The Book of Joe

it’s the kind of thing that will blow over after a few days, and sometimes I think nothing will ever be the same again.”
    I was sadly leaning toward the latter view myself, but didn’t think he needed to hear that just then. “Maybe you shouldn’t go to school for a few days,” I said. “Let everything settle down first.”
    “They’ll all be talking about it, whispering behind my back.”
    “What about Sammy?”
    “Fuck Sammy,” Wayne said vehemently. “This is all his fault anyway. I told him that my room wasn’t safe, but he had to keep on going at it.”
    This was a little more information than I really needed at the moment. “Listen,” I said. “You’re the star of the basketball team. If an asshole like Mouse is accepted because he’s on the team, certainly a guy like you - ”
    “Mouse doesn’t fuck men,” Wayne said pointedly.
    “Mouse doesn’t fuck women either, as far as anyone knows,” I said, trying in vain for even a small laugh.
    “This is bad, Joe,” Wayne said, lying back on my bed. “This is a fucking nightmare.”
    “What do you want to do?”
    Wayne covered his eyes with his forearm and exhaled slowly. “I just want to wake up, man,” he said, shaking his head sadly. “I just want to wake the fuck up.”
    I was the subject of much intense scrutiny the next morning as I made my way through the eerie hush of the school yard and down the hall to my locker. Students stood in clusters, conducting whispered conversations that ceased abruptly as I walked by, their glances ranging from inquisitive to accusatory. Wayne had opted to hole up in my room for the day, and before I’d even made it to my locker, I knew he’d made the right decision. In the two minutes since I’d arrived the stares and whispers were threatening to suffocate me, and I could begin to imagine what it might feel like to be Wayne today. Carly was waiting for me at my locker, and I almost broke down when she kissed me. “Are you okay?” she said.
    “Not really.”
    “You want to cut out and go somewhere?”
    I did, but I shook my head no. With Wayne and Sammy lying low, I felt like I needed to be there to scout out the situation for them. Also, there was no denying my selfish need to be seen going about my business in the midst of this scandal as someone with nothing to hide, lest I become thought of as gay by association. Carly took my hand and pressed up against me. “I think I’m going to need to stay close today,”
    she said, and I felt my eyes go hot with tears. I kissed Carly’s hair and squeezed her hand as we walked toward homeroom, and felt a sudden stab of anger toward Wayne and Sammy. Everything had been going so well; why did they have to go and fuck it all up?
    I was summoned to Dugan’s office in the middle of second period. Sean and Mouse were loitering in the hall outside his office when I got there.
    “Is it true about Hargrove?” Sean asked, blocking my way to Dugan’s door.
    “Is what true?” I said.
    “Word is he’s a fudge packer,” Sean said.
    “I’m not familiar with that term.”
    “You know, a bone smoker,” Mouse clarified happily. “A faggot.”
    “Wayne’s no faggot,” I said hotly.
    “We have it from a pretty good source that your buddy’s a butt pirate,” Mouse said, flashing an evil grin. The guy was failing English, but when it came to gay slurs he was a regular thesaurus.
    “What are you getting so excited about, Mouse?” I said.
    “You get off on talking about faggots so much, we can only imagine where you fit into the whole bone-smoking scheme of things.”
    Mouse’s smile faltered, and he stepped forward menacingly, grabbing my shirt in his fists. “What do you mean?” he said through gritted teeth.
    “Which word didn’t you understand?”
    He banged me against the lockers, hard enough to rattle my teeth. “Fucking asshole,” he said.
    “There he goes again talking about fucking assholes,” I said to Sean. “Are you noticing a pattern here?”
    Mouse punched me in the stomach, and he and Sean were pulling me up to hit me again when Dugan stepped out of his office. “What the hell is going on out here?” he yelled, his gruff, authoritative voice freezing us in our places. “You boys aren’t getting into trouble on a game day, are you?” he said, addressing Sean and Mouse. “Or maybe you’ve forgotten that we play New Haven tonight.”
    “No, sir,” said Sean, releasing me and stepping back, pulling Mouse with