“Oh fuck,” Jason said. He had to sit down on the floor because he felt faint.
“And he told everyone afterwards that I was going to be a big player at the school and I was going to go all the way. That made me feel important.”
“I’ll bet,” Jason said, barely able to get the words out.
“Then he … then he …”
Jason reached up and patted him on the back. “You’re okay, Leo. It’s never going to happen again, I swear it to you. I’m going to take care of this.”
Leo continued as if he hadn’t heard Jason at all. “He took me in the shower. He hurt me. He said if I told anyone, I would never get to play football, that everyone would say I’m gay. He did it so many times…”
Jason dropped his head in his hands and cried. “I’m sorry, Leo. I’m so sorry this happened to you.”
Jason wanted to put all his hate on the coach, but he couldn’t do that. He blamed himself too. He’d come to the blindingly painful conclusion that he was part of the problem.
He’d ignored signs. There had to have been signs, right? Why hadn’t he paid better attention? And because of guys like him, boys like Leo were easy victims. Easy to draw in and convince to do things they’d never normally do. All they wanted was to be put up on that pedestal and be admired by everyone. They wanted to be like him.
What a tragedy, he thought, to base your life dreams on such an illusion of grandeur.
Leo lost his monotone and spoke softly, all of his emotions wrapped up in every syllable. “I’m afraid I’m gay, Jason, and I don’t want to be gay. I like girls. And I used to like football too. But I don’t anymore. I hate it. I hate it!”
Jason stood up all of a sudden, knowing he had to fix this. “Leo, I’m going to go take care of this, right now. And you need to get up out of that bed and talk to a grown-up about this. Tell your grandma or your priest or someone.”
Leo sat up and shrieked, “No! Don’t you tell anyone, Jason! If you do … if you do … I’ll kill myself! Just like my momma did, I’ll kill myself!”
“What? Oh my god, no.” Jason sat down on the edge of the bed and hugged Leo. Then he shook him to make sure he was paying attention. It was freaking him out that the kid looked so absent. “You aren’t going to do that, man!”
“I will.” Leo looked him right in the eye. “If you tell a single person in the whole world, I will kill myself. I swear it.”
Jason was caught between a rock and a hard place. Try to get Leo some help and find him dead from suicide? That wasn’t even an option. The best decision he could make right then was to solve the most immediate problem first and then convince Leo to get help after. Jason needed to stop the predator in his tracks, let the coach know that he knew the truth and he wasn’t going to quit until the rest of the world knew it too. Then it would be safe for Leo to find help. To heal.
“All right, listen, I won’t tell anyone. Not a word. But I am going to tell the coach that I’m watching him and that he’s not allowed to ever touch anyone ever again.”
“I’m not the only one,” Leo whispered. “I saw him with other boys. Sometimes he makes us watch… and other stuff…”
“Oh god, oh god.” Jason stood, sick to his stomach and torn between comforting Leo and needing to do something to fix things, to stop the pain from escalating, from spreading, from infecting everything that he held dear. Football.
Boys who used to be like him, dreaming of their big days ahead, were hiding in plain site, mourning the loss of their innocence, questioning who they were, going along with horrible awful things for a dream that Jason himself helped create and kept alive. The camaraderie, the loyalty, the feeling of the win. All of it was a lie. He felt like a fraud, a fake, a monster himself.
“Leo, I’m going to go take care of this. You stay cool. Don’t freak out and whatever you do, do not hurt yourself. This is not your fault. The coach is a predator and an evil person who I am going to make sure is put in jail for the rest of his life. He’ll never touch you or anyone else again.”
“You promise?” Leo asked, his voice just a shadow of its former self.
“I promise.”
Chapter Sixty-One
JASON PRETTY MUCH BROKE THE sound barrier driving to the stadium. He wondered on his way there if he should have gone to the police first, but his promise to Leo told him no; it was better to confront the coach and keep him from doing anything else and then get Leo some help. The professionals dealing with Leo would get the police involved in a way that didn’t destroy Leo’s life. Jason would be there to help, he vowed to himself and any god that might be listening.
He watched the janitor leaving as he pulled in to the stadium parking lot. He waved and acted as calm as possible under the circumstances. After parking his car, he found Coach Fielding in his office.
“Coach, I need to talk to you,” he said, sweating with the raw emotions that were eating him up inside, and trying like hell to keep a tight rein on his anger. His disillusionment was literally painful, his heart aching for Leo and all the other boys and young men who had been led astray by this man. The entire city believed his lies. It was beyond sickening how everyone had just allowed this to happen.
But no more…
“Just a minute, son, I’m in the middle of something.”
Jason slapped the power button on the TV to shut it off and stood in front of it. “No. Now.”
The coach slowly sat back in his chair. “You okay, son? Something bothering you?”
“Yeah, I’d say so.” His nostrils were flaring with the effort of keeping his temper under control. All he wanted to do was break every single trophy in that room and tear down all the photographs of the young boys that hung on the wall. Coach with his arms around their shoulders and that slick smile took on a whole new meaning that day.
“Have a seat. Talk to me.” His voice was all smooth and slimy, according to Jason. He seemed to know why Jason was there and he didn’t act like he cared one bit. If anything, he was cocky.
“No thanks, I’ll stand.”
The coach smiled and rested his hands on the arms of his chair. “I’m all ears.”
“I talked to Leo today. He told me everything.” Jason was trembling with anger. He could picture Leo’s tear-streaked face as the boy threatened to end his life at the age of twelve.
“Who’s Leo?”
The casual answer threw Jason off. All he could see was a demon sitting there in that chair; a demon who abused children and then didn’t even remember their names. There must have been too many to keep track of, he thought to himself.
“Leo is the twelve year old boy who you sodomized and abused several times and tried to bribe with a fucking pair of shoes!”
The coach kind of laughed and then frowned. “Well now … those are some serious accusations, son.”
“Don’t call me son! My father’s name is Chuck and he doesn’t ruin kids’ lives like you do. He has honor, and honesty, and … and …” Jason couldn’t think straight he was so upset.
The coach slowly got to his feet. “You think you know everything, don’t you?”
“I know right from wrong.” Jason stood straighter, even when the coach’s attitude went alarmingly cold.
“Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. Or maybe you’re just jealous. Is that it? You missing my attention? Want more of it for yourself? Not happy with just being first string, getting all the news coverage, being captain?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jason said, disgusted with the way he was coming closer and closer while talking in such a sleazy tone. Jason backed up a step towards the door.
“Or maybe you talked to Leo and you felt left out …like you should have been invited to our private coaching sessions, is that it?”
Jason’s face crumbled in disgust. “Private coaching sessions? Are you serious? That’s what you tell those kids? God, you’re sick, you know that? You’re fucking sick in the head.”
The coach took two big steps forward, putt
ing himself right in Jason’s face, towering over him. “That’s it. You’re jealous. Well, don’t worry, son, I can fix that.”
The coach reached down and put his hand on Jason’s crotch.
And that’s when all hell broke loose.
Chapter Sixty-Two
JASON SHOVED COACH FIELDING WITH all his might and sent the guy back a couple paces, but the coach wasn’t that easily brushed off. Even though he was in his late sixties, he still had a lot of muscle on him and at least three inches of height to work with. He came at Jason faster than Jason could have imagined possible.
Coach slammed Jason into the wall, knocking most of the air from his lungs, causing him to hit his eye on the corner of a shelf. Then he shoved his forearm up against Jason’s throat and growled in his face.
“It’s my word against his, asshole, and no way is anyone going to believe you or a bunch of welfare losers that I did anything wrong. This city loves me. This city owes me. I bring them to State championships every year. We compete when I’m in charge.”
Jason could barely talk with the pressure on his windpipe. “People’s lives are being ruined by you, and I’m going to the cops as soon as I leave here, as soon as Leo is safe from you, you monster.”
“Over my dead body,” the coach said, releasing Jason long enough to take a swing at him.
Jason moved to the side, and the coach missed, hitting a coat rack and sending it across the office in pieces.
Jason tried to run out of the office, but the coach came after him, pulling him by the shirt back towards him.
Jason twisted around and swung out, panicked the coach was going to kill him to shut him up. He caught the coach in the cheek, a hard crack that broke one of his knuckles. Fear and revulsion had given him a strength he’d never known, even on the football field.
Unfortunately, the blow only stunned the coach, so he was able to launch himself at Jason again. Jason said he felt like a tackle dummy when his thighs slammed into the desk and he bent over backwards.
Jason rolled off the desk and leaped up to punch the coach once more, this time with his other fist. It got the coach in the stomach, slowing him for just a second or two before he was upright again and coming at Jason with blood in his eyes.
Jason swung as hard as he could, knocking the coach sideways with a solid hook to the jaw. The coach tripped on his way down, catching his toe in a rug he had custom made to celebrate his latest State win. It had the Boys’ Center logo in the corner of it. He fell to the ground, hitting his head hard on the corner of the desk on his way down, and he never got up on his own again.
That was how Jason’s teammates found their beloved coach ten minutes later, with Jason standing over him, his knuckles cut and bloody.
Jason hid the bruises on his back and ribs from them and the police so that he could keep Leo’s secret from everyone, just as he’d promised. He was carted off to jail and turned into everyone’s most hated citizen overnight. One minute he was in all his glory, and the next he was less than nothing.
Chapter Sixty-Three
THE DAY AFTER THE CHARGES against him were dropped, Jason showed up at my front door, a giant bouquet of pink and red roses in hand.
“What in the heck are you doing?” I asked, a huge grin splitting my face. He couldn’t have looked more handsome standing there in his shorts, muscle shirt, and running shoes.
“I’ve come over to ask you to go jogging with me.”
I looked pointedly at the flowers. “It’s going to be awkward running with those.”
He thrust them towards me. “This is a thank you from me and my dad.”
I took them from him and went to the kitchen. “Thank you for what?”
He waited until I put them in water before he pulled me into a hug. His arms wrapped all the way around me until he had his hands on my ribs. He spoke over my shoulder.
“Thank you for being my friend. For never giving up on me. For not listening to me when I was being stupid. For forgiving the unforgivable.”
I hugged him back as hard as I could. “That’s what you do for friends.”
“I hate to say it, but your definition of friendship is a lot different than most people’s.”
“Well, most people suck, what can I say.”
Jason released me and then got down on his knees.
“What on earth are you doing, fool?” I panicked. If he pulled out a ring I was going to deck him.
“I wanted to know if you’d do me the honor of going to prom with me.”
My heart did a double back flip followed by a triple axle.
“Prom?” My normally supercalafragalistic sense of humor had escaped me. I’d never gone to prom before and never ever would I have imagined going with someone like Jason. It seemed like such a foreign concept now. Prom was for kids and I didn’t feel like a kid anymore.
“Yeah, you know …,” he said, “…the dance? Dresses, tuxes, shitty music, awkward dancing, chaperones, dinner …”
“I get it, I get it. Would you stand up, please? You’re making me nervous.” I pulled on his t-shirt to make him go faster.
He stood and took me into a light embrace so we could face each other and look into each other’s eyes.
“I love you and I want to show the world how much,” he said.
“You don’t need to do that, you know.” Imagining myself on his arm and both of us all dressed up made me a little light-headed, actually. Maybe I wasn’t totally grown-up yet.
“I want to. Unless you don’t want to…” He leaned back a little to look at me. “Are you worried about what people will say?”
I raised an eyebrow at him. “I will slap you, you know.”
He grinned. “That’s my girl. So, I was thinking we could go shopping for a dress today if you want.”
I laughed. “Bobby would kill me if I went with you and not him.”
“Okay, fine. He’s probably got better taste than me anyway.” He pulled away and started walking towards the front door. “Come on, let’s run.”
“I need to get dressed.”
“I’ll be stretching out on the front lawn.”
I was down there in ten minutes, which was apparently exactly how much time it took for a whole gaggle of reporters to realize Jason was there and gather on my front lawn to talk to him. He was still front-page news.
I walked out the door right into the middle of the circus.
“How does it feel to be cleared of all the charges?” one of them asked.
“Do you think it’s fair that you got released when you killed him?” asked another.
“What are you going to do now?” Someone from behind the crowd shouted.
Jason put his arm around me and nodded to the reporters. They all went quiet and listened.
“I’ll answer those three questions and then I’m done. Forever. So don’t bother showing up here or at my house, because this is the last time I cooperate with you people.”
He stared at everyone, giving them his full attention. “First of all, it feels good to be free. Great. Until you’ve had your freedom taken away, I don’t think it’s possible to truly appreciate it. But at the same time, it’s hard for me to appreciate it because there are so many kids who aren’t free now, because of Coach Fielding and what he did to them. They’re prisoners of those memories and I doubt they’ll ever be free of that.”
He swallowed with effort and continued on, his voice strong. “I feel terrible for all those kids whose lives were ruined by the monster who took advantage of them and of his position in our community. We put that man up on a pedestal and look what he did. There’s a danger in that, and I hope all of you guys who put people’s pictures in the paper and build them up to be some kind of god will think about that little bit harder from now on.”
He paused to let his words sink in before continuing. “You asked if I think it’s fair that I’m not in jail. Yes, I think it’s fair, while I also think this whole thing was a terrible tragedy. Do I wish things had
gone differently? Yes. I wish the coach were in jail right now answering for his crimes. But would I do what I did all over again if given another chance? Yes, I would. I didn’t go see the coach with the intent to harm him. I went there to confront him about what he’d done. I did it because people can’t be afraid to confront monsters, to call them on their bullshit, to stand up and say no more when things are happening that hurt kids.”
He put his arm around me and pulled me in close. “And what am I going to do now? I’m going to go jogging with my best friend in the entire world … the girl who never gave up on me and the person who is responsible not only for me being free but also for all those kids getting the help they need. She’s the real hero here. And we were all victims.”
“What are you going to say to all those people who say you’re lying about what Coach Fielding did?”
I didn’t think Jason was going to answer at first, but then he stopped trying to walk off. His arm dropped from my shoulders and he stood very straight. “Anyone who will look one of those kids in the eye, hear his story, and then say that Coach Fielding did nothing wrong, belongs in a cold grave right next to him. And that’s all I’m going to say on the matter. Please go home to your families and stop harassing me and these good people here.”
He grabbed my hand and pushed through the vultures on the steps, pulling me behind. We started jogging before we hit the sidewalk, the wet grass making our ankles damp and itchy.
“Come on, race you to the corner,” he said.
“I’ve been working out,” I said, taking off at a dead run. “Catch me if you can!”
We ran for miles that day in silence, just enjoying each other’s company. I imagined that with every block that went by, we left behind a little bit of the sorrow we’d been gathering for the last six months. It was only a dream, but at least I knew it was okay to have hope. Jason was free to move on with his life and so was I.