Home Run

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  home run

  By Cole Bates

  Copyright © 2016

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter One

  Alex

  “Alex you’re not finished with those props yet?” Mr. Lane, my high school drama coach asked as he wandered through the presentation center turning off lights. He turned off the stage lights before he saw me and flipped them back on.

  “Hey, Mr. Lane. I’m almost finished. The paint job on these rocks is just really sloppy. I was trying to fix them up a little bit.”

  He raised an eyebrow and smiled. “You’re one of the stars of the production and you’re worried about what the rocks look like. You are quite the perfectionist, aren’t you?” he shook his head and said, “Lock up on your way out.”

  I had been some part of every production the drama club has put on since freshman year. I was a senior now so Mr. Lane knew full well that I was a perfectionist. Sometimes I think it drives him crazy but on opening night he’s always thankful for me. “I will,” I told him. I watched him go and went back to sanding the paint that had dripped down the side of the “rock” that we were using for the production of The Crucible we were doing. The play wasn’t for a few months, but like the man said, I am a perfectionist. I honestly doubted that the drips would be visible to anyone in the audience if the truth be told, but I also had another reason for dawdling on the PC. Baseball practice lets out around three-thirty and it was now about three twenty-five. I didn’t want to be anywhere in the vicinity of the locker room when those guys came out.

  My mother and I have lived in the same relatively small community my whole life and I’ve gone to school with the same people since kindergarten. I hated it for the most part. I got through it by telling myself that I only had to get through the rest of my senior year and I’d be off to New York on a theater scholarship. I’d already been accepted to one of the best drama schools in the nation, I turned eighteen last month and life was looking better by the day. I wanted to serve out the rest of my time in this town in relative peace and running into the baseball team was never conducive to that. These guys are the biggest collection of jerks in the junior and senior class. They’ve bullied me in one way or another for most of my life simply because I was smaller and weaker than the rest of them. Then my freshman year something happened that changed the simple bullying into outright torture.

  I had just finished with P.E. which I hate. Our P.E. teacher had made us run two miles and said that we couldn’t hit the showers until we’d completed it no matter how long it took. Needless to say, it took me a lot longer than it did most of the guys in my class. Since I hated to shower with the other guys, that actually worked out for me, or so I thought. By the time I got to the locker room everyone had taken their shower already and were in varying states of dress. I kept my head down and headed for the shower, hoping nobody would notice me. I made it into the shower and I was almost finished when suddenly I turned around and saw a freaking God step underneath the shower across from me. I’d never seen this guy before and he had the kind of body real men would kill for and men like me itched to touch. I was staring at him and I didn’t even realize it until he suddenly turned and faced me. He had these deep blue eyes that went straight through me and again it was several seconds before I realized that I hadn’t looked away. I saw his eyes fall to my waist and that’s when I realized my mistake…too late. I had a raging hard on and Adonis had a soft dick. A huge soft dick.

  “Are you gay?” He said it so casually and quietly. It wasn’t like he was making fun of me or challenging me or trying to embarrass me. It seemed like a simple question. I’d never told anyone other than my mother that I liked boys, but for some reason, those blue eyes destroyed all of my filters and I said,

  “Yeah, I am.”

  The volume of his voice went up so loud that everyone in the locker room could hear him as he said, “Fucking faggot!”

  I felt not just my face go hot but my whole body. I’m sure I was as red as a tomato from head to toe. I quickly turned off the water spray and grabbed my towel. Before I could reach it Scott Graves, one of the biggest bullies in school grabbed it off of the rack and held it up just out of my reach. “Look, Mason, you made his little dick hard.” Apparently, Mason was the hot guy with the blue eyes. I’d find out later on that he was a new transfer, a sophomore, and a star baseball player. That day all I found out about Mason was that he was a homophobic asshole.

  “Give me my towel, Scott.”

  Scott didn’t give me my towel. Instead, he loudly called over his shoulder, “Hey guys come look at the little gay boy’s hard dick.”

  “Maybe I’m not the only gay one here if you all want to look at my dick,” I said, sarcastically. I’m not sure of the exact order of events after that probably because of the concussion. My P.E. teacher found me unconscious in the shower and I was taken to the E.R. My mother showed up, hysterical and demanded that the school take action. I pretended not to remember who was in the locker room before all of this happened, but Mom made a lot of noise and our teacher ended up giving the Principal a list and the guys on that list got suspended for a week each. Two of them were on the baseball team and had to sit out the most important game of their season and they lost. That loss kept them from going to state that year. Mom reporting them was the worst thing she could have ever done, but I didn’t blame her for it. I blamed m
yself. After that, I promised myself that I’d never get Mom involved again no matter what. I got good at hiding bruises and even better at running and avoiding them altogether. I didn’t lie to her about most things but she couldn’t stand for me to get hurt so it was a lie that saved her a lot of angst. So today I was stalling until the baseball dudes were in their cars and on their way home, far away from me and there would be no bruises to hide and no lies to tell.

  I finished the rocks and pushed them backstage before sweeping and mopping up my mess on the stage. Then at last when it was just about four, I grabbed my backpack and shut off the lights and locked the door on my way out. Things looked quiet and I was breathing a sigh of relief when I heard Michael Pence’s voice behind me. “Hey, pretty penny, where you going?”

  I’m about five foot ten and thin as a rail. It doesn’t matter what I do, I can’t gain weight. My hair isn’t quite red but it’s not quite brown either, it’s kind of copper like a penny and no matter how hard I try to do something with it, it hangs down across my brown eyes. Pence has called me Pretty Penny since I came back to school after the locker room incident. My “secret” was out then and the whole school knew I was gay so it caught on fast. I tried to ignore them and walked faster. I heard a low whistle and more voices and I knew most of the assholes were out of the locker room and behind me now. If I live to be a hundred I will never understand the thrill they get out of taunting someone this way. My heart is racing and I’m sweating and all I want to do is mind my own fucking business. How could it be fun to do that to someone?

  “Look at him shake that ass. I think that’s for you Scott.” I’m not sure whose voice that was but I recognized Scott Grave’s voice. It was a voice I heard in most of my nightmares.

  “Fucking faggot! You better run gay boy…” I wasn’t going to run. I was going to keep walking and probably take a beating, but I’ll be damned if I was going to run from the assholes.

  “Shit Scott, it’s Mr. Fielding!” Mr. Fielding is our school counselor. He’s got a whole campaign going against bullying and he’d suspend them on the spot if he caught them. I walked out the side gate and heard them all scrambling to their cars behind me. I was just breathing a sigh of relief when I felt the meaty hand on my shoulder. I turned around expecting a fist and instead I was confronted by the dark green eyes of my step-brother, Ryan.

  “Hey, let me give you a ride home.” I know full well he was standing there behind all of those assholes as they tormented me. I also know that if Fielding hadn’t come along he would have stood by while they stole my backpack or stripped off my clothes or simply beat me up…whatever their plan for “fun” had been this afternoon. I’ll be damned if I was going act like we were friends.

  I jerked out of his grasp and as I walked away from him I said, “I’d rather walk.”

  “Alex they won’t mess with you if you’re with me.”

  I stopped and turned on him. “Like you fucking care. They mess with me all the time and you don’t do shit about it. You’re as bad as they are…or you don’t have any balls, I’m not sure which. You’re such a big man yet you can’t even stand up for your own family. Guess what Ryan a “real” man would stand up for his family no matter what.” I left him standing there and walked away. A few minutes later I watched as his blue Camaro drove by on the street. I thought about flipping him off but I didn’t. I was just fuming at him acting like he gave a shit when we both know he doesn’t. Family, blood or not, should mean family. Ryan was one more reason I wanted this year to be over.

  As I walked home I thought about the night my mother told me she’d gotten engaged. She was so happy. The stress that sometimes lined her face with age was gone and she looked lighter than I’d seen her look in years. It had been Mom and me against the world since I was five years old and my old man split. I don’t remember him well but Mom said he was an alcoholic and a womanizer and we were better off without him. He never came around or tried to make contact with me at all, but Mom was so good at filling both roles that I never felt like I was cheated the way some kids without a father did. We had a good life but she did a good job of hiding her struggles from me. I only saw them every once in a while with a new grey hair on her head or a new line around her eyes.

  Mom worked as the head chef in a restaurant and didn’t date at all that I know of until I got into high school. I was near the end of my sophomore year when she told me that she’d met someone at one of the school functions no less. His name was Marty. Mom didn’t talk about him a lot but I think that was my fault. For one thing, I was happy for her but at the same time, I was jealous of the time he took away from me and her. I also had a lot going on. That summer I’d gone to a theater camp in California. I stayed with my grandparents and when I called home the conversations were mostly about me. My junior year was a blur of dodging the bullies and working my ass off to get the grades so that I could get that scholarship. I was also in two major productions and I was president of the drama club. I didn’t go to parties or have many friends like most teenagers, but I was typical in the sense that I was self-absorbed and only really came outside of myself when I had to.

  What I did know about Marty was that he was a former professional baseball player that had to retire early because of a knee injury. She also told me that he’d been widowed when he was in his thirties. I also knew he had a son. I’m sure she told me a lot more than that, but a lot of the time I was probably focused on myself and not really listening. I met Marty once when he came to pick her up but for the most part she didn’t try to force me to be any part of it and I didn’t volunteer. That was until the night she came home on top of the world and showed me the rock she was wearing on the finger of her left hand. It was the end of my junior year and she’d been dating Marty for a little over a year. “He asked me to marry him, honey! I said yes!” I’d stared at the ring for a long time and then at Mom. She dropped down next to me on the couch and said, “Please be happy for me. I’m so happy baby.”

  That was the moment when I put my arms around her and told her that of course, I was happy for her, and I was. I’m not a huge fan of change so I knew it would take some getting used to. But I had one year of school left and since my mother had put up with me for almost eighteen years, I could sure as hell put up with her new husband living with us the last year I was at home. “I’m happy for you, Mom. When’s the big day?”

  “Well since this is your last year in school and his son’s too we thought we’d get married over the summer so it didn’t interfere with anything either of you are involved with your senior year.”

  “His son is a senior too? Where does he go to school?” I really couldn’t believe I hadn’t asked her that before. I feel ashamed of how selfish I am sometimes. I was only just discovering that my mother was more than just my mother, she was a real person in her own right.

  She laughed. “He goes to your school, I told you that.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t remember. What’s his name?”

  “Ryan. He’s a baseball player like his dad.” She must have noticed the look on my face then because she said, “Oh honey I know you don’t much like the jocks but you’ll give him a chance for me, right? I’d really love it if you and Marty’s son could be friends.”

  “What’s Marty’s last name?”

  “Alex! Marty and I have been dating for a year.”

  “I really don’t remember you saying.”

  “It’s Reed.” My whole world had come crashing down at that moment. The idea that my mother was a person too went right out the window. I begged her then not to marry Marty. I told her she’d be ruining my life. I told her that Ryan Reed was one of the biggest assholes in the senior class and living with him would make all of our lives miserable. I didn’t tell her that for whatever reason I was also completely infatuated with him. I’d chastised myself about it a million times. A nice body and a pair of jade green eyes does not make a good man. It was actually part of his problem. He was drop-dead gorgeous
and he could swing a bat. Therefore he thought of himself as some kind of God that was above the little people…like me.

  Mom and I were both in tears by the end of that night and the next morning when I got up and noticed that her eyes were still red and puffy and the ring was gone from her finger I wanted to be happy. Instead, the guilt assaulted me and I fell apart again. I knew I was being a spoiled brat. My mother deserved to be happy and if I loved her as much as I professed to then I couldn’t stand in the way of that happening for her. I told her that and we talked and cried again for hours. Ultimately she married Marty and Ryan and I have been living in the same house for six months. His father must have laid down the law to him because at home things had been decent. We didn’t talk to each other unless we had to and we were far from friends, but we learned how to co-exist. At school he still hung out with the same assholes that tormented me but rather than take a direct part in it now, he just stood back and watched, which in my opinion was just as bad. I would guess the only reason he did that was so if they took it too far and his dad found out about it, he could honestly say he wasn’t involved.

  Chapter Two

  Ryan

  I drove home feeling like shit. I hated that look on Alex’s face when he told me that I didn’t care about him. He had no idea how wrong he was about that. But what was I supposed to do? I’d been friends with these guys since I was five years old and some of them I’d even gone to pre-school with before that. Was I supposed to suddenly walk away from everything I’ve ever known? Baseball is all I’ve ever known. Baseball was all my dad ever talked about. My mother died when I was little and it was just me and my dad. He taught me that the most inspiring sound in the world was the pulse-pounding, adrenaline surging crack of a bat. The roar of the crowd behind it and the feeling it gave you to watch that ball soar across that diamond toward that fence while you hold your breath and pray for a home run. That was my whole life. I was born with it in my blood. My nursery was decorated with baseballs and toy bats and pictures of beat up leather gloves that had caught thousands of balls. The hallways of my house held pictures of my larger than life father in his baseball jersey and cases of trophies that he had won. When I was five years old he started a case for me and he gave me a wall. The last spot on that wall was reserved for the first photo I have taken in the MLB uniform that we both knew I’d wear someday. It was my life and that meant my team and my coach and everything that went along with all of that had to be my life as well. I worked out hard. I took care of my body and I bonded with my teammates and we encouraged each other and we learned from each other and the fact that I had a gay step-brother shouldn’t change something that has been my life for eighteen years, should it?