She dug through her lunch bag and slowly nibbled on carrot sticks as she read. Her eyes were wide and interested as they worked their way over the lines. Until the end, that is, when her face scrunched up in puzzlement.
“What?” Ben prompted, his stomach suddenly nervous.
“It’s good,” was Allison’s answer, her face still reflecting confusion. “I’m just surprised, that’s all.”
Exactly what Craig had said. “I don’t get what’s so surprising,” Ben insisted, starting to feel defensive. “Straight people aren’t the only ones capable of romantic feelings.”
“That’s just it,” Allison said, thumping the paper. “You wrote about a guy and a girl.”
“What?” Ben grabbed the paper from her, hands clenching as he read the final lines:
She looks into my eyes, mine mirrored in hers,
and we each see a soulmate, lost in pauper’s bliss.
“The bitch changed it,” Ben snarled. “This isn’t what I wrote!”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Jones,” he explained. “My version was gay, but she changed it to this.” He shoved the paper away from him, not wanting to look at it any longer.
“And she didn’t even talk to you about it first?”
“No! I would rather it was never published than for her to ruin it like this.” He thought of Tim, the source of his inspiration. Had he read it? Would he think that Ben was more closeted than he had previously claimed? Or did it make him think of Krista Norman and miss what they had together?
“You have to go talk to her,” Allison said. “Tell her that she just can’t change what other people write. That’s worse than censorship! She owes you an apology.”
“There’s no point!” Ben complained. “The stupid thing is published already.”
Allison was right, though. He wasn’t going to stand aside and silently take it. After school he would confront Mrs. Jones and tell her exactly how he felt.
* * * * *
After sixth period, Ben stood in front of the journalism door, trying to compose himself. To freak out or not freak out, that was the question. He would try to stay calm during the confrontation, but he didn’t know if he could maintain his cool or even if he should. He opened the door; the room inside dark and empty. After a moment’s hesitation, he flipped on the light switch and stepped inside.
Of course journalism wasn’t taught six times a day like other courses were. He had never considered it before, but it was obvious now. He wondered what other classes Mrs. Jones taught. Perhaps history, drawing from her own childhood memories from hundreds of years ago, changing truths as she pleased like she had done with his poem.
Ben went to her desk and began riffling through the papers on it. He wanted the original copy of his poem back. He wanted to see it. Had she dared to cross out his words with red ink and replace them with her own? Ten minutes later and his search was fruitless. He would simply have to ask for it back tomorrow when he saw her again.
He returned to the now-abandoned hallway and spotted another student passing by. He began to duck guiltily back inside the classroom room when he realized it was Tim.
“Hey!” he whispered.
Tim saw him and looked around nervously.
Ben beckoned him silently as he stepped back through the doorway. Tim followed, eyes searching the room for anyone else as he entered.
“There’s no one else here, you dork!” Ben said once the door was closed.
“What are you doing here?” Tim laughed.
“Did you see the paper today?”
“Yeah, nice poem. You lost me with ‘pauper’s love’ though.”
Ben sighed. “When two people are so poor that they have nothing, they still have love. That’s their happiness.”
“Ah, but neither of us are poor,” Tim winked.
“We aren’t a guy and a girl either!”
A knowing look spread across Tim’s face. “Someone screwed with your poem, huh?”
“Yeah, my douche bag of a teacher changed it.” Ben shook his head irritably. “I came here to tell her off, but there’s nobody home.”
“Why don’t you leave a message?” Tim glanced around, spotted the hat rack Mrs. Jones kept by the door, and kicked it over with a faux roundhouse. It landed noisily on the floor with a crack that suggested it was no longer in one piece.
“Don’t!” Ben scolded before smiling with satisfaction.
“You should try it,” Tim suggested. “It’ll make you feel better.”
“She does deserve it,” Ben conceded. He looked around for inspiration. He grabbed the nearest desk and tipped it over. Considering that the desk surface had been empty, this wasn’t very impressive.
“C’mon, you can do better than that. How about her desk?”
Ben matched Tim’s wicked grin, his anger at his mistreatment rising in him. He marched over to Mrs. Jones’s desk and with one hefty heave, sent all of the desktop contents flying onto the floor.
“Yeah!” Tim laughed manically as he grabbed the drawers and pulled, papers flying everywhere. “What’s next?”
“Wanna see the dark room?” Ben asked with sudden inspiration.
“Sure.” Tim followed him through the strange spinning corridor into a small cramped room glowing with red light.
“What’d you have in mind here?” Tim asked, pressing up against Ben from behind and breathing on his neck.
Ben didn’t answer. He was distracted by the developed photos that had been pinned up to dry. Some of them were of sports scenes or of the grinning faces in drama club, but a handful were of couples hugging or leaning on each other. These photos would never be censored. They would be put in the paper without anyone ever questioning them or insisting they be altered. The people in those photos would always have their relationships instantly accepted and would never consider how it would feel to have something as simple as holding hands be ridiculed in public.
Ben’s eyes flickered over to a small fire extinguisher clamped to the wall. He shrugged Tim off and took it down, struggling to pull the safety pin free before aiming the nozzle at the photos.
“I hate this fucking school,” Ben swore before white foam exploded over the photos, soaked the hanging strings of negatives, and seeped into the delicate developing equipment.
Soon it became difficult to breathe, so they fled through the spinning doorway and back into the main room where Ben began spraying everything he saw with artificial snow.
“Let me try,” Tim said.
He walked around the room, spraying a bookshelf until it dripped with foam. Tim’s jaw clenched. There was a rage in his eyes that Ben found fascinating. What did Tim have to feel so angry about? Was it his parents? His inability to openly be who he really was? Did he hate the very society that he fit into so perfectly?
The fire extinguisher began to sputter. Having exhausted its supply, Tim threw it at the marker board on the far wall, putting a nasty dent in its center. They left the room stealthily. For the first time, they walked side by side down the school corridors. Once they were out of the building, they broke into a run, laughter making their sides ache as they tried to put as much distance as possible between themselves and the school.
They reached the bike paths and followed them into the sanctuary of the woods. There they fell onto the pine needle carpet, laughing and gasping for breath until they were exhausted.
“Hey,” Ben said seriously as something occurred to him. “Did you like it?”
“Like what?”
“My poem.”
“Well, I don’t know,” Tim said soberly. “I haven’t heard the proper ending.”
Ben recited the censored lines for him, his face flushing with embarrassment.
Tim grinned, knowing all along who the poem had been written for.
“Come look into my eyes, my sweet pauper,” he said as he pulled Ben close for a kiss.
* * * * *
The adrenaline rush that had followed the afternoon’s de
struction had worn off by night, leaving Ben tossing and turning in his bed. He was certain that they would be caught, that someone had seen him standing outside the journalism room while he had gathered his thoughts. By the time he awoke from a meager three hours sleep, he had already accepted that he would be in the principal’s office, possibly even in police custody before lunchtime.
He considered attending P.E. for the first time in the year, worried that someone would be there looking for him. In the end, he decided that trouble was trouble. It was much too late to play the angel now. Ben arrived in second period English, his nerves on edge the entire time as he waited for some sign of his impending doom. He snapped at Daniel Wigmore for glancing over at his notes, which were pitifully sparse as he watched the door.
The bell rang. The next class was journalism. Ben found himself eager to revisit the scene of the crime, to discover what had happened. Mrs. Jones was standing outside the door, surrounded by a half moon of students.
“No one may enter,” she announced. “There has been an incident. We’ll be using room 2E6 in the meantime.”
Ben waited nervously for her to acknowledge him. Her eyes met his momentarily as she mentally counted to see if all of her students were present. There was no moment of recognition or even suspicion. She had no idea! The weight left his chest so suddenly that he almost laughed out loud. He had gotten away with it!
Once situated in the replacement classroom, Mrs. Jones emotionally described what had happened. A few of the students seemed upset at the news that their work was ruined, while others snickered. Ben put on his best concerned look as Mrs. Jones repeated the same information over and over, which basically boiled down to her knowing nothing.
“When will we be able to use the darkroom again?” asked a girl who was particularly keen on photography.
“Tomorrow maybe, or the next day. The police don’t want anything disturbed until they can dust for prints.”
The weight returned, knocking the smugness out of Ben like the oxygen from his lungs. Tim grabbing the desk drawers and yanking them out replayed itself in his mind. There would be prints on those stainless steel handles, he was sure. His own would be on the fire extinguisher. But did it really matter? It’s not like either of them had a criminal history. The police wouldn’t have his prints on record, would they?
A vague childhood memory came rushing back. His mom had taken him to the public library, where his prints and a mug shot had been taken. He remembered playing cops and robbers with Karen afterwards. This had been for a missing child database, a surefire way a child could be identified under dire circumstances. His fingerprints had been much smaller then, but Ben knew their pattern never changed.
Tim’s prints might be on file for a similar reason. They hadn’t gotten away with it at all. They just hadn’t been caught yet! In the next half hour Ben thought long and hard about what to do. Short of burning the school down and destroying all the evidence, he felt there was only one option left to him.
“I did it,” he croaked, interrupting Mrs. Jones as she tried to dole out an assignment.
“What did you say?” prompted a guy next to him, not believing what he had heard.
“I did it,” Ben said louder, attracting the attention of the entire class. “There’s no sense in wasting the time of the police because it was me who trashed your room.”
He looked up to see a condescending look on Mrs. Jones’s face, one that scolded him for making a tasteless joke. She didn’t believe him!
“I’m not fucking kidding!” he swore.
Now he had her attention. He was out in the hall in seconds, an explanation being demanded of him.
“You shouldn’t have changed my poem,” he said extra loud in the hopes that the other students would hear. He wanted the whole school to know why he had done it.
A crow’s talons fastened around his arm as Mrs. Jones escorted him to the principal’s office, yammering the whole way, her disbelief sliding into anger. He tuned her out, focusing instead on his plan. It was very important that he never slip up, never make any mention of Tim or another person. He was only turning himself in to protect Tim and didn’t want to make any mistakes.
His parents were called. Ben was interrogated by both the principal and Mrs. Jones until they arrived. By the time they did, his story was flawless in his mind. He parroted the details to them, not expressing any remorse. The police were sent for and he gave a statement, repeating the story for a third time, making sure this time to emphasize that he felt discriminated against. The principle looked only slightly concerned at this new twist. Had it been a matter of race or religion, it might have been taken more seriously.
Ben was suspended for three days, which made him laugh. How was taking three days off a punishment? There were the damages to be paid for, too. Ben vowed on the car ride home that he would handle it and not a dime would come out of his parents’ pockets. This did little to calm them. They lectured him repeatedly, telling him what he already knew: He should have fought with words, used his mind instead of violence.
Ben knew it was true, and he might have felt ashamed had he done it alone. Instead he cherished the Bonnie and Clyde moment that he and Tim had shared together. He enjoyed playing the martyr, too. He had made a sacrifice, taken a bullet for his lover. In his mind it was the perfect expression of how he felt about Tim.
Chapter Fourteen
“I owe you.”
Tim’s voice rumbled into the ear that Ben had pressed against his chest, startling him just as he was dozing off.
“Hm?”
“I owe you,” Tim repeated, shifting so Ben was forced to raise his head and look up at him. “Big time. I’ll pay for the damages, how does that sound?”
Ben yawned and propped himself up on an elbow. “There is something I’ve been thinking of,” he said.
“Name it. My parents would have killed me if we’d been caught. Whatever you want, it’s yours.”
“It’s your parents I had in mind,” Ben said hesitantly. “I want to meet them.”
Tim snorted, but the amused expression left his face when Ben failed to smile. “No way.”
“Fine, your car then.” Ben slumped over onto his back. “Sign it over to me. Or dinner with your parents, you decide.”
“Why would you even want to meet them?” Tim asked. “They’re just as old and boring as anyone else’s parents.”
“They’re a part of your life, that’s why.”
“No they aren’t.”
“They are!” Ben insisted. “You may not always see eye to eye with them, but they raised you, and they know you better than anyone else in the world.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about. My parents aren’t the same as yours.”
“How many times do I sneak over a week?” Ben asked, changing his tactic.
“I don’t know. Three times?”
“It’s inevitable that one night I am going to run into your mom checking to make sure the door is locked, or your dad getting a glass of water. It would be nice if they recognized me so they don’t shoot me on sight.”
Tim was silent and Ben let him think. “Okay,” he said eventually. “Come over this weekend. You can say ‘hi’ to them before we head out to Splashtown.”
“Dinner,” Ben persisted.
“How am I supposed to manage that?”
Ben smiled, enjoying his victory. “You’ll think of something.”
* * * * *
Weeks went by before the dinner took place. Tim complained that parents usually insisted on meeting friends, and that reversing the request was weird. Eventually, Mrs. Wyman cooked something large enough that Tim hurriedly called Ben so he could show up “unexpectedly.” Everything went according to plan. Tim answered the door and then asked his parents, as casually as possible, if Ben could join them. His parents agreed, even though they didn’t look particularly pleased with the idea.
Ben, dressed as snazzy as possible without appearing too formal
, took his seat across from Tim at the narrow dining room table. His feet accidentally brushed against Tim’s leg, which recoiled defensively. Ben gave him the most positive and reassuring look possible, before turning his attention to Tim’s parents. Mrs. Wyman was even more beautiful than he remembered. She was spry and energetic as she busied herself about the table, attending to her role as hostess with great seriousness.
Mr. Wyman sat rigid in his chair as he watched his wife work. Much of Tim’s handsomeness came from him, but the stoic demeanor was thankfully not something he had inherited. With his grey hair and stillness, Tim’s father could have been made of stone.
A plate of chile rellenos—battered peppers stuffed with meat and cheese—was placed before Ben. He “oohed” and “aahed” over the meal and thanked Tim’s mother graciously. Her mouth relaxed into attractive lips that smiled in appreciation. Mr. Wyman remained unimpressed, studying Ben evenly before folding his hands. He led his family in prayer before they ate. Ben was prepared for this. Tim had tutored him multiple times on the ritual and what to say. Ben seamlessly intoned grace along with the Wymans as if he had long since been a member of their family.
There was no lull in conversation. Ben had done too much research for there to be. He started with Mexico City, Mrs. Wyman’s birthplace. After pouring through encyclopedias for hours, he had learned it was nicknamed the City of Palaces, that it was built by Aztecs in 1325, and boasted more museums than any other city in the world. He worked through these topics, claiming to have recently written a paper about the city for history class. Mrs. Wyman became animated, adding to his knowledge with great enthusiasm. Occasionally the topic of religion came up, ninety percent of Mexico City being Catholic, but Ben gently steered the conversation away every time it did.
Next he turned his charms on Mr. Wyman. This was much more difficult since the topic Ben had chosen to use was football, something he knew nothing about. Tim had coached him here too, teaching him the basics of the game before moving onto specifics involving Mr. Wyman’s favorite team, the Kansas City Chiefs. It would have been too blatant for Ben to claim to like the same team, so he chose instead to playfully attack a few of their players and games while defending the Dallas Cowboys. Ben felt fake during his conversation with Mr. Wyman, since he had absolutely no interest in sports, but Tim’s father didn’t seem to pick up on his insincerity.