Superhero

by Eli Easton

  “Are you serious? You liked me first?”

  “Oh, yeah. I had a big crush on you all last year. You’re totally cute, and jocks aren’t normally my thing. But, ya know, it’s kind of hard to argue with that.”

  She pointed to where Owen was now standing on the sidelines. Our high school singlets were gold and scooped low in the back. Owen’s back was broad and strong, sculpted with muscle. It V’d to a tight waist and a luscious bubble butt, thighs thick and round with muscles and shapely calves. Add shoulder-length blond hair and blue eyes, and I seriously could not imagine anything on Earth more perfect.

  “Fuck, yeah,” I said breathily. It just came out. I looked at her to see if she’d be pissed or shocked, but she just snorted in amusement.

  “Sheesh, Jordan. Thank God he’s not gay, that’s all I can say. But hey, it’s totally cool with me that you are. I think it’s awesome to have a gay friend. And don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”

  She really did seem fine with it, which was kind of perplexing. The only person who knew I was gay was Owen, but I worried a lot about what other people would think when they found out.

  Then again, Emily could afford to be generous. She got Owen.

  “Number seven,” I said, nudging her arm. Across the gym floor, in a white singlet, number seven was strutting back and forth wearing his head protector. He wasn’t huge like some of the guys, just muscled and tight. You could count his six-pack through the Lycra. He had sandy blond hair that stuck out from around his head gear. Maybe I’d draw him into our next issue. I could picture him as a Silver Surfer type, only a real California surfer dude. My fingers itched for a pencil and paper.

  “He’s totally hot,” Emily agreed. She looked him over, and her eyes grew wide. I knew what she was staring at. Even from across the arena, you could make out the size and shape of his package. “Christ, that’s obscene.”

  “Clearly, this is your first wrestling match,” I said dryly.

  “But… why don’t they wear something underneath?”

  “Owen says it’s a macho thing. Guys who wear straps or cups are considered lame. I guess it’s like gladiator mentality. Burp, fart, sweat, let it all hang out.”

  She blinked as if trying to clear the smut from her eyes. “God, Jordan, how can you stand it?”

  “Disassociation,” I said archly. “I’ve trained myself not to think about it. I am in control at all times.”

  She looked at me with an arched brow, oh really?

  I coughed and looked away. “And, uh, it helps to wear long T-shirts.”

  She snorted as she glanced at my lap where my long gold JEFFERSON T-shirt was doing its duty as emergency backup. I didn’t always get hard at wrestling matches anymore, but when I did, I preferred to hide it under 100 percent cotton.

  “TMI, but… yeah, okay. I guess there are certain advantages to being a girl,” Emily said.

  I looked at Owen and thought, with not a small amount of bitterness, nowthat’s the fucking understatement of the year, sweetheart.

  I honestly tried not to think about making out with Owen all the time. For one thing, it was pathetic, and for another thing, it was needles-in-your-eye torture. We spent so much time together, and most of the time I didn’t let my head go there. But I was crazy about him, and the fact that he was so gorgeous didn’t help. When I was alone jerking off, I let myself imagine things. I’d spun that one kiss in the pool into so many variations I could probably claim a Guinness World Record for Most Exhausted Fantasy. I didn’t make things any easier on myself, I guess, but it was hard to resist the temptation. And now I was sitting next to Owen’s girlfriend. Good times. With every fiber of my being I wanted to hate Emily, but I had to admit she was actually pretty nice and sort of funny.

  Owen had an important bout tonight. He was going up against a wrestler who was ranked third in the state in Owen’s weight class. The guy would be gunning for Owen, and if Owen lost it had the potential to knock him down in the year-end rankings. I could see that he was intensely focused as the time came closer for his match. He didn’t pace on the sidelines like some wrestlers. Instead he stood still and turned inward. I could see his face and shoulders set, his fists flex. He was building himself up to the kind of tenacity he was known for. Pit bull Nelson.

  They called the match, and the crowd stood and cheered for both wrestlers. Owen went out immediately with his focused-killer look, and in a moment they were on the mat. There was silence except for the squeak of their shoes on the gym floor when they dug in for purchase. It was so quiet, you could hear Owen and his opponent’s heavy breathing. Emily clutched at my arm, giving me a nice half round of fingernail impressions. I’d probably need a tetanus shot, but what the hell. The bout was intense. I grabbed her back.

  Come on, Owen. Come on, Owen. Come on, Owen. It was my lucky mantra, and I kept chanting it over and over in my head.

  He had the advantage, starting on top. But after several long minutes of struggling to get the guy off his hands and knees, his opponent reversed and flipped him. Owen landed on his side and scrambled for his knees, barely avoiding going onto his back. The guy was on top of him but Owen heaved with all his strength and lifted the guy completely off the floor. When he came down he managed to slip his left arm out of the guy’s grasp, do a cutback and get out from under. A few minutes later, the guy was down and then—pinned.

  The place went crazy as the ref took Owen’s wrist and held it up. Owen was still completely focused, but he shook his head and managed to give the crowd a smile and a fist pump.

  Emily looked at me, her jaw dropped open. Oh my God, she mouthed in total disbelief.

  I looked away and did a two-finger whistle for Owen, jumped up and down and waved to him energetically. He looked right at me and gave me a grin.

  That, Emily Abrams, is who you—apparently beloved by the gods—are dating. That is my hero.

  We stayed in our seats while the bulk of the crowd filed out. I always waited for Owen to shower and change. As usual, he was going to spend the night at my place. Emily stayed, too, and Owen’s parents came down and stood with us.

  Owen came out, damp and crazy happy.

  His dad slapped him on the back. His mom hugged him. Owen hugged Emily and gave her a quick kiss. I looked away.

  “Great match, son! You did great! Loved that cutback.”

  “Thanks, Dad.”

  “We’re so proud of you! We’ll see you after school tomorrow, alright?” His mom kissed him good-bye. She turned to me. “And good night to you too, Jordy.” She kissed my cheek.

  I appreciated the fact that she made it a point to include me as always. “Bye, Mr. and Mrs. Nelson,” I said.

  Owen’s folks left.

  “My mom’s going to pick me up by the sign,” Emily said.

  “I’ll meet you back at my place,” I offered. I figured they needed some alone time, and I liked seeing the two of them together about as much as I liked slamming my finger in my locker.

  “No, I’ll walk with you,” Owen insisted. “Come on. Let’s go out and wait for Emily’s mom.” He slung one arm around my shoulder and one around hers. Great.

  It would have made too big a deal out of it to refuse, so I went along. We walked out to the big high school sign, me in my long Constantine-like trench coat and Owen in his letter jacket. I felt stupid.

  Emily’s mom wasn’t there yet, and we waited in the cold. I wanted to give them some privacy, but I wasn’t sure how to go about it since there was really nothing around the sign except for parking lots. I wandered over and hopped up on the cement foot of the sign. I took out my iPod and messed around.

  When I looked up, Owen was kissing Emily. They were front-to-front, hugging tight, and it was a serious, French kiss. Deep inside me there was a sharp pain that radiated outward and throbbed in my head and my heart.

  Yeah, so I knew he was dating Emily and that we’d never be like that. That didn’t mean it didn’t hurt like a motherfucker.

  I s
tared back down at my iPod, my eyes hot, until a car pulled up. I blinked furiously. I heard Emily yell, “Good night, Jordan!”

  “Night!” I called out, not looking up. They drove off, and I hopped down and started walking toward my house, fast. I didn’t wait for Owen.

  He caught up to me. “Man! Was that a great match or what?” He was bouncing on pure adrenaline like always after he wrestled. He jumped up and down on his toes.

  “You did good,” I said tightly.

  Owen grinned. “Hey, it means a lot to me that you and Emily get along, you know?”

  I shrugged. I wouldn’t look at him.

  “You do like her, right?” He put his arm around my shoulder. I scooted out from under it, not wanting him to touch me. But I pretended I just wanted to veer around a fire hydrant that was coming up.

  “I’m glad you’re not dating Jennifer Conners or anyone like her.” It wasn’t the best answer, but it was all I had.

  Jennifer was head cheerleader for the wrestling squad and a gorgeous bitch on wheels. The fact that Owen had ended up dating nerdy Emily Abrams and not someone like Jennifer had everyone in our school baffled. Well, maybe everyone but me.

  “And?” Owen prompted, lightly punching my arm.

  “And… you picked a good one, I guess.” I shrugged as if it didn’t matter, but it cost me. I was still feeling really hurt.

  The fire hydrant was long gone, and I had no excuse to pull away when Owen came closer and put his arm around my shoulder. He pulled me in with a concerned look. “Hey, you know you’re my best friend, and you always will be, right?”

  “That’s not the way it works, Owen. Someday, when you meet a girl you’re really crazy about, she’s going to expect to be your best friend.”

  “Well, she won’t be. You will,” Owen insisted firmly, as if he just didn’t get it. “No girl is ever going to mean as much to me as you do, Jordan.”

  As much as I knew that was a pipe dream, his words, and his arm around my shoulder, did make me feel better. The hurt in my chest loosened its grip and began to fade. I never could stay mad at him for long.

  “You’re a dork,” I said.

  “If I’m a dork than you’re a bigger dork for being friends with me.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. It’s not like people exude a dork ray or something. Well, sometimes you do, but I’m immune.”

  “Oh, I see. You do know that you’re the king of dorks and that this conversation is absurd.”

  “No,” I insisted. “It’s physically impossible to be both a dork and gay. It’s like saying you’re color blind and blind. The universe will only allow so much disadvantage in any one given life-form.”

  Owen laughed. “You are so full of shit. You have been, and are, both a dork and gay, and frequently are in the same sentence.” He squeezed my shoulder but didn’t let go. He seemed content to walk like that all the way to my house. It was like he knew I needed him to show that he still cared about me.

  I was too tall to do it anymore, but so what. I leaned my head down against his shoulder. I’d deal with the crooked neck later.

  “Whatever,” I said, the final thrust in any argument.

  Owen seemed to understand and stopped talking.

  Junior Year

  Jordan

  The second week of our junior year, the principal called an emergency assembly the period before lunch. Rumors had been flying around, so I had a feeling I knew what this was about.

  Owen and I always met at my locker between classes and for lunch—mainly because there were too many people who bothered him at his locker. He was waiting for me there, and we walked to the gym together.

  “Think this is about Raymond Toleman?” he asked me, his face grim.

  “Probably. I wonder if they’ll tell us what happened.”

  The rumor was that a senior, Raymond Toleman, had been found dead in his room by his mother yesterday morning. He’d hung himself.

  “Did you know him?” I asked Owen.

  He shook his head. “Not really.” But there was something up. He had a tight jaw and a little crease on his forehead—he had that look when something was really bothering him.

  “I’m sensing a subplot here,” I said.

  He shook his head a little. “He came to a lot of the wrestling matches and some of the guys gave him a hard time, that’s all.”

  I remembered seeing Raymond at the wrestling matches. He always sat in the first bleacher, close to the team, but I’d never paid much attention. Raymond was the kind of kid who was born with a “kick me” sign pasted on the back of his shirt by life. He was small, stuttered badly, had greasy hair and glasses about two inches thick. I’d never seen him in anything but the same plaid shirt and brown pants. I guess he had some kind of learning disability or something. I didn’t know much about him.

  The gym was pretty crowded when we got there. Owen and I grabbed a couple of the chairs they’d put in the middle of the gym floor. Emily waved to us from the bleachers, and we waved back.

  Owen was right; the assembly was about Raymond Toleman. Principal Meyers looked pissed as he gave all six hundred of us kids a chunk of his cerebral cortex. It seemed things were pretty bad for Raymond. A bunch of kids had befriended him on Facebook and then posted crap on his page. His money was routinely “borrowed” and his locker trashed. He was shoved, insulted, and harassed. The incident that had apparently been the last straw for old Ray was when some football players had shoved him into a puddle the week before near the football field—and held him down. He liked to sit on the bleachers and watch practice. Apparently the football players considered being watched by some poor lonely kid a personal insult. No one would admit which of the football players had done it, so the entire team was being put on three-day suspension. Two days after the puddle incident, Raymond Toleman killed himself.

  Principal Meyers didn’t pull any punches, and by the time he was done, I think everyone in the auditorium, at least everyone who was not a total dickhead, felt sorry and ashamed. I did, and I didn’t even know the kid. Owen was sitting there, his hands clenched in his lap and his face bright red. I could almost feel the heat radiating off him. He was seriously tweaked. I wanted to pat his shoulder or something, but that wasn’t a great idea in the middle of assembly, even if some of the girls were crying on each other’s shoulders. I gave him a shoulder bump instead. He tried to give me a smile, but it was about as convincing as cat whiskers on a dog.

  Meyers gave us a come-to-Jesus speech about Jefferson being the kind of high school we could be proud of, about looking out for one another and showing kindness and humility and all of that. Then Mrs. Fishbinder came up and announced a new zero-tolerance policy for bullying and the formation of an anti-bullying club. The adults were taking this really seriously, and I was glad. Sometimes the crap you saw in the halls made you want to puke. I’d never been subjected to a lot of it myself because of Owen, but I’d seen it. Too bad it was too late for Raymond Toleman.

  As we filed out for lunch, I tried to get Owen to talk to me.

  “What’s up, Pin Man?” I bumped his shoulder.

  Owen looked around and then tilted his head. We went out the front door, and he didn’t say anything, just headed for his truck.

  Owen and I had both gotten our driver’s licenses over the summer. His dad had gotten him a used Chevy pickup. It had over a hundred thousand miles on it, and it wasn’t pretty, but Owen loved that truck. We both climbed in. I leaned back against the door and waited for him to talk. His face was still red, and he looked really upset.

  “Do you know who pushed Raymond in that puddle?” I guessed.

  He shook his head. “No, but it could just as easily have been our guys.” I knew he meant the wrestlers. “Some of the guys got pretty rude with Ray—knocking off his glasses, pushing him on the bleachers, calling him faggot, stuff like that.”

  I felt a little nauseous. He glanced at me guiltily.

  “He wasn’t gay. I guess. He was just… po
or kid probably couldn’t have thrown a ball to save his life, and he loved sports. He would cheer louder than anyone, even though the guys were such assholes to him.”

  “But not you, though, right?” It was more of a statement. I’d never seen Owen be mean to anyone.

  “No. But I didn’t stop it.” His voice was rough with emotion. He cleared his throat and stared out the windshield.

  I put my hand on his arm, not knowing what else to do.

  “I should have stopped it,” he said firmly.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “I mean, why didn’t I? I thought it, thought they should leave him alone, but I didn’t actually open my mouth and put it out there. It makes me fucking ashamed, ashamed to be a jock.”

  Owen almost never cursed, so I knew he was really upset. I tried to lighten the mood. “Yeah, I’ve always been ashamed about being such a jock myself.”

  “Shut up,” he said without venom. “If anyone had been nice to that kid, if anyone had bothered to stick up for him, he might not have felt like he had to… God! How could someone even stand to do that?”

  I wondered myself, and I wondered how long it had taken and what he’d been thinking when he did it. But that was just morbid and now was probably not the right moment to bring it up.

  Owen took stuff so personally sometimes. For being such a tough guy in the ring, Owen could be surprisingly sensitive outside it. I mean, I felt really bad for Raymond, too, but Owen was taking it hard. Then again, he’d seen Raymond being bullied firsthand. I knew it wasn’t easy to step in on something like that, tell your teammates to shut the fuck up. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have done it either.

  “You have a lot of clout in this school, Pin Man. So you didn’t help Raymond. None of us did, and that’s a big stinking pile of monkey shit. But you can help the next kid. Just be true to yourself, dude.”

  Owen put on his serious frown. “I’m going to get involved with that anti-bullying whatever.”