Rounding Third (27 page)

    
“The Wardells have lived in Harrisonburg for a long time.”

    
“Yep. Your great-great-great-,” he ticked off the greats on his fingers,
“—grandfather came here after they lost everything in Virginia after the Civil
War. He needed a new start.”

    
“Do you think we need one?”

    
“We haven’t done anything wrong. There’s no reason for us to have to leave.”
His father stood. “Do you want to leave? Does Meg?”

    
Rob shrugged. “I’m leaving soon anyway. To college next year. I don’t want to
stay here. But I don’t want to be forced out.”

    
“How are things at school?”

    
“People mumble things now and then. But no one can be bothered bothering me
anymore. Meg has lost some friends like Ashley, but she says they weren’t
really friends if they’d stop talking to her over this. Her real
friends--Jesse, Stacey, Hannah--are still her friends.”

    
Mr. Wardell nodded. “You want a ride home?”

    
“I’m sweaty.”

“It’s okay. Lots of stupid little family
rules don’t seem to matter anymore.” The older Wardell put his arm around his
son and steered him toward the SUV.

    
Rob stopped and looked back at the cluster of gravestones. “You said we have no
reason to leave. We haven’t done anything wrong.” Rob jerked his head towards
his great-great-great-grandfather’s grave. “Did Francis Wardell own slaves?”

    
Mr. Wardell paused. “I assume he did. My grandparents never said. But the way
they didn’t say always made me think there was something they weren’t telling.
There are a lot of ugly pages to history.”

                       
36
 

The Mat-to-Meg-to-Rob-to-Josh handoff had
worked again. Rob had taken grief for having skipped English at least once a
week for the past few weeks and decided not to chance it again and sought out
Coach Hudson for a hall pass. The meetings between Mat and Josh had become more
routine now although all three of them always ended up crying. Not since the
first rendezvous had Rob felt the need to pack protection. Rob tried to suggest
that Josh could meet Mat alone, but the look of terror that came over Josh’s
face convinced him Josh wasn’t ready to fly solo yet.

    
When Rob got to Hudson’s homeroom Hudson looked up and said, “That’s weird, I
just sent DeLallo to get you and you’re already here.”

    
“I didn’t see Edward. I came because I need a favor.”

    
The coach nodded and Rob leaned in to whisper the situation. Hudson pulled out
a pad of passes, wrote one out and handed it over. “Anytime,” he said.

    
“Thanks. And you wanted to see me?” Rob asked.

    
“Yeah. I’m going to have to stop tutoring Josh.”

    
“What? Why?”

    
“I’m starting to take too much heat for it. There are people saying that I’m
visiting Josh at your place because he and I are doing it.”

    
“Doing what?”

    
“Having sex.”

    
“What?” Rob’s raised voice caused everyone in Hudson’s homeroom to look.

    
Hudson jerked his head toward the door and Rob followed him into the hall.
“There’s a rumor that I’m having sex with Josh and/or you. They say my ‘shower
at the gym’ rule was so I can see you guys naked.”

    
“That’s crazy.”

    
“Sanity has never played a big part in school proceedings in case you haven’t
noticed. Ordinarily I’d tell them all to go to the devil, but my wife is going
to have our second child in a month--and that’s part of it, too, I should be
home more--but I don’t have tenure. I already scalded the cat with Mr. Frost
and he’d love to find a reason to can me.”

    
“That sucks.”

“There are teachers asking why I want to get
so involved in a gay thing if I’m not gay. I try to tell them it’s not a matter
of being gay; it’s a matter of right and wrong.”

“It’s so unfair that you’re getting in
trouble for trying to help.”

    
“I’m not really in trouble, but I can’t afford to let myself be. I’m not
quitting the fight; I’m just going have to be less visibly involved. I’ve asked
around and found someone else who’s willing to tutor Josh until he comes back
to school.”

    
“I don’t think he’s coming back. He’s afraid to leave the house.”

    
“I understand.” Hudson shook his head. “Well, I warned Tom Welke if he
volunteered for this job he might be stuck with it for a while.”

    
“Mr. Welke wants to tutor Josh?”

    
“Yeah. Go figure.”

                       
*                     
*                     
*                     
*                     
*

    
Mr. Wardell was coming in the front door of the house as Mr. Welke was leaving
Josh’s room after their tutoring session. Rob introduced his father to the
teacher and explained that Welke was taking Hudson’s place

    
“It’s nice of you to do this,” Mr. Wardell said shaking the man’s hand again.

    
“I’ve seen my share of adversity so figure I should help out when I can.”

    
“Bobby said you were in ‘Nam?”

    
“Yeah, that’s right,” he said with just enough humility to make it sound like
swagger.

    
“What outfit?” Mr. Wardell asked.

    
“The 334
^th
.”

    
“At Cam Ranh Bay? I was in the 349
^th
. I was there in ’72 and ’73.”

    
A look something like fear came over Welke’s face. “’67 and ’68,” he said.

    
“Good outfit,” Mr. Wardell said.

    
“We did our jobs,” Welke answered.

    
They bid their good nights and Welke left.

Rob asked, “I thought you were in supply,
miles from the action?”

    
“I was.”

    
“So Mr. Welke’s outfit?”

    
“Another quartermaster unit. Why?” Meg and Rob burst out laughing. “What’s so
funny?” their father asked.

    
“To hear him tell it, he single-handedly won the war. He was like a Marine or
Green Beret or something leading dangerous patrols deep into enemy territory.”

    
“The 334
^th
was a supply group,” his father said.

    
“That is too funny,” Meg said. “I can’t wait to hear what everyone at school
says.”

    
“They’re not going to say anything,” Rob said.

    
“They’ll think this is hilarious!”

    
“No they won’t. ‘Cause you’re not going to tell them.”

    
“Sure I am. This is too...”

    
“Mr. Welke is sticking his neck out to help Josh. And I’ve read enough about
Vietnam to know no one had it easy over there. So, please, for Josh, for me,
don’t say anything.”

    
Meg stopped laughing and nodded, “Okay.”

    
Her father put his hand on her shoulder, “Anyone who went over there and did
what they had to do and came back to face what we had to, has my respect. I was
no hero and I didn’t do anything great, but I can tell you it was hell and if
Mr. Welke wants to embellish a little and it gets some kids to think about
Vietnam, I wouldn’t say anything either.”

    
When Rob explained why Hudson had quit and how bad that made Josh feel, his
mother said, “Gay people are getting married all over the country and we’re
having the Salem witch trials.”

                       
*                     
*                     
*                     
*                     
*
   

Rob had just pulled down his sheets when he
heard a knock on his bedroom door. “Come in,” he said. His father and mother
entered.

    
“I guess tonight was a mistake,” his mother said.

    
“Yeah,” Rob agreed. “You were just trying to do a nice thing.”

    
“I thought since Josh got his cast off today he’d want to go out to dinner to
celebrate.”

    
“I know. Nice thought. You didn’t know those people at the next table were
going say anything to Josh.”

    
“We just thought it was time we pushed him a little to go out, anyplace besides
the doctors,” she said. “But after tonight, he’ll be more afraid than ever to
go out. We should have known people in this small town would talk. I thought
after all of his bruises healed and he got the cast off, he’d start feeling
better, but even before dinner he seemed even more depressed.”

    
“I know,” Rob said. “I hoped he’d feel like doing something by now.”

    
“He seems to be getting worse, not better,” his father said. “We talked about
this before. About getting him counseling. I mentioned it to him the other day,
but he got upset. Could you try to talk to him?”

    
“I’ve tried and he said, ‘I don’t need a psychiatrist. They’re the ones that
are crazy, not me.’ But I’ll try again. I’ve been checking into like gay youth
groups and things.”

37

    
Harrisonburg High School was doing a production of
The Headless Horseman
for
Halloween with Megan Wardell in a minor role. Josh had declined to join the
family in attending. Meg tried to persuade him, but Rob had reined her in. “If
you were Josh, would you want to ever set foot in that school again?”

    
As they pulled into their driveway Mr. Wardell said, “Oh, shit!”

    
The front of the house was littered with broken pumpkins. Shattered glass
glittered on the porch. DIE FAG was spray painted across the front picture
window.

    
The Wardells burst into the house. All of them turned and looked at the closed
door to Josh’s room. The way it shut them all out left a low-pressure
depression in the room. Rob was staring at Josh’s closed door and could feel
the eyes of the rest of the family shift from the door to him. He knew what was
expected of him. In the car on the way home the depths of Josh’s misery had
been the topic of conversation. Mr. Wardell had said, “We’re going to come home
some night and find him hanging from the banister.”

    
Rob had turned his eyes fiercely on his father, and his father had apologized
profusely, but the thought, which had laid coiled in everyone’s mind, had now
reared its ugly fangs and there was no recapturing the beast. 

    
Now that same thought pounded in all of their brains, and Rob felt himself
propelled by them to Josh’s door. He knocked quietly and got no response. Rob
knocked again and this time added a “Josh?” Rob wanted very much to walk away.
From the outside they had seen Josh slumped in the chair, his head barely
visible. The lamp and the television were on. If Rob didn’t have the rest of
his family leaning toward him, pressuring him with their eyes, he would have
left it alone. He knocked again. “Josh, I’m coming in, okay?” He deliberately
phrased it in such a way that Josh would have to answer to keep Rob out and
getting no response, Rob grabbed the knob. Even though Rob knew there was no
lock on the door, he half expected to find the door blocked. The only
resistance he met was his own reluctance to push open the door. 

    
Josh’s eyes were wide, but he was seeing nothing out of the bleary orbs. The TV
was on, with the sound down low, barely audible. Josh stared unblinking and
said nothing when Rob again said, “Josh.” Rob still had his hand on the door
and pushed it most of the way closed.

    
“What are you watching?” he said, failing at sounding casual.

    
Rob wasn’t really expecting a reply and Josh’s voice startled him. “Dragnet.”
The sound of Josh’s voice for some reason frightened Rob. Rob nodded, but the
nod didn’t indicate that he understood, in fact, quite the opposite. Without
even looking up at Rob, Josh seemed to know this and added, “It’s an old TV
show. Detective Joe Friday was explaining to some lady that it was no good
trying to deal with blackmailers. They get what they want and still ruin you.”

    
Rob just looked in puzzlement at Josh’s unseeing

eyes--flat
green now with none of their old luster. Josh was staring past Rob at the
television. 

    
“I gave them everything and they just took more.”

    
“You told me...”

    
“I didn’t tell you most of it. Not half of it... I couldn’t tell anyone. They
used me. They humiliated me. And every time I thought it couldn’t get any
worse...Danny took me over to Brickman’s. He was being all nice to me and said
he wanted us to be friends. I was so lonely, and I wanted... after all he had
done to me, I thought it might still mean something if we were friends. Like
boyfriends, even.”