Westpoint Tales
by Kiwi
Jerry's Awakening
White lights. Bright lights. Music, somewhere.
So. This is it. What happens next?'
Jerry was scared, really scared. Stupid, he knew. What could hurt him now? But, he couldn't help it. This was all new to him, and it was scary. He’d never been dead before.
He was dead, wasn't he? Well, wasn't he? Yeah, of course he was. He must be. He was lying on the back seat of his mother's car, in the darkened garage, engine running and a hose through the window. Now - he was here with bright lights shining down on him. He must be dead. At last. What happens next?
What happened next was not good, not good at all. His father's face appeared in his field of vision and he was obviously not happy at all. Did the devil have his father's face? It wouldn't surprise him if he did.
"You stupid little shit! What the hell did you think you were doing?" (He had his father's voice too.)
"Did you want to die? You could have freakin' killed yourself," his father said.
Oh. COULD have killed himself. He wasn't dead then. It didn't work. Fuck it.
"Um...yeah," Jerry coughed and tried to clear his throat. His mouth was dry and his throat really hurt. "That was kinda the idea. Can't even do that right."
Tears welled up in his eyes. He was surprised that he had any left to cry. “I knew....I knew I should have used a rope. Next time I will."
"You what?? There's not going to be a next time." Tears were running down his father's face now. Wow, that was a first.
"Jerry, Oh Jerry, my little boy. What happened Son? Why did you do that?"
This was too much. His father cared what happened to him? His father cared? Well, he wouldn't. He wouldn't care if he knew why. He'd probably help him do it.
Like a dam bursting, the tears started. Again.
"I can't. I can't do it," he sobbed.
"I just wanna die!" he wailed.
"That's enough, Gerald. You're not helping, you're just upsetting the boy. Get out of the way."
Jerry's mother appeared and pushed his father back. His first thought was, 'Go away, Mum. For the first time in my miserable life, I'm making some sort of connection with my father.'
But when she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close, all thoughts fled as he collapsed into her warm embrace and cried his eyes out.
"You think that's helping? Doesn't look like it to me." His displaced and disgruntled father complained.
"Hush! Cry, Jerry. Cry it all out. It's all right my baby. It's going to be all right."
"It isn't! It's not. My life is over. I'm just a dead man walking."
"Gerald Hargreaves Adams, you can't say that. You're not even a man yet. You're 14 years old, Jerry. Your life is just beginning. What is so wrong that you can't face living?"
"I can't go back to Saint Michael's, Mum. I just can't, and I'm not."
"All this because you won't go back to your boarding school?" His father was astonished. "St.Michael's is a perfectly good school, it's one of the best. What's so wrong with St.Michael's that you'd rather die than go back there?"
"It's not the school, it's me. I'm queer and everybody knows it. They chew gayboys up there and spit them out. I can't go back."
"Okay." His mother stroked his hair. "You can't go back to St.Michael's, so what? There's a perfectly good High School here in Westpoint. You can go there. I've never liked you going away to school anyway."
She glared at her husband over top of the boy's head. "No matter how good a school it is, I'd rather have you living at home."
"Now, hold on a minute there," Mr.Adams protested. "We agreed, Jerry was going to go to St.Michael's. I spent the best days of my life there and it's a good school."
"Hush up, Gerald. You might have been happy there but our boy obviously is not. He can go to Westpoint High."
"Stop it. Stop it, stop it! You're not listening. This is not about the school. Didn't you even hear me? I said that I was gay."
"So what?" said Mrs.Adams. "If you are, you're not the first and you won't be the last either."
"There's no 'if' about it. I'm gay, I know it and so does everyone else at St.Michael's"
"Well you can stay home and go to Westpoint High then."
"Stop talking about the fucking schools!"
"Jerry, don't talk to your mother like that. Look, Son, have you been in a relationship with a boy? Is that what this is all about?"
"No!" Jerry wailed. "I haven't. I'd like to, I'd love to, if I found the right boy, but I haven't."
"Well, if you do stay at home then, maybe you'll find the right boy at Westpoint High."
"WHAT??" Jerry could not believe this conversation. Who were these people?
He turned away from his mother to get a drink of water from the jug by his bed.
"I think it's time that you told him, Gerald," his mother sighed.
"Yes, it is. Past time, I think. Look, Jerry, we weren't always boring old married people you know. Your mother and I were young once too. Just as young as you are now. We've been there and done that."
"I suppose you were young, but what's that got to do with me?"
"Everything to do with you. Years before I met your mother, when I was still a student at St.Michael's, I had a relationship with a boy. Okay, I had a boyfriend. It was not just sex. We did that, of course we did, but it was more than that. I loved Andy, part of me still does. I loved him very much. More than he loved me as it turned out. But, for several years we were in a very intense relationship and we were very happy together.
I thought that we would be together forever, but Andy didn't. It nearly ripped my heart out when he dumped me. I thought that I'd never get over it, but I did. It took a long time, but I got over him. Then I met your mother and - well, you know the rest."
"Dad...I.....Wow! I'm totally gobsmacked. Like, wow! How come you've never told me this before?"
"I don't know, Son. Now I wish that we had told you. I guess, when you were a little kid, it was none of your business. Now, obviously, you're growing up. We know what it can be like, Jerry. Your mother and I are happy now and have been for a long time, but it wasn't always this way. All I want for you is what any father wants for his son - I want you to have a good life and be happy, whoever you're with. If that means finding a boy to love you, well......you go for it."
"Dad, Mum, thank you - really thank you. I ....umm.....are you sure that I'm not dead?"
"You're not dead, Son. You're alive and hopefully you'll stay that way for a long, long time."
"And, I don't have to go back to St.Michael's?"
"No. Of course you don't." Suddenly, from the depths of despair, Jerry was on top of the world. All the crushing weight had been blown away by these wonderful parents that he didn't even know he had. Why hadn't he talked to them before? Why hadn't they told him?
Well, now they had. His life could begin now.
"Fan - bloody - tastic!"
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