, what would he want to do with Manny? Kiss him, of course, then feel his chest…then move down...
He jumped out of the bunk, grabbed his bathrobe, and flew out the door. A glass of milk would calm him down. If Mom or Dad appeared, he could say he had an upset stomach.
After a few sips in the darkened kitchen, he pulled his cell phone from his robe and pulled up Uncle Kelvin on his list of contacts.
No way could he text! It was the middle of the night – Uncle Kelvin was probably in the middle of sex stuff with a guy. Maybe a muscular bad boy like…Besides, what could he say? “ I think I might be…”
What if he was? Mom would cry and complain that now she would never have grandchildren. Dad would go overboard in the other direction, buying him books on gay sex and setting him up with his friends’ sons. Well, Matthew’s son was sort of cute. And Uncle Kelvin – what if the guys he brought over were just friends, and he wasn't gay at all? He might kick Gideon out of Teen Time. No more tumbling….
Gideon dumped the rest of his milk into the sink and climbed the stairs to his own room – a wing away from Manny. He got into bed, turned on his laptop , and typed into the web browser: “How do you know if you’re g……”
No! He had a girlfriend! He mentioned her twenty times a day, so they must be in love, right? Even if he hadn’t thought about her once since the sleepover began. "How do you know you're bi..."
A knock on the door! He slapped the lid shut.
“Uh…come in?”
Manny took a few steps into the room. Still in his underwear! Didn’t the guy own a bathrobe? “Here you are! First I thought you were in the can, then I thought you were getting a snack, but it turns out you ditched me. Not cool, dude. Did I make you mad?”
“Oh, no, you’re great,” Gideon said quickly. “It’s just that…you know, six snoring kids. It was like a lumberjack contest in there.”
“Yeah, it was pretty loud.” He hesitated. “So…um…instead of going back into that racket, can I sleep with you?”
Gideon stared at him.
“Never mind, dude…I like the snoring. Reminds me of juvie, except I don’t have to worry about somebody stealing my stuff.”
“No, it’s ok. Come on in.”
Manny slid into the bed next to him. “Thanks. You want a goodnight kiss?”
"Wanna hang after Teen Time tomorrow night? We could play video games or something, and kiss some more."
"That'd be cool."
Gideon reached over without thinking and wrapped his arm around Manny's chest. Manny slid closer and took his hand. When he woke up in the morning, they were still holding hands.
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