Boys Don't Cry (21 page)

And Adam wasn’t moving.

Paul jumped to his feet. ‘Josh, stop. He’s had enough.’ Paul tried to pull Josh away but he wasn’t strong enough.

‘Logan, for God’s sake, help me,’ Paul cried out.

Logan jumped to his feet but he didn’t move.

Twisting like a snake, I sprung up, fists ready, and caught Logan on the side of his head. He fell away from me with a grunt of pain. I lashed out again, punching him to the ground and then, as he was so super-fit, kicking him a couple of times to make sure he stayed down. I pounced on Josh. My arm around his neck, I dragged him back so hard and fast that only his heels were touching the ground. Dropping him without a second thought, I ran back to Adam, falling to my knees beside my brother who lay on his side. I couldn’t make out any of Adam’s features. His entire face was covered in blood.

‘Adam . . . ?’ I whispered.

I put my ear down towards his mouth and nose. Was that his breath against my face, or just a night breeze?

‘Josh, we’ve got to get out of here. Now!’ Paul shouted at Josh, still trying to pull him away.

‘What on earth is going on out here?’ A stocky man wearing trousers and nothing else emerged from the nearest house. ‘Zoe, call the police,’ he called over his shoulder.

I leaped up to look Josh in the eye. ‘Leave now or I’ll go to prison for you, I swear I will.’

The words were quietly spoken but I meant every single one of them. Fists clenched, I waited. The only way any of them would get to my brother again was over my dead body.

‘Josh, for God’s sake. Let’s go,’ Paul pleaded.

Logan and Paul took off, dragging Josh behind them.

I dropped back down to my knees.

Adam’s face was a mess of blood and bone and hanging flesh.

I didn’t know what to do.

Turn him? Leave him? What?

‘Adam?’ I stroked his head, whispering in his ear, ‘Adam, don’t die. Please, please don’t die.’

Time obviously ran at a different rate in hospital. The seconds crawled by with mocking apathy. I sat in the waiting room which was more than half-full, feeling totally alone.

Two women, one with locks tied back in a ponytail, the other with short-cut brunette hair parted at one side walked through the automatic doors and headed for the reception desk. I watched without curiosity as they struck up a brief conversation with the receptionist behind the desk, that is until the receptionist pointed straight at me. Police officers. I should’ve expected it but it still made my heart bump as the two women headed my way. They both wore trouser suits, the first in navy-blue, the brunette in black. I stood when they got near, deciding that it would be better to face them rather than looking up at them as I’d have to do if I remained seated.

‘You’re the one who came in with the victim of the assault?’ asked the woman in navy-blue.

I nodded.

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Ramona Crystal. This is my colleague, Detective Constable Samantha Kay. Would you mind telling us your name?’

‘Dante. Dante Bridgeman.’

‘So, Dante, what can you tell us?’

Silence.

I didn’t have a clue where to begin. I watched as the sergeant broke out a notepad and pen.

‘D’you know the name of the victim?’

‘Yeah, he’s my brother, Adam. Adam Bridgeman. He’s sixteen,’ I replied.

‘What happened?’ asked DC Kay.

‘We . . . we were jumped.’

‘How many were there?’

‘Three.’

‘Look, why don’t we all sit down,’ said the detective sergeant. She sat on the chair to the left of the one I’d just vacated. The constable remained on her feet until I sat down, then she sat on my right. ‘I can see you’re still in a state of shock but anything you can tell us now will help us catch the ones who did this that much faster,’ said DS Crystal. ‘Take your time and tell us exactly what took place.’

‘Adam and I went out to . . . to celebrate my b-birthday . . .’

Oh God, it was still my birthday . . . The word tasted like bile in my mouth. The sergeant and DC Kay exchanged a look.

‘Go on,’ urged DS Crystal.

‘We were walking home and we’d just turned into our road when we got jumped.’

‘Did you know or recognize the ones who attacked you?’

Pause.

‘Dante?’ the sergeant prompted, her pen poised.

Why was I even hesitating? Why should I display loyalty to a scumbag like Josh? Why did I even have to think about it?

‘Josh Davies, Logan Pane and Paul Anders,’ I said quickly before I could change my mind. ‘Logan and Paul held me down on the ground. Josh was the one who beat up my brother. He kept punching and kicking Adam in the head. He wouldn’t stop.’

I started coughing. My stomach was heaving. I was mere seconds away from being physically sick. Tilting back my head, I took rapid deep breaths in a desperate effort to control myself. The officers gave me a few moments for which I was grateful. I finally lowered my head as the feeling slowly began to fade.

‘Where did you go to celebrate your birthday?’ asked DC Kay.

‘The Bar Belle.’ I didn’t miss the look that passed between them at that either. ‘Adam and I weren’t drinking, if that’s what you’re thinking. ‘Adam had two virgin coladas and I was drinking ginger beer all night, the non-alcoholic kind. Josh, Logan and Paul were drinking though. They were drinking lager all night.’

‘So they were with you in the Bar Belle?’ asked the DS, her voice sharp.

‘Adam and I met up with them there but it wasn’t planned. We shared a table but got into an argument, so the three of them left before us.’

The police questioned me for another twenty minutes, noting down every word I said, and I mean, every word.
By the time they finally left me in peace, I was exhausted. Even now I struggled to make sense not of what had happened, but why. I thought it had all been done and dusted and forgotten in the Bar Belle. Josh and I were friends, surely – even after everything that had happened at the restaurant. I had some vague notion that in the morning, when the lager buzz had gone and Josh’s hangover kicked in and when I’d managed to calm down, Josh would phone me to laugh off his comments made to my brother. He’d apologize, I’d accept it and we’d all move on.

So why was I now sitting in hospital, wondering if my brother would live or die?

All the way to the hospital in the ambulance, I couldn’t stop shivering. The paramedic inside the ambulance hadn’t stopped monitoring my brother for a second. Before they even got him into the ambulance, the two medics had battled to clear Adam’s airway and stabilize him, desperately trying to save my brother’s life. A drip went into one arm, his face was wiped off and an oxygen mask put over his nose and mouth. His face was swollen and distorted. Nothing was in the right place. After they got him into the ambulance, the medic driving had taken off with full lights and sirens. I watched my brother lying there unconscious on the way to the hospital and I was unable to take my eyes off him. I didn’t dare. I had the feeling that if I looked away, even for an instant, I would lose him for good.

Once we reached the hospital, Adam was immediately whisked away to be x-rayed and operated on. I phoned
Dad, with no clear idea of what I was going to say. The phone was answered within a couple of rings.

‘Hiya, Dante. I hope you guys are on your way home. It’s getting late. Did you have a good time?’ Dad’s cheerful tone jarred. ‘And don’t worry about Emma. She’s fast asleep.’

‘Dad, I . . . I’m at the hospital.’

‘What? Why? What’s happened?’ The change in his tone was immediate.

‘Adam . . . Adam was beaten up. Dad, he’s really badly hurt . . .’

A male doctor who was bald and built like a brick house appeared from nowhere to stand in front of me. I’m tall, but I still had to look up to this guy. Dante, I need to check you over and you really shouldn’t be using a mobile phone in here.’

‘I’m talking to my dad.’

‘Talk to him once I’ve made sure you’re all right,’ the doctor insisted. ‘OK?’

Maybe Dad heard the doctor harrassing me. Maybe the sound of my voice was enough. Either way Dad didn’t linger to get any more details.

‘I’m on my way,’ he said grimly before hanging up the phone.

‘I don’t need to be examined. I want to stay with my brother,’ I insisted, pushing my phone back in my trouser pocket.

‘He’s in good hands,’ the doctor attempted to reassure me. ‘Let us do our job. But in the meantime we need to check you over.’

I had minor cuts and grazes and severe bruising down my back and on my legs. It didn’t hurt though, not too much. I didn’t have the time or the right to feel pain. I needed to focus on my brother. Dad arrived at the hospital about thirty or forty minutes after I did, carrying a sleeping Emma. The moment I saw her, I reached out to take her.

‘No, it’s OK,’ said Dad. ‘I’ve got her. No point in waking her up.’

So we sat in intense quiet after the raging storm. I’d done more praying in the last couple of hours than I’d ever done in my life before. Adam couldn’t die. He just couldn’t. I couldn’t imagine life without him.

I didn’t want to.

The waiting area we’d been directed to after Dad arrived was just an open-plan space off a corridor with about five grey plastic chairs and a vending machine. A youngish brunette man in his late twenties was already there when we arrived, but after a while he got up and left without a nurse or doctor coming to see him. Dad and I sat in silence, with Emma still fast asleep in Dad’s arms.

‘What happened?’ Dad asked at last. I was so lost in my own thoughts that the sound of his voice made me start.

‘We got jumped,’ I replied.

‘By who?’

‘Some guys from my old school,’ I said.

‘You know the ones who did this? Look at me, Dante.’

‘Yeah, I know them,’ I replied, looking directly at him, not wanting to hide anything.

‘Tell me everything that happened,’ said Dad.

So I told him.

Everything.

‘And this is the same Josh who used to come round our house? The one who was supposed to be your friend?’ asked Dad.

I nodded.

Dad closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall behind our chairs.

‘This is what I’ve always been afraid of,’ he said quietly.

And what could I say to that? Nothing.

We sat in silence for a long, long time.

‘Did you tell the police what you just told me?’ said Dad at last.

I nodded.

‘All of it?’

‘Yes, Dad.’

‘Dante!’ Aunt Jackie called out to me the moment she turned the corner and saw us. She bustled straight over. I stood up. She gave me a hug which made me wince with the pain in my arms.

‘Tyler.’

‘Jackie.’

Dad and my aunt exchanged greetings but that was it. I guess we were all too worried to hold any kind of conversation. Aunt Jackie sat down next to me.

‘How is he? How’s Adam?’ she asked.

‘We don’t know yet,’ Dad replied. ‘They’re still operating on him.’

‘What happened? asked my aunt.

‘Adam was beaten up,’ said Dad.

‘What? Why? By who?’ asked my aunt, her tone sharp.

I looked down at the ground, up at the ceiling, anywhere but at my dad and aunt.

‘For being gay,’ Dad provided, his voice bitter. ‘I thought this gay-bashing bullshit was a thing of the past. This is the twenty-first century – or at least it’s supposed to be.’

‘Oh God . . .’

‘God had nothing to do with it,’ said Dad harshly. ‘Just some homophobic scumbags who didn’t even have the guts to make it a fair fight.’

‘D’you know who they were?’ asked Aunt Jackie.

‘Some guys that used to be in my class,’ I said.

‘Why did you let them use your brother as a punch bag?’ asked Dad.

I turned to Dad. ‘I told you, they had me pinned down. I tried to stop them, but I couldn’t move.’

‘You’re supposed to look out for your younger brother. You’re supposed to protect him,’ Dad snapped.

Did he think I didn’t know that?

‘I tried, Dad. They came out of nowhere.’

‘You should’ve tried harder.’

‘Tyler, that’s not helping,’ said my aunt.

‘Keep out of this, Jackie. It’s my son who’s being operated on. It’s my son who is fighting for his life.’

‘And it’s your son who’s sitting next to you needing a kind word from his dad,’ said Aunt Jackie.

I jumped up. ‘Excuse me.’

‘Where’re you going?’ Dad frowned.

I needed to get out of there. ‘To wash my hands.’ I headed for the men’s room before Dad or Aunt Jackie
could say another word. No matter how much Dad blamed me, it couldn’t begin to compare with how much I blamed myself. But his words still hurt. Very much.

Once there, I splashed water on my face and washed my hands. The skin on a couple of my knuckles was grazed from where I’d punched Logan. I straightened up, catching sight of my reflection in the wide mirror above the three sinks. My eyes shimmered with unshed tears, my teeth were clenched together so hard that a muscle was pulsing overtime in my jaw. I couldn’t stand to look at myself any more but I didn’t turn away.

This was all my fault.

Adam had asked me, more than once, why I let Josh get away with the things he did. Staring at myself in the mirror, I now asked myself the same question. Why hadn’t I slapped Josh down when he started spouting his ignorant crap? Josh was an equal-opportunity hater. Everyone got it in the neck: travellers, Muslims, Jews, gays, and God only knew what Josh said about me and other black people behind my back – but gays got vilified the most. Anything I wore that didn’t consist of jeans and a T-shirt was gay. The music I liked was extra-gay. The books I read were super-gay. And I’d never challenged him about it, not once.

‘It’s just a word. It doesn’t mean anything,’ I’d tried to convince myself.

Never mind that words hurt. Never mind that sometimes the impact of words lasted far longer than physical pain. But I wasn’t gay so where was the harm? It was like the way Josh called me a retard if I did anything he
thought was moronic. The word jarred but I never called him on that one either.

It doesn’t mean anything
. . .