Unexpected Love (BOYXBOY)

chapter 6

The night of the big show, on the Sunday before Thanksgiving, was now less than a week away. There was still no communication from Ryan, and I hadn't spoken with Mikey again since that one afternoon in the auditorium, except for the occasional casual greeting in the hallway. In this case, I wasn't so sure that no news was good news. The void in my heart was growing larger, my sense of loneliness even more profound.

Being ignored by Ryan for well over a month, the increased beatings at home, and the bullying from Trent Lomax had all taken a serious toll on me. I was basically just an empty shell walking around the hallways at school. I hardly even flinched anymore when my mother decided I was in need of a good hiding. I was losing all feeling. The only thing that kept me going at this point was fulfilling my promise to Ryan about performing at the talent contest. He might not want to talk to me or be friends with me anymore, but I was still going to keep my word to him, no matter what.

On the home front, the only change was that "The Lumberjack" had left. Whether he dumped my mother or vice versa, I didn't know nor did I care. Just two days later, there was a new man visiting our trailer regularly. Surprisingly, at the beginning, he was actually somewhat decent to me. He even told me his name -- Krull. I wasn't quite sure about what kind of name that was, but given his bizarre (and somewhat scary) appearance, I wasn't about to ask. I was just glad he didn't call me "You Little Shit" or "Boy." Instead, I got the distinct honor of being referred to as "Dude" (when he spoke to me at all, that is, which wasn't too often). 

He looked to be about in his mid-twenties, tall, lanky, with long, dark brown hair. He had tattoos all over his arms, piercings in his ears, nose, tongue, and lips, as well as an awful-looking mustache and goatee. To me, he looked like a reject from a bad punk rock band. After I met him for the first time, my mother even spoke to me, threatening that I'd better be nice to this one because he was "hung like a horse." I figured that if I happened to walk in on them doing it, though, it wouldn't be nearly as disgusting as the image of the fat, hairy "Lumberjack" panting, sweating, and heaving over my mother. Despite the oddness of his attire, Krull actually wasn't that bad looking.

As the end of November drew nearer, the weather became colder and colder, and it rained or snowed many days, with the temperature rarely rising above forty degrees. The inside of the trailer was barely warmer than the air outside. We only had one small space heater, and that was kept in my mother's room. The times that she was actually at home, that is where she usually stayed.

I was freezing my balls off, though, and the blankets I had hardly kept me warm enough at night. I hoped that it wouldn't be a long winter. At least the school was heated, but in about a week, when our Thanksgiving break started, I would be out of school from Wednesday until the following Monday, so I wouldn't get to experience the luxury of heat. 

Back when Ryan and I were still on speaking terms, I had even fantasized about getting to spend the Thanksgiving holiday with him and his family. Celebrating Thanksgiving was something I'd only heard about in school. My mother never cooked anything, much less a Thanksgiving dinner. Her way of celebrating was usually smoking an extra pipe full of crack that day. But now, my little fantasy about spending the long holiday weekend with Ryan and his family was about as likely to come true as my mother suddenly deciding to get sober and finding a nice, rich doctor to marry and settle down with.

The other thing that was going to totally suck about the Thanksgiving holiday was that I didn't have to go to work the entire week, so I wouldn't get the only temporary respite I had from my own personal little hell.

Part of me wished that I didn't have to work the prior week, because that meant that I had to do three shows in less than seven days, two at the pub on Wednesday and Friday evenings, and the talent contest on Sunday evening. That would put a strain on my voice, and I couldn't tone it down for my shows at work, because when it came to performing, I could never do a half-assed job. It was either all or nothing. Nevertheless, doing those shows prior to the talent contest gave me an opportunity to test out the songs I'd been working on in front of an audience. On Wednesday night, I added "Pinball Wizard" as the final song during my show at the bar. It was the only rocker I played that night, with the rest of the set being the typically depressing type of music that I'd been playing since the "incident."