Go West Young Man Read online

  My mother didn’t comment on the kiss but directed that another present should be brought over or we were going to be there all night. More presents appeared, which Bill opened. I noticed that she was handing him all of the presents brought by the jocks and the rest of her crowd. That was fine. I had several presents for Bill, only one of which was in the pile. The other presents I had for him would be presented later, at home, when he didn’t have an audience.

  Bill got lots of gifts, some good, some ridiculous, some completely and utterly confusing. One box he opened contained a large bra. There was a look of complete confusion on Bill’s face when he studied the bra, and then we all heard one of his jock buddies shout out, “It’s a prescription—have it filled immediately upon arrival in California and take daily.”

  The crowd roared with approval. Bill blushed in embarrassment.

  At my Dad’s urging, I got up and started to take pictures. I got pictures of Bill opening presents. I got pictures of Bill and my mom. I got pictures of people in the crowd watching and cheering when Bill opened gifts. I backed off to the side of the room and got a lot of group shots that took in most of the room. I even got a few pictures of the gift table. My mom had taken pictures of the table earlier, before Bill and I had arrived, along with some shots of the cake.

  Bill got a huge number of gift cards. He got gift cards for gas, for food, for plane tickets, for bookstores, for sports shops, for grocery stores, and for Starbucks. Lots of Starbucks cards. He was certainly going to be well supplied for getting his daily caffeine fix for quite some time.

  Some of the packages simply contained cash, a five-dollar bill, some a ten-dollar bill, and a couple even a twenty-dollar bill. I guess those were the people who couldn’t get out to buy a gift card. But cash was still king and could be used anywhere. It paid rent, it bought groceries, it bought textbooks, it paid bus fare, and just about anything a student could need. Cash was good.

  Another package, clearly from one of his jock buddies, contained boxes of condoms, and again someone shouted out that he should use them immediately upon arrival in California. Bill smirked at the guy in question. My mother, being my mother, simply said, “Safe sex is the best sex.”

  The pile of presents was down to just a couple. I noticed that the bitch cheerleader had carefully ignored mine. I guess I shouldn’t have put who it was from in big bold letters on the card, but who could have predicted this situation? Bill got a pair of really nice running shoes. Since he was best known as a track star, those made perfect sense. Somehow, the person knew his shoe size and had bought exactly the size he needed. He got a couple of hats, one that actually looked pretty good on him.

  And then finally she placed my present in front of him, clearly preferring not to do so, but not knowing any alternative. Bill read the gift card on the package, looked around for me, spotted me over with my dad, and smiled at me. He opened that package more carefully. The one present I had decided to give him here was a safe one. He was an artist, and an artist needed a digital camera to be able to take pictures, so I got him a camera. I couldn’t afford the best of the best, but I used my farm supply store money to buy him a compact digital camera that got good reviews and took pretty good pictures, despite its size.

  “A camera!” Bill shouted. “I got a camera!” Clearly he was pleased or was at least acting like he was pleased.

  There were no more presents, the food was mostly gone, and the cake was just a remnant of what it had been. Someone shouted, “Speech!” Someone else echoed that idea, and then lots of people were chanting it at Bill.

  Bill stood and looked around the room while he tried to collect his thoughts. “I’m speechless. I’ve never had a birthday party before. I’ve never had a birthday cake before. I’ve never had a birthday present before. I will remember this day as long as I live. I can’t begin to tell you how much this means to me. To everyone who organized this event, to whoever made that incredible cake, to all of you who attended, to everyone who gave me presents, thank you. Thank you so much.”

  The crowd applauded Bill, and then the party started to break up. One by one, people stopped to shake Bill’s hand, to punch him in the arm, to fist bump, or to just give him an old-fashioned hug before departing. People took their food containers with them, and the room emptied out.

  My Dad and I started to clean up the paper plates, plastic silverware, and cups people had used during the event. We hauled out trash, including a ton of wrapping paper. We wiped down all of the tables and got them folded up and put away. My mom asked my dad to help load Bill’s presents and the remains of the cake into the car, and then she drove him home.

  Dad and I folded up the chairs, put them away, took down all of the party decorations, and got everything packed up and thrown away or hauled back to the car. We swept the floor. When we were convinced that we were leaving the place in the same condition in which they had found it that morning, we called it quits and closed and locked up so we could head home too.

  When we got to the house and got the things out of his car and into the garage, we went upstairs, where we found Bill and my mother huddled around something at the table. They were going over the list of who had given him what. Bill hugged my dad and then my mom and said, “Thanks, Mr. and Mrs. M.” He had taken to calling them “Mr. M” and “Mrs. M” rather than using their full names, and he had never been comfortable calling them by their first names.

  I washed the crap off my hands from the cleanup work we had just finished and then went to change into something soft and fuzzy so that I could be more comfortable. My mom had Bill at the table starting the process of writing thank-you notes to everyone who had attended and brought him a present. My mom was a firm believer in the importance of a hand-written thank-you note. Not a thank-you e-mail. Not a thank-you instant message. Not a thank-you phone call. No, she believed that the hand-written thank-you card was a thing of beauty that was sadly dying. She believed that the frequency of people sending thank-you notes was now at the point that it was so rare it was appreciated more than anything else.

  Bill was daunted by the prospect of the job ahead of him. The list of people and presents was overwhelming to him. He couldn’t believe that so many people had come out to a party—for him—and had brought presents and food. When it wasn’t even his birthday. He could not recall anyone ever doing something so kind and generous for him anytime in his life.

  Together the two of them put together a prototype that he could use as the basis for all of the notes. And so he started the arduous task of handwriting all of the many dozens of thank-you notes. He got through a dozen before needing a bathroom break. At the same time he felt the birthday cake calling to him, demanding that he eat another piece. And who was he to argue with sugar and fat—with frosting on top.

  Something with frosting always seemed to help me, so I could only imagine that it would give him the energy he needed to plow through another batch of thank-you notes. I left him alone, instead lying on the couch trying to read a book I needed to finish for English. It was tough going, so I needed to get through some more of it while I had the chance.

  My mom decided that after the day she’d had she was too tired to cook, so she consented to something she hardly ever did—she allowed us to do carryout Chinese. Our town had few restaurants. The newest one was a Chinese place that only did carryout—no eat-in option. My dad gave me some money. I got everyone’s orders and then drove downtown to pick up our food. A half hour later when I got back, we all ate, and then left Bill to do some more of the seemingly never-ending thank-you notes.

  By the time Bill had knocked out a couple dozen of the things, he was ready to throw them all across the room and stomp on them vigorously, so he quit for the night. My mom had warned him that it would take several days of active work to get through all of the many people who required thanks for their role in his party.

  After we had eaten, I had returned to the sofa to continue my reading, determined to finish the damned book t
hat day if it was the last thing I did. When he came in to join me on the sofa, he was in a cranky mood. In retrospect, I would have been cranky, too, if I had been forced to sit at the table and write “thank you” over and over and over again.

  In a less than loving, thoughtful, caring manner, he shoved my feet aside from where I lay on the couch, happily reading my book for English class, and plopped himself down. “Hey!” I protested. “You could have asked.”

  “And you could have taken up less couch space too.”

  My mom and dad had gone to bed, so it was just the two of us. We watched a little TV, and Bill played around with his new laptop computer, appearing to be both excited and cautious at the same time. We didn’t talk much because he was tired, overwhelmed by the events of the day, and his mind was going in too many directions simultaneously.

  Finally, I decided to call it a day. “I’m going to bed,” I announced, which got a simple grunt of acknowledgement from Bill. Shaking my head but holding my tongue, I left the room and got ready for bed. Given how the evening had played out, I decided to simply leave his other birthday presents on his side of the bed for him to find. Maybe that would put him in a better mood. As much as I wanted to be mad at him, I really couldn’t blame him. The poor guy must be tired from the day, and yet excited at being the center of attention and getting so many presents and so much love and respect from his friends so unexpectedly.

  I placed the three carefully wrapped packages on his side of the bed, and then crawled under the covers to read for a few more minutes. The end of the dreadful book I had been reading was within sight, and I desperately wanted to finish the damned thing. Finally finishing the assignment, I tossed the book to the floor beside the bed, turned off the light, and lay down. I had no idea how long Bill was going to be up. Not long after, I was just starting to drift off to sleep when I heard Bill come into our shared room and undress for bed. I had left the light on his side of the bed turned on so that he would have some illumination and wouldn’t trip on anything coming into the room.

  It was then that he must have spotted the presents. The sounds of movement he had been making until that point simply stopped. I was turned the wrong way, so I couldn’t just open my eyes and look. I had to roll over, which alerted him to the fact that I was awake. He stood at his side of the bed totally naked (and lovely), simply staring at the packages.

  For a moment neither of us spoke. He finally broke the silence, pointed, and asked, “What are those?”

  “They look like birthday presents for you,” I said simply.

  “You already gave me a birthday present.”

  “Well, there is no limit on the number of gifts a person can give someone they love.”

  Bill was silent.

  “And these were some that I wanted you to be able to open in private.”

  “I can’t take anything else from you,” he protested. “You and your family have done so much for me and my mom. More than I can ever repay.”

  “Bill. Shut up and open the presents.”

  And surprisingly, that was all it took. He crawled up onto the bed, sat beside me, and looked at the three packages I had wrapped for him. Running his fingers over one of the packages, he looked at me and asked, “Which one should I open first?”

  I pointed to one, which he proceeded to open very slowly and carefully. Inside he found two new good-quality sketchpads and one hardcover sketchbook. “They’re beautiful,” he said simply. “Thank you. Which one next?”

  I pointed to another, and he opened that one equally carefully. Inside that one he found a large set of colored pencils that a sketch artist would use. “I’ve never had anything other than a basic number-two pencil that I stole from school. These are better than anything I ever thought I would have.”

  “And you can use them anytime you want, anywhere you want. You no longer have to hide your drawing from everyone’s eyes.”

  “So I guess this one is next,” he said, which was a stupid thing to say, since it was the last of the three packages. But I didn’t call him on that. He opened that package but wasn’t able to tell what the package contained. From all appearances it looked like a hard-sided, odd-shaped briefcase. Laying it on its side, he flipped the latch open and lifted the top. Arrayed inside were more than a hundred pastel sticks, every color of the rainbow.

  “They’re beautiful,” he said, slowly and gently wiping his hand across their surface, as if to convince himself that they really existed.

  “I didn’t know if you liked pastels or not, but the guy at the art supply store said it would make a nice gift. If you don’t like it, we can take it back and get something different. But I know how much you love to draw and how gifted an artist you are. Your drawings are so vivid, so real.”

  He leaned over and stopped any further conversation by simply kissing me. He stretched out beside me on the bed and continued to kiss me. He laid his head on my chest and said, “I love you.”

  “Good thing, too. No one else has ever applied for the job.”

  He chuckled. “I want nothing more than to jump your bones right now, but I’m so tired.” He moved his newest presents to the desk and then crawled under the covers with me, wrapping me in his arms. We were both exhausted and fell asleep in almost no time at all.

  Chapter 2

  The Senior Prom

  WHILE half the school was abuzz about the prom, the subject held no interest whatsoever for me. Why should I care about the stupid prom? I wasn’t going to ask some girl to go to the dance. I couldn’t go with the one person I wanted to go with. It was all irrelevant to me. Without discussing it, I half assumed that Bill would be going with one of the many women who seemed to be perpetually in pursuit of him. Best not to think about that until I had no alternative but to do so.

  I was therefore surprised when, a couple of weeks before the day of the prom, Bill casually asked me, “So what time do you want to go to the prom?”

  “Huh?” I said—either that or something equally brilliant.

  “The prom. You know, the dance thing that everyone’s been talking about for weeks?”

  “I’m not going,” I said.

  “Why not? It’s the senior prom,” he said, as if that should explain everything.

  “I’m not going to ask some girl to go to the dance just to be a cover for me. I don’t work that way. And besides, half the school thinks I’m gay already.”

  “I don’t want you to go to the prom with some girl.”

  “That’s the way the game is played. Sorry to tell you that, but you kind of have to invite a girl if you want to go to the prom.”

  “Why?” he said.

  “Huh?” Our conversation had degenerated into one-word questions and answers.

  “I don’t buy your premise,” he said. “Which is why I’m asking you if you will be my date at the senior prom.”

  “Bill! No! You’d never recover from something like that! Your reputation would be ruined.”

  “Mark, I’ve given this a lot of thought, and this is the way I see it. One, I’m going to graduate soon and leave this town, maybe never to return again. Two, any capital I’ve earned in high school has a very short shelf life and needs to be spent before it expires. And three, I don’t give a flying fuck what these people think. I don’t live my life for their approval. If they don’t like something they see, then they can just look somewhere else.”

  “Bill!”

  “So?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “So? Will you be my date for the prom?”

  “Bill!”

  “It’s a simple question. Do you know how many women would give their left boob to get what you just got? An invitation from the great and mighty—”

  And I smacked him at that point.

  “Ow!” he complained. “That’s not one of the options! It’s either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. But you should know that there is only one of those options that I’m willing to take from you.” And I could tell from the look in his
eyes that he was speaking the truth. The man could be stubborn beyond belief when he set his mind to something. It’s just a good thing I wasn’t the same way!

  The man simply sat and stared at me.

  “Can I have a little while to think about it?” I asked, growing uncomfortable with him staring at me.

  “No. There’s only one answer I’ll take from you on this question.”

  “Then why’d you even bother asking me?” I complained.

  “I wanted to do this right and invite you to attend the prom as my date. You don’t just tell someone that they’re going with you.”

  “You just did!”

  “That’s because you are. Now what’s your answer?”

  “Aggghhhh!” I yelled.

  “So, is that a ‘yes’?”

  “Do I have a choice?”

  “No.”

  “Then I guess it’s a yes, then!” I said in exasperation.

  “Good. Now that we’re past that little issue, we need to start planning. We’re gonna need tuxes. I thought we could rent a limo as well to take us and maybe some friends.”

  “What makes you think that anyone is going to want to be seen in public associating with us ever again if we show up there as dates?”

  “Because I happen to know that we will not be the only same sex couple attending the prom this year.”

  Now he had my interest. “Oh?”

  “Well, it seems that someone I know got Jeremy to come out to himself earlier in the year. And since then the guy’s done a lot of growing and mellowing. And I also know that he’s been dating a guy from the city that he met at a bar.”

  “How’d he get into a bar?” I asked.

  “The same way half the people in them get in—by having a fake ID. And it’s not like you think. He doesn’t have some old guy. He’s been dating a guy who is just finishing his first year at college in the city. So they’re only one year apart in age. And Jeremy turns eighteen one week before the prom, so that argument is out the door too. He wants to do it, but he doesn’t want them to be the only two guys dancing together.”