Donovan Meanwhile: Kings of Sparta

by Bierley, B. L.

  Donovan Meanwhile: Kings of Sparta

  Donovan Meanwhile, Volume 1

  BL Bierley

  Published by BL Bierley, 2017.

  This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

  DONOVAN MEANWHILE: KINGS OF SPARTA

  First edition. October 3, 2017.

  Copyright © 2017 BL Bierley.

  Written by BL Bierley.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  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 NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

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  CHAPTER ONE

  It’s ironic. I think.

  Is it?

  I don’t know.

  Nobody knows what irony means. That’s ironic.

  Anyway, the possibly ironic thing is the fact that the same day I gave Raphael a big lecture about not keeping secrets was the same day I found out about the biggest secret in possibly the entire world, if not the universe at large. Certainly the biggest secret in my own life, and there’s some stiff competition there.

  Raphael is my boyfriend.

  Was my boyfriend.

  Was my pseudo-boyfriend.

  He and I, we were friends back at Belmont Junior High. He’s a year older than me. When he went to high school, and I was stuck back in eighth grade, we kind of lost touch. I mean were were still in the same city, still had each other’s numbers. But obviously there’s an ocean-sized gulf between an eighth grader and a ninth.

  Different worlds, if you were.

  Bear with me.

  So, after I graduated middle school and started at Jackson High School, in Crystal City, it was like a reunion when Raph and I met up again. By that point we hadn’t spoken in months. I had almost forgotten what his pale white cheeks looked like when he smiled, and they got splashes of red in them. But as soon as we saw each other on the first day of classes, I remembered, because I saw it again.

  And we weren’t just friends anymore. It was like how they say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and in this case it sent Raph and I careening from best friends to lovers quicker than it takes to say “I’ve missed you.”

  But here’s the thing: Dry those eyes. Don’t cry for me, Argentina.

  See, Raphael was by this point in his high school career what you would call a “popular” kid. He was the only sophomore to be playing on the varsity football team. (I never cared for sports, and until I began at Jackson I didn’t think Raphael did, either.)

  He had friends, and lots of them.

  He had prospects.

  He had girls fawning all over him.

  You see where I’m going with this.

  Our love was a secret from the moment it started, which is bringing us back around to the big lecture I gave him on the same day that I discovered the world is a lie.

  We were lovers all the following year, trading notes between classes (we didn’t share a schedule since he was a grade above me), casting furtive glances at each other when nobody was looking, and of course spending time together outside of school as much as possible and every day through the following summer.

  More on that later.

  But it didn’t last.

  Flash-forward to today. First day of classes at Jackson. I’m now a Sophomore, and Raph is a Junior.

  I take the Metro to school every morning, and this morning these two guys from Raph’s grade, Bola and Finch, are standing on the train watching me. Eyeing me real seriously. Sending threats via brainwaves.

  Bola is short and wiry with bad teeth; Finch is built like a chimney, by that I mean made of bricks, hollow, and blows a lot of hot air.

  They’re both acquiantences of Raphael’s and I’ve actually spent some time with them in groups of friends, but I’ve never had the pleasure of really sitting down and having a chat with them. Something always told me they wouldn’t be into it, and I wouldn’t like what I found anyway.

  But today they look very interested in me, the way a junkyard dog looks interested in a slice of beef. Bola cracks his knuckles, and the train doors open at our stop.

  They step off in front of me like they suddenly lost interest, and I follow way behind them all the way to school. When I get to my locker, Raphael is standing there waiting for me, like he usually is, only this time he’s got something on his mind. I can tell because he’s chewing his tongue which is a weird thing he always does when he’s thinking about something difficult.

  He says he’s vying for quarterback of the team this year and it looks bad if the quarterback doesn’t have a girlfriend. He wants to know what I would think of him dating a girl.

  “Which girl” I ask him, but he says he hasn’t picked on yet. He says it wouldn’t be hard to find one, though, because they’re always all over him.

  I have to admit, I didn’t handle it well. I laid into him about loyalty, and love, and the importance of being proud of who you are and who you’re with. And then came the whole spiel about secrets. How I didn’t think it was fair to keep our relationship a secret for so long, and how if he were a real man he would stand up and face the criticism.

  I pointed out the fact that I was out, at least to my family.

  He snorted. “On accident,” he says, which was basically true.

  “Still,” I say. “How long do you think you can keep this up?”

  “Are you going to tell anyone?” he says. I just shrug, and that was probably the wrong response. He shakes his head, shuts his locker, and walks away. Ending an argument that way is never good or helpful, because it doesn’t actually end. Arguments feed off tension and abhor resolution, so if you just walk away like that it’s basically like tossing a giant handful of food to the monster that is threatening to devour you.

  Before lunch, he passes me a note that just says It’s over - I’m sorry.

  After lunch, Finch intercepts me in a deserted hallway with unnerving excitement in his eyes.

  “This is a long-time comin’,” he says as he sucks something out of his teeth.

  Underclassmen carcass, probably.

  “What is?” I ask.

  Of course in my gut I know the answer. My guts aren’t stupid.

  My guts are telling me to turn the other way and run, but my head is telling me: resistance only makes it worse.

  (This is patently untrue in most scenarios, by the way, unless you’re being strangled by a boa constrictor. Even then, though, I mean, you are getting strangled, so. Maybe it’s quicksand I’m thinking of, but I’ pretty sure that’s a lie, too.)

  No, resistance is never going to make it worse. Resist, for god’s sake.

  Run away as fast as you can.

  If only I had listened to my gut then instead of all those nature documentaries.

  Finch reaches out and grabs my shirt collar.

  Bola is standing there, he’s been standing there this whole time, leaning against the wall like Matthew McConaughey. He pushes himself off with his shoulder and takes a step toward me.

  He
only has to say one word and I know what this is about. The F-word, and I’m not talking about swearing.

  More irony: These guys are friends with Raphael, that’s the thing that goes through my mind as Bola takes a sucker punch at me straight into my gut. (Not ironic, just coincident.)

  These guys have said hi to me. These guys have gone to movies with Raph and I and some other people, where Raph and I sat at the end of the row and touched our fingertips in the dark. These guys were fine with me existing, until just now. Until Raph broke up with me. I guess without his protection, they felt free to finally take out their agro tendencies on me.

  Now, I’m a small guy. Not, like, elf small. But I’m not going to make the football team unless it’s as the ball. The only reason Bola and Finch aren’t on the team is because they spend too much time in detention. And jail, once, or so I heard. Bola isn’t nearly as big as his partner but he makes up for it in psychotic determination.

  I’d almost admire it if it weren’t currently pulverizing my abdomen until it hurt to breath.

  Doubled-over, I feel Finch drag me by my shirt, and it’s at that moment that I realize they picked this spot in the hall because we’re right next to an emergency exit—which has been propped open.

  These dicks had this whole thing planned for a while.

  We’re behind the school in a little corner where the building crooks and nobody comes by. Finch tosses me into the grass and continues fishing for something with his tongue. He just stares down at me as Bola kicks me in the ribs.

  Part of me wants to cry out, but I know that’s just what they want.

  Don’t give them what they want, my head tells me. (My gut is probably unconscious at this point, or anyway has decided it’s going to sit this one out if nobody is going to listen to it.)

  For the record, always cry out.

  Where do we get all this terrible advice? History is written by the winners, they say, and I guess maybe psychology textbooks are written by the bullies?

  Don’t resist.

  Don’t run.

  Don’t cry.

  Stand up and take it like a man.

  You deserve this.

  You need this.

  I try to get up to my feet but Bola pushes me over, and I roll backwards into the grass. It’s not hard, the way he pushes me, but playful in a creepy way like a cat playing with a half-dead mouse. I know there is only more coming.

  He steps back and makes way for Finch to come and tower over me, pinning my shoulders with his ankles.

  “I think we scared him so hard he pissed himself,” he says jovially.

  For the record, I didn’t.

  But then I realize Finch is unzipping his pants as he’s straddling me, and I try to squirm away.

  This is the first day of class, and I’m going to be late for geography. That’s what goes through my head in that moment, as Finch prepares to urinate on me behind the school.

  And then, after that, the thought that I’m going to have to put up with this for the next nine months.

  I’ll be dead before next summer.

  Maybe I can talk to Raph, get him to call them off. Maybe I should let him have his girlfriend beard if it meant that I wouldn’t get eviscerated by his homophobic posse.

  All this goes through my head as Finch is still digging into his pants, then he stops and looks at Bola. “I don’t actually have to go right now. Do you?”

  “Move,” Bola says angrily and pushes him out of the way. “I can do it.”

  But he stops and looks up with that wide-eyed, opened-mouth look of someone who was just caught in the act. Finch, too.

  Laying on my back, I bend my neck to try and see what they see. There’s a figure on the edge of the football field watching. Too far away to see who it is, but he’s dressed in all black leather and a motorcycle helmet. Tense, like he’s ready for a fight.

  Finch and Bola pick up on that, too, and rush back inside—although Bola takes one last kick to my ribs and I roll over.

  I hear the door close and think about the long walk around the school to get back in through the front.

  When I’m on my feet a moment later, the figure is gone.

  Did I imagine it? Was it a teacher? A cop?

  None of the possibilities made sense.

  As soon as Mr. Abernathy sees me limp my way into Geo, he send me straight to the office. Not mad or anything; he’s concerned. “Go to the nurse’s,” he says, and I’m not one to complain.

  At the nurse’s station I’m sitting there with a busted lip and a little roll of tissue up my nose, fading to red with my blood. I’m leaning agains the wall just thinking about life, and letting the throbbing in my head do it’s thing, when the nurse walks in and tell me I have a visitor.

  It feels like jail. I have a visitor?

  I wonder if she’s going to take me to a room with a plexiglass divider and I’m going to talk through a little telephone and tell whoever it is that I’m innocent and to get me out and then put my hand up on the plexiglass and we have a moment together.

  Nope.

  It’s the guy in black, the stranger from outside, standing with his back to me. No helmet and I can see his tussled sandy blonde hair.

  My veins run cold. Stomach tightens. Hopefully he’s just here to ask if I’m alright, since he saw me get the crap kicked out of me.

  Thanks for helping, I want to say to him with a deep, powerful eye-roll.

  When I walk into the main office he’s looking at some pictures and awards on the wall, really inspecting them more than I think anyone ever did, ever.

  “Here he is, sir,” the nurse says and presents me like a puppy ready for adoption.

  He turns around and gives me a smile

  His face has a bit more stubble than I think I’ve seen on it before.

  More lines, more wear, and his hair is stuck to his forehead with sweat.

  But I’d recognize my older brother Matt anywhere.

  The only problem is, of course, that my brother lives in Japan.

  “Hey,” I say.

  He looks me up and down and smirks. “They did a number on you, eh?”

  I glance down at my bloody, muddy clothes. “It’s an odd number, but I plan to make it even.”

  He grins. “Good one.”

  “What are you doing here?” I say. “I thought you were in Japan.”

  He steps closer to me and pulls something out of his jacket pocket.

  “We don’t have much time,” he says, and hands me this little, soft, black bag cinched with a drawstring. I can feel something hard and plastic inside.

  I’m about to ask him what it it is, but he shakes his head.

  “Don’t put them on until tonight,” he says seriously. “At Virginia Highlands Park. South side. Midnight, on the dot.”

  I realize the nurse is standing behind her desk trying not to look like she’s staring at us. When I glance at her she quickly looks down at there keyboard.

  “I’m sorry? You’r not going to tell me what you’re dong here, but you’re going to tell me to go to park tonight, and put on—“

  I start to finger open the bag but he stops me with a hand.

  “Not yet. Wait. You’re going to have...questions. It’s best if you wait until someone can answer them for you or you’re going to be confused, and we can’t risk you not carrying out—“ He stops himself like he’s said too much.

  “And not just ‘the park’; Specifically, Virginia Highlands Park. Specifically, the south side of Virginia Highlands Park. Can you remember that? Midnight.”

  “Remembering isn’t the problem I’m having at the moment,” I glare at him suspiciously.

  Something about him is odd.

  First of all, I’ve never known my brother to own a motorcycle, let alone any black clothing. But it’s more than that. Something about this face. His eyes, specifically.

  They’re different eyes. They’ve seen different things than my brother had, at least last time I saw him. I wonder
if maybe life in Japan had been more brutal to him than he’d let on in his letters.

  “Did you join the Yakuza or something?”

  He just laughs and musses my hair.

  “Everything’s going to change, Donovan.”

  He grabs his helmet and thanks the nurse on his way out the door.

  Donovan.

  I know I got hit in the head pretty hard, but I still remember my childhood for crying out loud. My brother had a thousand nicknames for me: “Don-don”, “Donny Boy,” “Vinnie”, “pizza-face.” Whatever came to his mind in the moment.

  Matt Burke called me pretty much anything other than my real name.

  So who did I just meet?

  CHAPTER TWO

  After dinner I’m more eager than usual to get away from the table and back to the solitude of my room.

  My parents are fine people. My mom works as an archivist for an herbarium. That’s a plant museum, basically. So, that’s pretty interesting.

  My dad is a road crew supervisor in Bethesda.

  You can imagine how heated conversations around our dinner table can get.

  The thing is, there’s actually hardly any conversation at all these days.

  My dad won’t talk to me much anymore, ever since he walked into the downstairs laundry room last summer and found me making out with Raphael.

  It’s not that he’s homophobic. Homophobia is a general disgust or fear of gay people.

  My dad’s fear and disgust is very, very specifically focused on me.

  So he doesn’t do much talking at dinner, and I don’t either.

  And by now even my mom is getting bored with her own life. I’m counting down the days until she stops insisting we have dinner “as a family” anymore.

  What family, amiright?

  But my mom starts talking about this friend of hers who has a son who’s about my age, and I can tell immediately it’s someone she thinks I should “hang out with,” which is her polite, Christian way of trying to set me up. Far from shunning my sexuality, she’s taken it on as her own cross to bear, like if she’s not actively participating in my gayness then she’s not being a good mother.