Novel Treatments / Just one of the gang (chapter 3)
Chapter 3
I stared into the mirror at my newly shaven head. It looked odd and felt weird to the touch. Tommy, Claude, and Butch all stood beside me light reflecting off the shiny new domes as well. Seven games into my first season and we were still undefeated. I had been told that since the schools opening they had never had a record like that. People were beginning to talk state. The guys decided that to insure our streak we should sacrifice a part of ourselves. Our hair was the proverbial lamb. I looked in the mirror and smiled. Butch slapped the top of my head with his wet hand.
“Fuckin right! This is it guys, we gonna keep’em shaved as good luck.” He said in boisterous triumph. His handprint still stung on my bare skin. The razor burn was going to be unbearable.
“That faggot was starin at my dick again earlier,” Claude chimed in.
“I think we need to teach him a lesson”
We three knew who he was talking about. Nathaniel was the teams’ towel boy and he helped the coach with plays. The kid was smart but weird. Coming out of the showers he would gawk at each of the guys to a point that we just wanted to pound his face in.
“I know,” I added. “that sick little fucker needs to learn the rule. I think I got an idea. Huddle up.”
Later on that day, practice ran its usual course. We did our swamp walks, our two-a-days, and our laps, and then retired to the showers. Nathaniel was there to hand us our towels and to stare at us as he always did. The four of us however took our time in the showers this day. We waited patiently as each other player left the stalls and went home. Claude walked out first and was handed a towel.
“Thanks Nate” he said, accepting the towel offered him.
“So man, you and coach workin on any new plays for Fridays game?” Claude dried off slowly never fully covering himself with the towel as he did so. Nathaniel’s’ attention was solely upon him. Together Butch, Tommy and I walked out of the showers to our respective lockers. Nate was going on and on about the one play that he and coach had come up with that would throw the Mavericks off from the begging of the game to the end. He never once noticed us approaching him from behind.
Butch reached out and grabbed him by the neck. Nate let out a yelp. Noting his cue to act, Claude charged forward and planted his fist into the small boy’s abdomen.
“Fuckin queer!” he yelled as he landed another blow to the kids face. His cheek bubbled almost instantly and the skin tore away.
Butch got a better hold of him by placing him in a full nelson. I walked around to the front of him and smiled a smile that reminded my friends of Dominick’s’.
“So you take a position as towel boy so you can stare at us and live out your gay fantasies hunh?” I stepped forward and kicked him hard in the groin. His knees weakened and had it not been for Butch holding him, he would have fallen.
“Football ain’t got no place for fags!” I hit him. His lip burst open and he began to cry uncontrollably.
“Shut the fuck up. Ain’t no one gonna hear you cry. They ain’t anyone here. You all alone with us.”
“Please don’t kill me. Please, please don’t. I’m sorry. I won’t do it anymore Iswear. Just let me go please.” He begged.
I couldn’t help but laugh.
“Kill you! Ha, I don’t wanna kill ya. I wanna help ya, see today is a lucky day for you. Today you gonna learn a valuable lesson. One that just may change your life. See how I take it is you a little faggot wannabe. You ain’t never really done it right. Ya just curious right? Answer me ya little shitstain.”
He nodded and whimpered an almost unintelligible approval.
“Right, well today we gonna show you what you got in store for you. Maybe, just maybe it’ll change your mind in the future.”
I snapped my fingers and Tommy tossed me the Ben Gay he had grabbed out of his locker.
“Strip him Claude,” I ordered. I turned and reached into the clothes hamper behind me and grabbed a small jockstrap. Nathaniel tried to fight back but it was to no avail he was out numbered and far to weak to stop the torture we had devised for him. I grabbed a flag football belt and commenced smearing the Ben Gay all over the jock strap in my hands. Walking over I put them on him and forced the bands into the crack of his buttocks. His eyes widened as the burning began. He cried out in pain as I tied his arms to his waist and we lifted him onto a hook.
He hung there for a few hours. It wasn’t until the hook gave way to his weight that he actually fell to the ground. We found out the next day that he had been rushed to the hospital for severe injuries. The principal never found out who had committed the act but our coach somehow knew and punished us by making us do extra two-a-days for the remainder of the week. When finally Nate returned to school, he had changed. He dropped out of the football team and we barely saw him after that. We had made our point. Friday came and yet another victory was behind us. The school was exstatic and soon the events of that day were out of everyones mind. If only it had been that easy for Nate to forget about.
Sunday morning came and I woke with a pair of girls whom I didn’t recall going to bed with, laying across my chest. My left arm throbbed from the rubberband that was still tied there, I must have forgotten to untie it after I shot up. I smiled grogily as I snapped off the band and tried my best to remember the events of the night before.The girls laying with me were gorgeous and I’m sure I had enjoyed myself, yet I couldn’t remember any of it. Ohh well, it wasn’t the first time it had happened that way and it surely wouldn’t be the last. Standing, I scratched my groin and felt the crunchy matted down hair that gave me the satisfaction that I had had a good time with the girls and not fallen asleep on them, as I walked to the bathroom. I had to piss bad.
I was greeted by claude first that morning and he of course was in a good mood, he always was. Claude was one of those scary good mood people. You know, the kind that walk and talk to themselves with large smiles on thier faces. That was him but worse. He was like a fucked up Peter Pan Looking at the life we led as though it were an adventure. An nothing we did was too sick or twisted for adventures sake. He was always willing to do anything no matter the moral ambiguity of it.
“Hey Hammer!” He had given me that nickname after a game one week. He said that I hit as hard as a hammer when I takled someone on the field. It kinda stuck to me after that day.
“Dude you gotta hear this.” He held a CD in his hands.
“It’s fuckin cool, It’s like all about us and shit man. I think that If it true and we do go all state this years we need to play this as our intro. You gotta hear it. C’mon.” Grabbing me he led me the living room that was still occupied by a score of sleeping kids. Kicking his way through them he pushed me down into a seat and poppoed the disk into the player.
The music was from a band I had never heard before, Man of war was thier name. They were one of those eighties hair bands that sonded more like women than men but the song he played was more a tale than a tune.
It began an old man with an Irish accent talking to his grandson about a great war from his childhood. The field way bloodied and the goodguys, according to the narrator, were all but defeated. Thunder clapped and the enemies rejoiced at thier victory till suddenly up on a large hill lightning illuminated four riders on black steeds. Each held a magical weapon in thier hands, one a sword, one a club, one a battle axe, and one a mighty hammer. Raising thier weapons in the air they charged forword into the fray and annialated thier enemy. The riders were known as the metal kings. It was an interesting song.
“Cool man.” I conceeded. “can run it by the guys and see what they say. If it’s a go we’ll run it by coach. I say yeah.
“Fuckin right!” Claude exclaimed, clapping me on the shoulder he grabbed the disk and ran out the door. Claude was deffinitely a weird one, but atleast he was on my side. Leaning forword I grabbed a joint out of the punch bowl before me. I lit it and took a toke.
“So you gonna sit there and smoke that, or are you gonna come and fuck us again?” I heard from behind me. Looking, I saw one of the gorgeous girls whom I had awoken next to, still bare for all the world to see and a glint in her eye that would make the most abstinate man cower. I still couldn’t think of her name but at least this time I would remember what we did. I took one more toke and put the joint out. With a grin I stood and walked into the bedroom.
-—---—-----
The end of the season approached and for the first time in the past twenty years, the Barracudda’s had found there way to the state championship. The busses were loaded and we were on our way to San Antonio. A sence of surrealness filled me. Here I was, my first year in this state. My first year playing football. My first time being in a gang, all these firsts and there I was alone for all I cared. Dominick wasn’t on the team, he wasn’t on the bus. He was the reason why all this had happened to me. It felt odd not to have him here in celebration of it all. I felt as though I were cheating him. He had been with me through it all, without his intervention I would never have been able to do the things I had done. I owed him so much and he wasn’t here to share it with me. I sat the bus ride in silence.
The school had gone all out and got us rooms at a very fancy hotel in the city. Before this I had only seen the inside of rooms such as these in tv shows and movies. I was most suprised however by the greeting I recieved getting off the bus. There in the lobby he stood. My best friend. I ran over to Dominick and hugged him. I couldn’t believe he was there to share it with us.
“Ok ya faggot!” D yelled as I held him. “I know, I know, but the others are gonna think somethin ya dumb shit. Leggo a me.” Smiling he patted my arm.
“Sorry man, I’m just glad to see you. What are you doin here? The game ain’t till tomorrow.” I asked, the shock still clear on my face.
“I know but I got a room and me and a few other guys are stayin here. What did ya think, what we were just gonna show up tomorrow for the game? Shit man, no way we’d let you have all the fun. This is like a once in a lifetime thing, no way I was gonna miss this. I mean c’mon, our school goin state! I’ll probly be dead before this happens again.”
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Pretty good. Its a good format, the team. It’s a great way to provide many characters and thus many points of view in any given situation. I found the part where Nate is hung from a jock-strap to be hilarious, it reminded me of shit I used to do in high school. Perhaps I’m a sick fuck, but I digress. Somehow I think Nate’s gonna get back at you, watch out. Keep working.
chs
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