A New Beginning

Carl Fuller, the new 9th grader in class, begins the story of this teenage romance. Let's listen as he describes a very confusing and embarrassing day in his life. Oh, and by the way, if you are under 18 you shouldn't be reading this (because it may contain some naughty gay stuff). You don't want the thought police pounding on your door do ya? Anyway, Carl begins ...

I don't even realize I've been staring at him until he turns in his desk and looks towards me. I'm still kinda wrapped up in my fantasy about him and don't clue into the fact that I've been caught. I see his eyebrows droop into a kinda frown. I think ... 

"Eyebrows - wow - they arch so perfectly. Eyes - what a gorgeous dark blue. Eyes??? Oh my God ... he's looking back at me!"

I snap my head towards the front of the class so quick you'd think I'd have a severe case of whiplash. And then in my death throes - (the court hereby sentences you to death by embarrassment) - I slowly slide down in my desk. I don't stop scrunching until my knees bump up against the chair ahead of me. By now only my eyeballs and forehead are stickin' above the desk surface. This isn't a difficult feat because at four foot nine inches tall I'm by far the shortest guy in my class: a class which, by the way, is only one week new to me since I've just moved here from outa state. So, here I am, the new kid: scrawny, short, goofy looking with my dumbo ears, and now ... I've just 'outed' myself!

"Coach, take me out of the game. I don't wanna play anymore!" That's the first thing that flashes through my mind because that's something my old friend Chad and I would say to each other. We would laughingly say this when we wanted to be somewhere else. Chad ... oh God, how I miss my buddy. He's twelve, two years younger that me, and a little bit short for his age too. That means his little bit short and my really short kinda cancel each other out so we're the same height. He's a total brain and so, even though he's younger, I look up to him as the leader. That's another thing about me; I'm a definite follower: no leadership material here. And now he isn't here to give me advice. He isn't here to help dig me out of the holes I'm so good at fallin' into.

I'm so busy doing my pretzel imitation under my desk, that I haven't noticed that class has ended and nearly everyone has filed out the door - everyone, that is, except for one hunky lookin' dude that's kinda settled down onto one knee at the side of my desk. He's staring into my eyeballs - which are barely peering above my desk. I'm thinkin', "wow, what gorgeous eyes. Oh my God - it's HIM!"

The chair in front of me's empty now so it doesn't even slow down the progress of my continued slide below the desk. I hear this laughter erupt - a laugh that starts low in the throat and then ends with a sorta squeak. (If you've gone through puberty you know what I'm describing.)

"Hey, dude," the voice says - still chortling, "see if ya can spot the gum I stuck under that desk last year. I'll divvy it up with ya." And that sends him into another bout of laughter. 

By now he's talkin' to my cowlick cuz I'm indeed staring at the bottom of the desk. So I answer him ... 

"Um ... which one is yours - the Dentyne or the Double Bubble?" At this he really busts up and kinda falls onto his side in the aisle. That's when the booming voice of Mr. Clayborn, the math teacher, echoes ... 

"All right, you two: get your butts out into the hallway. You're going to be late to your last class of the day."

I don't know about you, but authoritative, adult voices get my immediate attention. Shoot, when you're a pygmy, every voice is intimidating. I swivel out from under the desk, grab my math book and I'm shooting down the aisle before the kid on the floor can even get to his feet. Besides, the easiest way to avoid embarrassment is to run like hell. "Take me out of the game coach!"

"Hey, new kid. Hey ...wait up!" 

Uh-uhh, buddy ... I'm gone! There's no way I'm gonna stick around and look at you face to face. Well, face to face if I had a stool to stand on. Cheeze, I'll bet the guy's at least five foot six. I'm so ashamed that he's caught me staring at him that I can feel the water works starting. It's bad enough to let him know I'm a perv without him seein' that I'm a cry-baby too. 

I'm probably thirty feet into the hallway by the time he reaches the door. "Hey ... hold on dude!" I glance back at him and see that he isn't gonna, like, chase me down or anything. So I just slow down, blend into the crowd, and wipe my traitorous eyes on my shirt sleeve. God ... what a baby! What a shrimpy, faggy baby!

I screw up the combination on my locker twice before I get it open. I just sorta toss in my math book thinking, "Shoot ... I'll bet Clayborn assigned some math homework and I was so spaced out I didn't get it. Oh well, I'll just answer all the questions at the end of the chapter and then I'll at least know I did the assigned ones. What the heck, it's Friday night. There's no school tomorrow. I got the whole weekend. It's not like I have a life here in Boise anyway. And I'm sure as heck not going to be making any friends here once that dude passes the word on me." I can hear him now, "Hey ... that new kid ... the pygmy - he was perving on me in Math class!"

Maybe Mom'll let me call Chad this weekend. I can tell him anything. Shoot, he even knows I'm gay. He's the one that's kept me from makin' a fool of myself up till now. He knows that when I'm stressed out I go into my head a lot. It's like I use fantasy to replace the world around me when that world has turned to doo-doo. I did that once when I was watching TV with Chad over at his house. He started talking to me but I was all spaced out, not paying attention. That's when he came up with "take me out of the game, coach. I don't wanna play anymore". The big problem is that, for the last nine or ten months, all my fantasies have been about sex. And they can't be about normal sex - you know, thoughts about boobs and twats ... oh, noo! I have to think about boys and their equipment and their cute rounded butt cheeks. 

It's a good thing my last class, History, is just a few feet from my locker. I grab my book and make it through the door just as the tardy bell rings. My desk is in the back row so I'm able to slip in just before the bell finishes ringing. "All right class... American revolution," our teacher says, in her screechy, fingernail-against-the-blackboard voice. "Now, who can tell me yadda yadda yadda..." and I've tuned myself out.

I'm caught up in my misery and don't need to add the American Revolution to it. Shoot, that would be double misery. All I can think about is that kid laughing at me - laughing at the pervert. I'm formulating a plan to help dig me out of the umpteenth hole I've dug for myself. There must be somethin' I can tell that cute guy in Math about why I was starring at him. How about ... 

"Ya look like a double for my beloved cousin that just died of leukemia," or ... 

"I was spacing out on somethin' outside the window and you just happened to be blocking my view". 

Crap ... why not say, "I just happened to notice how curly and cute your blond hair is". Or ... 

"I was merely wishin' that I could lick that beautiful dimple on your chin." 

Shoot, now I'm growin' a boner! If I was a farmer on a boner farm I'd have a record harvest for this year. I could use my dick to carry my book bag, it's hard so often! 

Well, at least I've stopped bawlin'. I wonder if the cute dude saw my weepy eyes when I glanced back at him in the hallway? I hope not: it would be just one more thing for him to tell his friends about me. And that he has plenty of friends I have no doubt in my mind. With that athletic looking body he's probably some kinda sports jock ... and they always have plenty of friends. At least he isn't a midget with mousy brown hair and a cowlick that sticks up like a turkey feather. And he doesn't have ears that look like radar cones. Once, I tried to grow my hair out enough to cover my dumbo ears, but that's a lost cause. Nuts ... why to they have to stick out like that? Add plain old brown eyes to the mix and a billion nose freckles and what do you have? What you have is Opie - the little kid from the Andy Griffith show! Then there's the real kicker ... are you ready for this? My boner is the same length and thickness as your middle finger! Yeah, that's right: if I dropped trou in front of you I'd be giving you the finger with my dick! I popped a boner in class in my old school and didn't get it covered in time before this one kid saw it. He pointed at it and said, just as loud as he could ... 

"Look ... it's Carl the bug fucker"! 

Now how the heck do ya live that down, I ask ya? You don't! My new nickname for the last three months before I moved was 'bug fucker'. Or, when they really wanted to get my goat, it was 'Opie' the bug fucker. It was another kid that pointed out how I resembled Ron Howard from the Andy Griffith show. At least Ron Howard grew up to be a fairly tall, good looking dude. Course, he's bald as a cue ball. Shoot ... that's probably one more thing that fate has is store for me. 

I'm ready to get out the little hats and noisemakers for my pity party when the bell rings. Thank God: the last class. Thus endeth my first week of class at my new school. As the frog on the poster in my bedroom says ...

"I'm so happy here I could just shit!"

I'm feeling closer to normal now as I snap open my locker. There's a lotta bustle and loud talking and laughing all around me. Friday, school's over, and the hallway is full of happy kids. It feels kinda infectious so I'm even half way smilin' as I gather up my homework stuff and slip it into my book bag. Actually my book bag is the gym bag I had from my old school. I'm glad we don't haf'ta dress out for gym here cuz I don't wanna hear bug fucker again. I'm just thinkin' about how I'm gonna have to get Mom to take me shoppin' for a new backpack this weekend. Somehow I lost my old one when we moved. I don't really have all that far to walk home with my books, just three blocks, but I don't like using my geeky, old, laundry bag. I like to blend in with the crowd just as much as any kid. No sense asking for trouble.

I'm actually feelin' pretty good as I step outside into the bright sunlight. Kids are sweeping by me, dashing for the bike rack or towards the buses lined up in front of the school. As I walk down the steps of the building I glance ahead of me at the walkway. In the center of the walkway there's a circular brick planter with our flag pole stuck in the center of it. I stop at the bottom of the steps and just stare, sort of slack jawed, at that planter. Sitting on the darn thing, watching all the kids as they walk out, is the guy from math class! His head's swivelin' back and forth. It's obvious he's lookin' for someone and wants to make darn good and sure he doesn't miss whoever that someone is. The scary thing, the thing that instantly dries out my mouth and makes my heart beat against my eardrums, is the certain thought that I'm the someone he's lookin' for!

Have you ever had a million thoughts run through your mind in just a few seconds? They say that when a person is about to die that their entire life flashes through their minds. Well, I'm quite certain that whatever's about to happen isn't gonna end in my death, but I'm still tryin' to think of any way possible to avoid this meeting that's gonna get me 'outed' in front of the whole darn school. My sneaking-away plans are blown when I see his head swivel in my direction and his eyes lock right onto me. His head stops swivelin' and I know he's just spied the person he's looking for. Yep ... I'm the someone, all right!

A little voice in my head just sorta sighs and says ... "Fuck it, dude, ya might as well get it over with." Now, I know I must be upset because I almost never use the 'f' word, not even in my head. Oh, I'll sometimes say 'shit', or 'damn', or 'Jesus' ... but the 'f' word just isn't in my vocabulary yet. Actually, I think people who use that particular word are kinda ignorant. They fit right up there with the people that say 'nigger' or 'queer'. Course that's just the way my Mom describes them too ... ignorant. Guess the parental influence does rub off, eh? 

I feel my feet sorta plod along in his direction. His eyes never leave mine. His face has a kinda neutral expression so I'm not sure if I'm gonna get smacked or just yelled at. I stop about three feet in front of him and just sorta lower my book bag down by my feet. By this time I'm looking at the ground in between his legs. I'm feelin' kinda numb and dead inside. I just wanna get this over with so I can go on home and feel numb and dead in a place a little more comfortable and a lot less public.

I hear him clear his throat - a sorta 'huhhmmm'. Next I hear a sorta sigh and then what sounds like a choking sound. None of this sounds consistent with what I expect to be hearing and so I dare to glance up towards his face. What I see just kinda shocks me to my roots! His face ... that handsome, gorgeous face ... is kinda screwed up like he's tryin' really hard to keep his emotions in check. I don't mean angry, screaming at me, really pissed off type of emotions, either. He looks like he's just a few seconds away from bawlin'. I think,"What the fuck have you done to him, Carl?" I didn't simply get this guy angry from perving at him: what I've done is to really hurt him on some deep, emotional level. Maybe he's had some tumultuous problem with a gay person before or maybe he's being molested at home or somethin'. Oh shit ... oh fuck! I am such a horrible creep! Here is a guy I would give my left nut just to cuddle up to and instead I've torn his heart out! I'm wishing he'd scream at me ... call me a filthy, fairy faggot at the top of his lungs or start punching on me: anything but this. I feel my own waterworks start to give way.

Is Carl a creep? We don't think so, do we? Confused, upset, a little bonkers maybe. Anyway, all this is from poor little Carl's point of view. Let's go on to the next chapter and see if we can get a little clarification from someone else.