“You need to leave. Now.”
He was on Henry like a large cat pouncing on its prey, “You don’t give me orders, you little faggot. I leave when I want to leave.” And in one swift move, he had Henry face down on the floor. With his knee in the middle of Henry’s back and his fingers wrapped tightly through his ginger waves, he slammed Henry’s face repeatedly into the parquet wood tiles.
The searing pain was immediate. He felt the first slam and heard a deafening cracking sound that he instinctively knew were the bones in his cheek. On the third slam, his nose crushed to the left, cutting off one air supply. By the fifth slam he was unconscious, his struggling body now limp.
“I’m not a fag and I don’t take orders from them.”
He never felt the pain of Cody’s rage on his ass as the big Marine violently took what he wanted one last time, nor did he feel the thud of keys being thrown onto his back before Cody calmly walked out of his apartment for the very last time.
Sometime after 2 A.M. he regained consciousness. Disoriented, it took him a few minutes to recognize his surroundings and remember the details of the assault. Immediately gripped by fear that Cody was still there, waiting to finish what he had started, he lay there very still until he was certain that he was all alone. Staying in one position to mentally gather the strength to bear the pain, he slowly crawled across the apartment.
When he reached the kitchen, he pulled the phone by its cord until it came crashing down onto the floor next to him. Just the sound of the phone smashing to the floor caused pain in his multiple injuries. Lifting the receiver, he hit the redial button, because it was easier than dialing 911. Listening to the series of rings, Henry prayed the call didn’t go to an answering machine.
“Hello,” Edwin’s voice was filled with sleep.
“I need an ambulance,” he thought he said, but wasn’t really sure, as he once again lost consciousness.
Edwin didn’t recognize Henry when he stepped behind the curtain in the Emergency Room. Swollen into a grotesque, bruised mask, it was only the shock of wavy ginger hair that assured him that this was his sweet, beautiful friend. The IV with painkillers had knocked him out and he was resting, although Edwin doubted that it was comfortably.
Sighing deeply, he took Henry’s hand and held it tightly, “Oh sweet boy, how could that animal have done this to you?”
A nurse walked in, “Are you Edwin?”
He nodded.
“Henry was able to write this down, before they gave him the sedatives and pain medication.”
She handed him a piece of paper from a pharmaceutical pad. In scratchy, barely legible handwriting, “Call Schooner. 714-555-3012. Bring wedding pictures.”
Edwin looked up at the nurse, “Was he delirious? It says to bring wedding pictures.”
The nurse shook her head, “No, he wasn’t delirious. The surgeon is going to need photos to help in the reconstruction of the bones in his face so that he ends up looking somewhat like he did before the attack.”
Somewhat like he did before the attack? Closing his eyes, Edwin tried to process the information. Facial reconstruction. Surgery. Sweet, sweet Henry, the boy who had paid for a friend’s funeral, when his own family wouldn’t, was the victim of such violent hatred just for being who he was. And his attacker, Edwin was certain without actually knowing, was a man whom he had trusted with his heart and body. And now what had that very same man stolen from his soul. This was too steep a price to pay for loving the wrong person.
As he headed down the hall in search of a phone, he thought, well, I’m finally going to get to meet Boat Boy, the nickname he had given to Henry’s odd-named friend. Not exactly the way I wanted to meet him.
Henry had just been moved into an actual room when his old friend, Schooner Moore, arrived. Lightly dozing in a chair next to the bed, Edwin opened his eyes to the pained look on his handsome friend’s face. The man had grabbed the heavy plastic footboard at the end of the bed as if to stop himself from swaying and closed his eyes as he slowly exhaled a lungful of air.
Edwin sat there silently watching the pain on his face turn to seething anger. Lion King, Edwin thought, this man is the king and no one hurts a member of his pride and gets away with it. He looked like he was ready to pounce. Henry had described Schooner as ‘larger-than-life’ and Edwin agreed with the assessment.
The man was big, several inches over six feet with a strong athletic build. I’ll bet he could give that Marine a run for his money, was Edwin’s immediate thought. With his thick blonde hair, sky blue eyes, and beautifully photogenic features, Edwin couldn’t think of a single actor working in Hollywood better looking than this man.
Schooner finally noticed he was being watched and looked over at Edwin. “The Marine?”
“I think so,” Edwin sighed deeply.
Nodding, Schooner’s eyes focused back in on his friend. “Don’t worry. He won’t get away with it.”
Alarmed that Schooner would go after him and be hurt, Edwin opened his mouth to protest.
As if sensing that, he shook his head, “Don’t worry, it won’t be anything physical, even though I would like to kill him, he deserves something much worse.”
“Oh you’re evil, I like you.”
And it was then that Edwin saw the beautiful All-American boy smile for the first time. A smile that almost made him gasp at its sheer beauty. The man was magnificent.
“He really loves you.” Edwin looked solemnly at their sleeping friend.
“I’m an only child and he’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a brother. He was there to pick me up in my lowest moments and he knows things about me other people don’t. That’s how much I trust him.” Schooner sat down in the chair next to Edwin and crossed his long legs.
“You know it’s an odd thing for a straight guy to be close friends with a gay man.”
Schooner shrugged. “It’s not really something I think about. We’ve been friends for a long time. A mutual friend introduced us and Henry and I just hit it off.” He thought for a moment before speaking again, “We love who we love. It may not make sense to anyone else. It doesn’t need to. It may not even make sense to you,” he paused, shrugging again. “It doesn’t need to.”
Edwin had the sense that Schooner wasn’t just talking about his relationship with Henry, but also of someone else. He knew that he was married, yet he’d bet his last dollar that the love he was talking about wasn’t with his wife.
The unlikely pair held a bedside vigil, Schooner taking on the role of primary contact with the doctors, meeting with the plastic surgeon and leaving the room to make phone calls that Edwin got the feeling had something to do with retribution for the Marine. The doctors wanted Henry stabilized prior to putting him under anesthesia for surgery, but didn’t want to miss a fine window to operate.
With his jaw already wired and swelling still significant, Henry’s ability to communicate was limited when he awoke.
“Squeeze my hand once for yes and twice for no,” Edwin spoke slowly to him as if he were talking to a small child. “Do you understand that?”
His strength was limited, but both men could distinctly see the single squeeze.
“Did Cody do this to you?” Edwin asked in a hushed tone.
Again, a single squeeze.
“Son of a bitch,” Schooner muttered.
“Do you want to press charges?”
Two squeezes came in rapid succession.
“Are you afraid that he might come back and hurt you if you do, H?” Schooner asked, moving closer to where Edwin was seated.
A single squeeze.
“Hey, buddy, don’t worry about that. That motherfucker is going to be spending a good long time in a hell hole in the Middle East and that’s a promise. And if he does get back stateside, he will not be stepping foot in California, I can guarantee you that.”
Edwin looked up at Schooner, “Is that what you’ve been doing on that cute little cellular phone of yours?” Edwin loved the new l
ittle StarTac phone Henry’s friend seemed to have attached to his ear.
Smiling, “My mom and dad send you their love, H.”
Inwardly smiling, it was immediately clear to Edwin that Schooner Moore’s parents had some very influential connections and that he had called upon them to gain some justice for his friend.
Watching Henry close his eyes and drift back to sleep, both men hoped that they had given him some solace in knowing he wouldn’t fall prey to another attack.
“I need to go make a call,” Schooner began to move away.
“You needed corroboration?”
He nodded, “Obviously we needed to confirm, but it’s exactly as we thought it was.
“Will he really be shipped off?”
There was a look of satisfaction on the handsome blonde’s face and he nodded. “Yeah, he’s a huge liability to them.”
Smiling, Edwin pointed a finger at Schooner, “I knew I liked you.”
Laughing, “Well, I think you are going to like me even more. There’s a little part two to this that I think you’re going to like and I’m going to need your help to pull off. Are you in?” Schooner gave Edwin an irresistible, conspiratorial smile.
Dipping his head and looking up at Schooner through his lashes, “I’m all in.”
Edwin wondered if anyone could ever say no to this beautiful White Knight.
Schooner walked into Henry’s apartment with a small soft cooler bag and put it down on the coffee table. “Hey, look at you,” he smiled at his friend sitting on the couch. “You really look amazing.”
Home for several days, Henry’s bruising from both the attack and the subsequent surgeries had improved significantly, as had his swelling. Handsome prior to the beating, a team of Southern California’s very talented surgeons reconstructed the bones in Henry’s cheeks, nose, jaw and eye orbits, resulting in Henry not only looking like his former self, but with a finer, more refined elegance to his bone structure. A one and a half inch scar below his eye on his left cheekbone would add a slightly rugged dimension to his impressive looks.
“I feel a lot better,” he said through clenched teeth.
Unzipping the cooler bag, Schooner began to unpack Tupperware containers filled with colored purees. “CJ has been making this homemade, organic baby food for Zac, so she’s made a whole set for you, too. They’re labeled, so that you know what they are. And there’s some adult flavored food in there in addition to the peas and carrots mush.” Schooner smiled.
“CJ made that for me?” His face was still too swollen to register shock.
Nodding, “Yeah, she did. She was really upset by what happened to you. She’s genuinely worried.”
Using the word genuine in connection with anything concerning CJ Moore felt like an oxymoron to Henry. He and his friend’s wife had never been fans of one another and he doubted they ever would be.
Henry had first been introduced to Schooner in January of their freshman year in college. His close friend and dorm mate, Mia Silver, had gotten to know the big blonde tennis player during freshman orientation at the beginning of the school year. The month of January at their school was known as Interim. During that period, many students were off-campus, traveling abroad, and taking classes overseas for the month, while other students remained on campus where they would engage in one very intense workshop class four days a week.
Schooner, Henry, Mia and their friend, Rosie, remained on campus that January, and together became a project-partner team in a workshop on music in American popular culture. The four became inseparable, working, studying, eating and hanging out together seven days a week. During what felt like a magical month, deep bonds were formed, and two very significant relationships emerged.
Schooner and Henry became close and unlikely friends – a tennis star from the all-guys jock dorm and a gay guy from the freak and stoner dorm. Each had never felt more comfortable with another male friend, shedding masks they thought they had to wear for the world, abandoning deep secrets, while learning about who they were to become as men through lessons learned via their friendship.
The other relationship that formed during Interim was between Schooner and Mia. Schooner had a girlfriend right from the start of freshman year, and they were immediately considered a power couple on campus. Even though they were freshmen, there wasn’t a soul on campus who didn’t know who CJ and Schooner were. CJ MacAllister looked like she belonged with Schooner Moore. Blonde and beautiful, the former prom queen was like a royal at court, always surrounded by her mean-girl minions that often did her bidding. That January, CJ was in Europe studying abroad.
As unlikely a pairing as Schooner and Henry, Schooner and Mia couldn’t have seemed like an odder coupling on their small, Southern California campus filled with golden boys and flaxen-haired beauties. Schooner was the quintessential California golden boy. A child model from age four, the tall blonde, blue-eyed athlete seemed like an unlikely love for the little, curly- haired brunette intellectual from New York City. Mia was a quirky, free-spirit, while Schooner fell captive to everyone’s expectations of him.
But this love that formed burned with an incandescent intensity, as each experienced that all-consuming first love. There was no doubt in either of their minds that the other was their one and only true love, the person they wanted to share an entire lifetime, their twin flame.
But fate would deal Schooner a blow so powerful that while he appeared whole and unscathed after a period of time, nothing could have been further from the truth.
Schooner Moore died on the last day of their freshman year in college. But only someone as close to him as Henry Clark would actually know his friend’s soul had vacated his handsome shell, as he slipped on a mask for all the world to see, pretending he was the same and had gone on living.
But he had not.
Coming back to Henry and Mia’s dorm after his final exam on the last day of school, Schooner’s plan had been to spend some time with Mia before she left for the airport to fly back home to New York for the summer. Greeted by an empty dorm room with no Mia, and no note from Mia saying goodbye, the handsome blonde was crushed, knowing deep in his soul that all his dreams had been ripped from him in an instant. She was gone. Just gone.
In a moment of frustration, Schooner slammed his fist into a concrete block wall in the dorm’s hallway, smashing several bones and ending his bright tennis career. Every part of what he loved died that day.
Heartbroken and not knowing why the love of his life left him, never returning to school, Schooner closed himself off to situations he couldn’t control, situations that could hurt him. Love was never going to be his focus, but building a business empire of high-end, state of the art fitness and entertainment complexes would become his life’s passion. That, and his children, became the laser focal points in Schooner Moore’s life.
Knowing Mia the way he did, Henry knew something very significant had happened on that last night of freshman year to make Mia run and never return. Schooner was so deeply entrenched in Mia’s soul that walking away and never turning back had to have been born of a deep, shattering pain. Henry knew that. And he also knew the only one with any leverage to inflict that kind of pain upon Mia, was Schooner’s ex-girlfriend, CJ.
He didn’t know what she had done. But he knew she had done something to turn fate on its axis and invoke an alternate ending to what should have been written. Although he never verbalized it to CJ, she knew that Henry thought she was involved in Mia leaving Schooner. It was an unspoken, but very clear mistrust, and because of that, Henry was a liability to her. Minimizing her husband’s contact with him would only help to ensure the safety of her treacherous secrets. So CJ MacAllister Moore generally made no bones about her distaste of her husband’s relationship with the ginger-haired gay man.
“I watched her make them and feed them to Zac, so I can vouch that there is no poison in any of them,” Schooner joked, but both men knew that the thought went through each of their heads.
“
Don’t make me laugh with a wired jaw, Moore.” CJ Moore being nice to me? Thoughtful? Quick, turn on the TV, Hell must’ve frozen over.
Edwin arrived a few minutes later, and he and Schooner left shortly after to do some shopping for Henry. Or so they told him.
“I hope he shows.” Edwin was gearing up for drama.
“Me too,” Schooner nodded, as he negotiated his Porsche 911 eastward through the streets of San Diego, “I don’t want any doubt in this scumbag’s mind exactly what happened, who did it to him and why. And our window of opportunity, before they ship him out, is almost up.”
Pulling up in front of The Hole, Schooner killed the engine and he and Edwin sat silently like two pumas in wait. After about twenty minutes of watching hot men, not so hot men, bears and biker boys descend the steep wooden staircase into their tropical patio mecca, Edwin whispered loudly, “That’s him, I’m sure of it.”
“Ok, look down, I don’t want him recognizing you.” Schooner slid on his Ray-Bans. “I’m looking at the tall, built guy, faded jeans, black V-neck tee and aviator glasses.”
“Yes, that’s him.” Edwin took a quick peek up. “I’m positive.” Quickly ducking his head back down, as if getting something from between their low bucket seats.
“I’m going to let him get settled for a few minutes.” Schooner reached over in front of Edwin and opened the glove compartment, pulling something out.
“What are you going to do with that?” Edwin asked.
“Insurance.” Schooner hit him with his beautiful catalogue cover smile.
Shaking his head, “They are going to swarm you in there.”
Schooner laughed, “I’m looking for Ryan, right? He’s the bartender with the Merlin tattoo on his arm.”
“Yes, that’s how Henry once described him to me.”
“Ok, I’m going in.” Schooner swung his long legs out of the low car.
“Good luck.” Edwin appeared nervous.
Pointing a finger at the older man, “Stay here. Do not come in until after he leaves. I don’t want him near you.”
Henry's End Page 7
