As with most of my story ideas, I discussed this with my wife before-hand, and while she thinks that the high-school angle is a bit over used, well, this is me we’re talking about. I like writing about high-school kids :)
Without further ado, I bring you the story.
Not at his head, exactly, but they were traveling at over eighty miles an hour, and required a bit of concentration.
WHACK!
He sent another ball flying into the net at the far side of the batting cage. He loved the feeling of the bat connecting to the ball. He could tell, just by the way that the bat vibrated, whether it was a nice solid hit like that one, or a pop fly like the one after that.
WHACK!
Another homerun, or so he imagined. He had no idea how fast the ball was traveling when it left contact with the bat, but occasionally he could get the net to hit the chain link fence almost two feet behind it. He was the only one he knew that could do that.
WHACK…ting!
There it was. A ball hit the fence, letting him know with the rattling ‘ting’ that resulted. He smiled, but there was no time to exult as another ball was already coming his way. He was so lost in the physical movement of the bat that the twenty minutes he’d paid for were over before he was ready. He stood there for almost a minute a before someone clearing her throat behind him brought him to himself.
“You going to stand there all day, Babe?”
“Um…what?” Jay flushed bright red at the assumed intimacy of the greeting.
“You know, as in Bambino…the original home run king?”
“He was also the strike-out king, you know,” Jay responded, regaining some of his composure.
The blonde girl chuckled at him as she tucked her long hair up under a baseball cap. Jay just stood there watching.
“You mind moving out?” she said when she was finally done.
“Oh, sorry,” Jay said, moving out of the way for her. He was about to move off when he noticed her ramping up the speed of the balls to ninety-five miles an hour. Jay stopped, shock suffusing his features for a moment. He’s tried to hit balls going that fast in the past, and while he was occasionally successful, he didn’t do it for fun. The problem was that his reaction time just wasn’t good enough for it.
If there had been a real pitcher out there throwing the baseballs, then it wouldn’t have been as much of an issue. The brief wind-up would have telegraphed the ball a fraction of a second before it actually released, allowing him to prep his swing for the release.
With the auto-pitcher, the only alert you had was the whump when the ball was launched in your direction.
CRACK!!
The sound of the bat hitting the balls was almost like a gunshot, and Jay heard the tink from the fence almost immediately after. He hadn’t even recovered from the first hit when the crack of a second went off. This one caromed off the net roof.
Three more went into the roof and then there was another solid hit, and the ball went into the far fence. Jay started watching how she moved, examining her form like he would one of the other players during batting practice at the school.
He kept it up for a little while, before his thoughts began to drift into other avenues that her curves seemed to trap him in.
“You know, I can feel your eyes on my butt,” she said to him, breaking him out of his reverie. Blushing furiously, he refocused on how she was moving when she was hitting the ball.
Through the rest of her twenty minutes, she hit an average of one in five of the balls right down the center, with another two in five being fouls of one sort or another.
“You know, you might do a little better if you placed your feet a little further apart and swung the bat with your entire body.”
“It feels too weird when I do that.”
“That’s because you’re too used to doing it your way.”
“Whatever…”
“What did I say?”
“It’s more the fact that you’re obviously trying to pick me up or something because you liked the look of my ass in these jeans.”
“I won’t deny that I liked the view, but there are two reasons that you should listen to me on this.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes, really. The first is that I’ve got a girlfriend and she is the jealous type.”
The girl smirked at this, “What’s the second?”
“I’m the captain of the baseball team,” I said, gesturing toward her baseball cap where a chipmunk was displayed prominently. There are a lot of people who think that we have a really stupid mascot, my best friend among them, but me, I like being a chipmunk. Besides, the school actually got permission from Disney years ago to use the likeness of Chip.
“Oh…you’re Jay Sims aren’t you?”
“Yep.”
“Katie is your girlfriend.”
“Yep.”
“I’m Katie’s cousin, Melanie.”
“The one from out of state? So, you’re going to be coming to school with us? Hope to see you there.”
“Not likely. Katie never really liked me.”
“It doesn’t seem that way. She did tell me you were coming here after all.”
“She thinks I stole a previous boyfriend. Look, you seem like a good guy, Jay, but I have more time here, and I want to get back to my practice.”
Jay stepped into the cage with her and dialed down the speed to seventy.
“What are you doing?” she said with a shout.
“Giving you the time to try it my way. Use your whole body in the swing.”
Melanie trie the first couple of times, but completely missed the ball. She was awkward and couldn’t quite get into it.
“Look, anyone who can hit a ninety-five mile an hour fast ball should be able to kill a seventy.”
Melanie grumbled at him but tried again. She missed the next three but then she caught a piece of the fourth one, and she was off to the races after that. Hit after hit went into the net. She began to smile and then giggled a bit.
The next set Jay dialed up to eighty. She had to work at it a little harder, but she again hit ball after ball into the far net. He punched it up to nintey halfway through, and she missed a couple, but still hit most of them into the net.
“You know, you might actually be better at bat than I am.”
“Not that it matters. Apparently your district doesn’t allow girls on the boy’s team.”
“Huh, but isn’t there a girls…”
“Softball? No thanks. I like baseball.”
“Sorry,” Jay began, but Melanie interrupted him.
“Not your fault, Jay. Look, maybe I will see you at school, but would you mind leaving me in peace? I kind of like to take out my frustration on the balls.”
Knowing exactly where she was coming from, Jay walked away, but not before he saw her dialing the speed back up to the max of nintey-five.
He could hear the crack of the bat as she hit the balls while he walked out to his car. It happened more often than the last time she’d run it up that high, but nowhere near every hit.
He smiled and shook his head before getting in his car to drive home.
He drove home slowly not wanting to lose the feeling of peace that he’d gained by hitting balls. His parent’s marriage had always been a bit tumultuous, but recently the screaming matches never ended. Burying his head in his school work, or in practice, was the only way that he could really cope.
With the baseball season not yet started in earnest, Jay had to find other pursuits. Katie was one of those interests, but she was at one or another of her ‘activities’ as she called them, and so had left him to fend for himself for the day.
He slipped inside and rushed upstairs, hoping that he wasn’t seen. There was a lull in the shouting, but it quickly started up again before he got to his room. His parents talked a good game about love and marriage to everyone else, but they choked when the pressures of life piled on.
With his headphones on, and some rock music blasting away, Jay settled down to work. He was going over the math problems for his calculus class for the third time when his door opened.
“Jason Harold Sims, didn’t you hear me calling you down to dinner?”
Jay quickly took of the headphones so he could hear what his mother had to say.
“What, Mom?”
She smiled at him halfheartedly. “Time for dinner, Jay.”
“Ok, I’ll be down in a minute.”
His mom winced when the front door was slammed and the sound of a car starting told me that dad would be missing another meal with them tonight.
Jay was relieved.
It’s not that he hated his father, or was even afraid of him, more that he was tired of all the bickering. They ate a lackluster dinner and Jay went up to his room to go to bed. He was lying in the darkness, waiting, hoping, when his phone began to vibrate.
“Hello?”
“Jay!!! You’re still up!”
“Hey, Baby.”
They talked for a few minutes, talking about their days, leaving out all of the difficult things. Katie didn’t like to deal with the difficult things.
“I’ve got to get some sleep, Katie. I’ve got to be to the school early tomorrow.”
“Why?”
“Coach wants to talk to me about something. Some issue that the district is telling him.”
“Anything I should know?”
“Not really…oh, while I’m thinking about it, I met Melanie today.”
There was silence on the other end of the. Jay sat there waiting for a response for a while before finally he’d had enough and just needed a response. “Katie?”
“What did you think of her?”
“She’s a great hitter.”
“Huh?”
“She was at the batting cages. Doing a little batting practice I think.”
Katie began to laugh.
“What’s so funny?”
“She’s always had a really butch idea of femininity.”
“Why do you dislike her so much. She said something about stealing your boyfriend?”
Katie began laughing. “She said that? No, I hate her because she thinks she’s better than everyone else. She has to be better at sports, better at dancing, better at music, you know, just better.”
“Where is this venom coming from?”
“She beat me at a beauty contest.”
“What?” Jay couldn’t help it. He laughed at her.
“It’s not funny. I had been in a number of other pageants. I was working on my skills and trying to work my way into the top position. The next one was mine. That summer, Melanie was stuck with us, and my mother thought it would be a good idea if the two of us did a beauty pageant together. It would be a good experience for the little tom-boy.”
“She won?”
“Don’t get ahead of the story, Jay.”
“Look, I don’t have time. I get it. She never did any of that stuff, won her first pageant, and you feel slighted. Don’t you think it is more your mom’s fault than Melanie’s that she was in the pageant?”
“Bu…”
“Look, be nice to your cousin. She’s not a bad person.”
“I’ll think about it. Night, Sweetie.”
“Night, Jay.”
He was even more confused to see Melanie in the coach’s office when he arrived.
“Hey, Melanie. What’s up, coach?”
"Hey, Babe."
Jay laughed, "So, should I call you Dot or something?"
"Dot?"
"My mom loves A League of Their Own. That was the only female player I could think of off the top of my head."
The coach chuckled at that, realizing that she'd been calling him Babe Ruth, not an endearment of some sort. “Well, I see introductions are going to be unnecessary. Where do you know Melanie from, if I might ask?”
“I’m Katie’s cousin?”
“Cheerleader Katie?”
“Or dancer Katie, or flautist Katie, that Katie.”
The coach chuckled before continuing.
“I’d like you to dress out, Jay. We’re going to give a private tryout for Melanie here. Her dad used to be on the team and he thinks she’s good enough. The district, in it’s wisdom, is trying to tell me that I can’t allow a girl on the team, since they just won’t be able to compete on the same level as one of the guys.”
“Coach Peters,” Melanie started only to be interrupted by him raising a hand.
“They, not me. I figure that anyone who can hit a nintey-five mile an hour baseball like you did last night deserves a shot.”
Jay laughed and Melanie just blushed.
“Something you want to share, Mr. Sims?”
“I kind of gave her a couple of pointers on form last night before you arrived.”
“I did point out she was a bit awkward in her swing but all the basics were there. That was you?”
“Yeah. She was swinging with her arms, so most of the time the bat was out of position when the ball crossed the plate.”
“Most of the time?” the coach asked, looking at Jay pointedly.
“She only got a solid hit on about one in five.”
“Maybe I should fire my batting coach then.”
“Why?” Jay was curious at the comment, as their batting coach had played in the major leagues and was giving something back to his original mentor.
“Because she was hitting one in two by the time I got there.”
Jay was shocked to say the least. He’d heard of improvement, but never that quickly. Especially never because of a few pointers he’d given.
“See, and here if I hadn't called you on staring at my butt you might never have helped me improve my swing.”
Jay flushed with embarrassment but wasn’t about to let her get the upper hand this time, “Nah, making you swing your body just helped me to get a better view.”
Melanie went bright red and tried to hide her face in her hair. The coach and Jay laughed good naturedly at her.
“Go get dressed you two and we will start to run Melanie ragged.”
“You’re a sprinter, Jay. You and I both know that. As pitcher, you don’t even need to run much during the game. Melanie is long distance. I’m sure the cross-country team would love her, but she wants to join us, god knows why.”
“Coach, you’re not telling me you don’t want her, are you. I can push her harder…”
“Never, ever, suggest such a thing, Jay. I may think that this is the wrong thing for her to do, being the only girl on a team full of hormone-flooded teenage boys, but I would never suggest hazing. You should know that. I don't allow it on my team, and I have kicked people off it jus tthat reason. You know that even better than I do.”
Jay hung his head in shame. He knew the coach wasn’t that way, and more he’d been shocked at the hint of impropriety that seemed to hang on his coaches words.
“Look, Jay, I’m sorry. This is stressful for me. She’s good. Really good. Half the team is in worse condition than she is, and here I’m probably going to have to tell her that it’s not good enough.”
“I’ll do it, coach.”
“It’s my responsibility, Jay.”
“No, it’s not. I’m the one who has to cut a member of the team.”
“She wasn’t ever a member…”
“If this were a fair tryout, she would be. You just said she’s better than half of the other members of the varsity team. I’ll tell her on the way back to the showers.”
At the coaches wide eyes, Jay chuckled. “Coach Peters, I never took you for a dirty old man. No, separate showers, in separate locker-rooms.”
“Ok, Jay. Melanie, bring it in!”
Melanie finished the next circuit of the track and jogged to a stop.
“Thanks, Melanie, I’ve seen enough. Jay will escort you back to the school.” After finishing speaking the coach walked off back to the school shaking his head. He'd known this would worked out, but if Jay had just fought for her instead of going with the party line...
Jay watched the coach leave. He seemed to be burdened by an added weight. Jay was brought out of his thoughts by Melanie speaking to him, “So, you’re my chaperone now?”
“Hardly, I’m the team captain.”
“So, I’m in?”
Jay saw all of the hope and joy that belonging to a team could bring to a person. He’d had to tell players in the past that they’d been cut for this or the other thing. He’d never had to tell a player who was obviously fit to be on the team that they were being cut because of something out of their control.
“In a fair world, you’d be on the team in a second. You’re a better hitter than I am, you’ve got a faster sprint than most of the team, you’re got the capabilities to play basically any position other than pitcher, for which you just seem to be lacking in the arm strength.”
“What are you telling me?”
“Melanie, I’m telling you that the coach wants you on the team, but I have to cut you because the district won’t allow it.”
“You don’t want me hogging the spotlight away from you. You and Katie are perfect for each other.”
Melanie stormed off without allowing Jay to explain.
“But I want you on my team.” He was conflicted. Melanie was so real to him, more real than his girlfriend. Jay watched her back as she stormed toward the school angrily.
Jay took a long shower to try and clear his head. It didn’t help. The beginning of his day went by in a daze, as he tried to figure out exactly why he was so conflicted.
Katie and Jay had no common interests. It was almost as if she’d settled for the second jock down on the totem pole. You can’t be the girlfriend of the Football Captain? Be the Baseball Captain’s girlfriend. That is where the simplicity ended. She dragged him wherever she wanted to go, and when she was done with him, he was left to his own devices.
He liked her, and he loved kissing her. The things she could do with her tongue…but he didn’t love her.
He thought about it for a while and realized that he couldn’t actually pinpoint anything about her that he liked, even. It was almost as if this relationship was like his parents and traveling more on momentum and what they’d once thought they meant to each other more than what they now meant to each other.
Was that what it boiled down to? Did Jay only want to stay with Katie because that would somehow keep his parents together? If he worked things out with his girlfriend, then anyone could?
Melanie on the other hand...as he'd thought before, there was no one as real to him as Melanie was. They had at least one interest in common, and it was something that he devoted his life to. Before he'd begun playing, he never watched a game. Now, it was all he could think about. Well, that and Katie. And Melanie if he were being honest. Both of the cousins were now invading his thoughts, and they seemed incompatible there. Sure, they both had blond hair, and were both smokin' hot, but there the similarities seemed to end. No, that's not true. Both of them took his words to mean something other than he meant them to. At least Katie cast him in a better light, while Melanie had just taken them to mean he was a misogynistic jerk.
Jay heard the bell ringing and realized that he’d missed the first two periods of the day in his reverie and next he’d see one of the objects of his inner monologue in their first class together of the day: AP Biology.
“Jay, my man!”
“Doooogie!!!” Jay chanted at him.
The two friends sat next to each other and were lab partners ever since the teacher had caught Katie and Jay kissing during a movie about mitosis.
They chatted quietly until the bell rang and Mr. Henry called the class to order.
“As you all know you’re getting your DNA profiles back today. Most of you have absolutely normal profiles. Some of you, however, have profiles that are a little out of the ordinary. We’ll be using some of those profiles, with your permissions, in class to better understand the DNA profile. When I call your name, come to the front of the class and get your profiles.”
Doogie watched as they called each one of the students up one at a time, while Jay and he joked about what might be in those tests.
“Jay Sims?”
Jay was still smiling until he noticed how somber Mr. Henry was. Doogie watched the smile fade until it was completely gone when he got to the front of the class. Mr. Henry spoke quietly to him, and jay was shaking his head. Jay’d gone white as a ghost, and turned toward his seat. Mr. Henry called out after him, “I’m sorry.”
“Jay, my man, what’s up?”
“Nothing, Doogie.”
“Seriously, you’re scaring me, dude.”
Jay winced at Doogie’s words.
“What is it?”
“Just drop it, Doogie.”
Doogie stopped talking about it, but didn’t stop worrying about it. His dad had recently been diagnosed with Huntington’s, and that was one of the reasons that Doogie already had a DNA profile before the class had started. He was negative for the marker, thank god, but that doesn’t change that there are some scary things that can come up in a DNA test.
When Mr. Henry let them separate to talk about their results, Doogie waited until Katie came over and was showing Jay her profile. Doogie snagged the folder…the only folder that Mr. Henry had handed out, and looked inside. The first thing he noted was the Karyotype 46,XX. Confused, he looked at the name line and saw Jay Sims there. There was a second sheet. It said Jay Sims as well, and had the same profile. Mr. Henry had run the test twice…and both times it had come up XX.
“What are you doing?” Jay shouted at him.
“Nothing. I wasn’t doing anything.”
Nothing made sense, was what he was really thinking. Jay was a guy. Doogie should know. He was on the baseball team, and he knew that Jay showered with the rest of them. He knew Jay was a guy…but his test…
Doogie stewed about it for the rest of the class. It got out and he made his decision of what to do about it when they were passing one of the bathrooms.
He shoved Jay into it.
“What are you doing, Man?”
“I could ask you the same thing? Jay. What’s going on?”
“You pushed me in here.”
“That’s not what I’m asking. I mean come on, dude. You’re a girl? Seriously?”
“There’s got to be some mistake, Doogie.”
“They ran the test twice. Unless you’re saying it was a contaminated sample.”
“Mr. Henry watched me give the second sample. There’s still got to be some mistake. Do I look like a girl to you.”
“Truthfully?”
Jay slugged him in the arm.
“Exactly like one. The six o’clock shadow at ten in the morning sells it completely.”
“Crap, I forgot to shave this morning. I was in such a rush to meet with coach this morning…”
“You met with coach? What about?”
“Nothing import…oh, shit. Oh crap, No, this can’t be happening. No, no no no no.”
“What’s up, Jay? Tell me.”
“I’ve got to talk to coach. He’s got to figure something out before this get’s out of hand.”
“Before what gets out of hand. Talk to me, man?”
The sound of voices faded from the bathroom. The person in the stall waited for another thirty seconds after they’d faded before peaking his head out. He’d come in here to shoot up, so he’d kept his feet out of view. This was the only place he felt safe, really, or as safe as he could feel while still at school. He didn't have to worry about the football team finding him and shoving him in a locker, or trowing him in the cafeteria dumpster.
And his sanctuary had just become his power. This was a better high than he’d ever experienced from a drug. One of the gods on Olympus had a flaw, just like that Achilles dude. And he alone had the arrow that would take the smug bastard out.
The person snickered at the thought.
No, not bastard. He had the arrow that would take the bitch out. He was laughing to himself as he left the bathroom and entered the rest of the student population.
“Coach, we have a problem.”
“It’s not because of Melanie is it. I told you…”
“No, it’s a bigger problem than that, but related.”
Doogie laughed darkly. He didn’t know what was going on with Melanie, but he got the reference when Jay put it that way.
“Maybe you’d better start at the beginning, then.”
“Ok, well, you knew I was in AP Bio, right? Well recently we submitted DNA samples to get a DNA profile…”
You have much the same problem if you tell the people who are friends with your target. They know the person well enough that they can confirm or deny or evade.
No, you want to either tell someone antagonistic to the subject, or indifferent to the subject.
The problem with telling someone who is antagonistic is that they are considered a questionable source of gossip when the information is passed on to the next person.
The bigger problem is with telling someone who is indifferent. They need proof before they begin spreading rumors. And something this big would usually require absolute proof. Normally. Right now, however, with everyone aware that the DNA profiles were just passed out, that proof could be less than concrete. People just had to believe it existed. And the glorious thing was that the proof actually existed.
There were a number of girls who owed him favors for one thing or another, and so he let them be the ones to begin telling people the ugly truth.
It was a simple matter of ending a single text out to them: Jay Sims is really a girl. Her DNA profile proves it. Be creative.
After that he just needed to wander around and examine his handiwork.
“You know Jay Sims? Well apparently we should start calling her Jamie.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I hear that she got her profile back today and it says what we’ve always suspected. She’s a girl.”
“But he’s the captain of the baseball team.”
“Not for much longer, from what I hear. The coach is furious.”
The boy smiled in ill-concealed glee as he heard the first of his planted rumor starters. He walked from one point to the other, listening to what people were saying. On his way to the 4th location, he heard someone he didn’t know was talking about it. After that it was across the school like wild fire.
He hadn’t been watching where he was going and ran into one of his tormentors.
“Look, it’s Pasty. Hey Pasty.”
“Come on, Brad, we have bigger fish to fry today. We’re hunting Faggots.”
It took his heart a long time to return to normal, and longer for him to realize what was going on. When it did he began to laugh. They were not going to be tormenting him because they were going after that little whore Jamie. Everything was working out better than he could have ever hoped.
His laugh cut off short when one of his rumor starters came up to him, “So, are we square now?”
“Not by a long shot, Amy, we’re only just beginning.”
“For right now, don’t say anything about it, okay?” Coach Peters said.
“But…”
“We’re not really lying to anyone, Jay. You are male as far as anyone, before today, has known.”
Jay didn’t seem convinced, but he let it drop.
“This might actually be good for the team,” the coach said, “Melanie is a great player, and would be a great addition. If we can convince the school board that we’ve had a girl playing varsity for two years, and there haven’t been any ill effects, then we might be able to slip Melanie in without a fuss.”
“It’s not the same thing, Coach,” Doogie replied. “Jay isn’t a girl…I mean physically. Who cares what his DNA says.”
“For a lot of people, DNA is all that they care about. Of course…”
The look in the coach’s eyes scared Jay a bit. “What are you thinking, Coach?”
“There’s a possibility that this could be more than just DNA.”
“What are you talking about?”
“There are a number of reasons, medically speaking, why you’d look male, but be genetically female.”
In any given school there are a limited number of Gym teachers required, and an almost unlimited number of coaching positions. Coach Peters taught Biology in addition to being the baseball coach. It was only his personal policy that he not teach any of his players that kept Jay and Doogie in the class they were currently in.
Most people, however, felt a little weird calling a coach Doctor Peters, so a lot of people simply forgot that he had been an MD and a surgeon before deciding that he preferred to teach.
“Doogie, go to class. I don’t want you talking about this to anyone else.”
“Okay, coach.”
“Jay, I’d like to send you out to get some tests. I still have a couple of contacts in the medical community and I think that they’d be willing to help me out with this.”
Jay looked a little worried at the idea of becoming some sort of a human guinea pig, but nodded and said “Okay” as well.
Jay called his mom, knowing that his dad never answered the phone during the day.
“Jay, what’s wrong?”
“Something weird showed up on my DNA profile.”
“You’re not sick, are you honey?”
“No, Mom. I’m not sick. I don’t think so, anyway. Coach Peters thinks that they should run a couple of tests to make sure.”
“Do I need to say anything to him? Give any authorization for the tests?”
“Coach, my mom is asking if she needs to give any authorization for the tests.”
“Yes…probably. If she could meet us at King Memorial Hospital that would be great.”
“You hear that, Mom?”
“Yes, Jay, I did.”
“See you soon.”
“I love you, Jay. You’ll be fine, I promise.”
Jay signed off the phone after mumbling something to his Mom that she could take however she liked. It was embarrassing having your mom gush all over you like that.
“You still have the DNA profile?”
“Yes, I do. It’s in my bag.”
Doogie rushed back into the room just after the tardy bell rang.
“Is there a back way out of here?”
“What’s up?”
“I have no idea how it happened, but the whole school seems to know about the test.”
“What?” Jay exclaimed, hyperventilating a little.
“It’s worse than that. Some of the football players are looking for you. They want to show you ‘what happens to faggots at our school.’”
“That doesn’t even make sense.” Jay said. “How would being a girl in disguise as a guy make me a faggot?”
“Doogie, Jay, I’d appreciate you not using that word in my presence.”
Coach Peters had a strict policy on name calling and swearing. It was not allowed.
“This is my prep period, so I can be away from the school for the next hour. I’ll let the school know I am taking you to meet your mother. Doogie, get to class.”
Doogie snickered and headed off to his next period of the day while the coach called the office to get Jay excused.
“No, sir, it’s actually true. That’s part of the reason I’m taking him out of class today.” There was a pause as he listened to someone on the other end of the phone. “No sir, I can’t do that. I can’t afford…of, when you put it that way…yes, I understand…right away.”
The coach hung up the phone and looked thoughtful for a moment before talking to Jay, “well, it looks like we both have the rest of the day off, Jay. The principal would like me to stick with you to make sure that no one tries anything. He’s heard about the DNA test, so it’s definitely all over the school at this point.”
“What does this mean?”
“It means that I’m supposed to act as your bodyguard, at least for today.”
“What? But I’ve always been able to take care of myself.”
“That may be true, but the principal doesn’t want to take any chances.”
“Fine,” Jay said. He wasn’t happy about being treated like, well, a girl, but it was something he’d put up with at least for the time being.
They left by the outer door to the coach’s classroom and quickly climbed into his car.
As they drove, Jay stewed for a bit thinking about what all of this would mean. It had all happened so quickly that even now he was unsure how this would affect the rest of his life. This morning he was helping to give a private tryout to a girl he found very attractive.
This evening, would he be the girl everyone thought was attractive?
He pushed that thought away. It’s not that he had anything but respect for girls…other girls? He just didn’t want to be a girl.
He aspired to be in the Major leagues. It is all he wanted to do. He wanted to play the sport that he devoted his entire waking life to. Most people just weren’t good enough to get there. Being some sort of freak could ruin that whole plane before it ever happened.
It could ruin his entire life.
His phone rang as they continued to drive. It was Katie.
“Hello, Katie.”
“Thank goodness you’re okay. I’ve been hearing some nasty rumors about you today. I wanted to make sure that they weren’t true. They’re not true, are they?”
“What rumors have you heard?”
“The craziest is that you’re a girl dressing up like a boy.”
“I’m not dressing up as anything.”
“That doesn’t put me at ease. You’re saying you really are a girl then?”
“I don’t know, Katie. Can we talk about this later?”
“You don’t know? What do you mean you don’t know. You either are, or you aren’t. It’s that simple.”
“My birth certificate says I’m male, Katie.”
“Wait…why would you…no. This can’t be happening to me.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Is that why you won’t have sex with me? Because you can’t?”
“You’ve completely lost me,” Jay said as he was thinking something else entirely. He hadn’t ever had sex with her because he thought she was a little too aggressive for him. He wanted to let things happen naturally, and above all he wanted to be in control of what happened when. Whenever he was with Katie, and alone, she just sort of forced herself on him, which really turned him off.
“You don’t have a d…I mean the equipment to play ball.”
“I have the equipment, Katie. Look I’m not having this conversation with you right now.”
“All you have to do is prove it to me. Meet me somewhere and prove you are a guy and we’ll figure out some way to get through this.”
My phone beeped telling me that I had a call on the other line. It was from a number I’d never seen before.
“Katie, I have another call coming through. It could be important.”
“Don’t you hang up on me. If you can’t do this one thing for me, we’re through. I can’t have people thinking I’m some sort of lesbian.”
Jay did the only thing he could at that moment, he laughed at her.
“Fine, Katie. Look I’m on the way to the hospital. Maybe we can resolve this later.”
The call beeped in again. The same number was calling him back after going to voicemail.
“Come back here and we can resolve it now. You can go to the hospital afterwards.”
“Look, Katie. This makes it simple. Not everything is about you. If you want it to be, let me oblige you. Assume this was an elaborate way for me to break up with you.”
“You can’t do that!”
I hung up on her and went to the other line.
“You total bitch!”
“Excuse me?”
“That line you fed me about not allowing girls on the team, and here you are a girl yourself.”
“Melanie?”
“Of course it’s Melanie. How could you do this to me? Were you afraid that I would have told someone your secret? Well, it’s all over the school now. Nothing to hide anymore, huh?”
“This has nothing to do…I didn’t mean…I never knew…Melanie, look. I’m on my way to the hospital right now. Can we talk about this later?”
He got no response, and when he checked the face of his phone, all it said was call ended. Coach Peters was laughing quietly at him.
“It’s not funny, Coach.”
“Actually, it kind of is. Look at it from my point of view. You are a guy, I meant you are really a guy.. There isn’t anything about you that suggests feminine to me. And here we all come to find out that you’ve always been a girl inside.”
“We’ll maybe someday I’ll think it’s funny, but right now I face getting kicked off the team, my girlfriend just forced me to dump her, and the hottest, coolest, most perfect girl I’ve ever met doesn’t ever want to speak to me again.”
“Oh to be young and sure of life. Jay, nothing is ever what you expect it to be.”
“You can say that again. I mean look at me. Apparently girls can look like this now.”
“We’re going to figure this out.”
“I hope so.”
Jay spent the rest of the trip staring out the window, glaring at everyone who made eye contact. It’s not that they were to blame, but at least then he didn’t have to blame his parents, or god, or whatever else came to mind at the moment.
He was happy that Coach Peters just let him have some time to himself.
They pulled into the parking lot at the hospital and got out. The building had been a hospital longer than it had the name it currently did, but it had worn time lightly. Or it had been renovated in the past. Neither of those Jay knew for sure, but there was definitely a presence about the building that said ‘the sick come here.’
The problem was that it also seemed to have a patina of death about it.
Jay hated hospitals. From years of broken bones, stiches, shots, and all the myriad of other reasons that an active young boy gets himself into one, Jay hated then, and distrusted doctors.
“Come on, Jay. They’re expecting us.”
Jay shook his head and smiled ruefully at himself. Coach was a doctor. If anything it wasn’t doctors he hated. It was being sick. Like him blaming the random strangers on the street, blaming doctors for the consequences of his own actions seemed silly to him in that moment. Even this, today, was a consequence of one of his actions. He was the one who decided to take AP Bio.
He preceded Coach Peters into the open lobby and looked around. The entryway could have been located in any upscale corporate building, and that made sense in a way. A hospital was a business of a sort.
They went to the bank of elevators and rode one up to the third floor. Jay was amazed at the décor. He’d never thought of the inside of a hospital being so calming. The lighting and paint scheme was…nice. He’d gone from business upscale to high-end hotel. It was as if the interior of the hospital was doing it’s best to not be a hospital. It was masquerading as other things to put people at their ease.
The time that Jay spent wondering about the interior of the building did the same. He was almost confident when he walked into the room that the coach directed him to.
“Hello, Pol.” Coach said as they entered the room.
“Hello, Andrew, and this is Jay?” the man said. He had an accent unlike any that Jay had ever heard. It almost seemed like he was talking with a mouthful of mush, but was understandable at the same time.
“Yeah, I’m Jay.”
“Well, Jay, welcome. We already have a DNA test, but I’d like to take some blood, if you don’t mind, so that we can test hormone levels, and other things. I want to get a good picture of the chemical nature of your body. After that I’d like to perform an ultrasound.”
“Pol, his mother is coming in, since he is still a minor. She said that she wanted to be here to consent to any testing and so on.”
“No problem. How are you taking all of this, Jay?”
The mushy accent put Jay at-ease. He just couldn’t see the man being any sort of evil. It really didn’t fit. He seemed more like someone’s favorite uncle than anything else.
“Horribly, how would you take it to learn that the most fundamental thing about yourself was false?”
“Not too well. Who am I kidding? I'd probably be screaming and yelling about how the world can’t do this to me.”
Jay chuckled at this.
“Don’t think I didn’t consider doing just that. It’s just that yelling at the world, or god, or whatever never solved anything. You can only be pissed for so long before you realize that you have to make the world change or nothing is going to change.”
“That is a very enlightened viewpoint to have, Jay.”
Coach Peters snorted, “More of your new-age personal enlightenment, Pol?”
“Nah, I just feel that the word is good. This month I’m trying out being a Buddhist.”
“This month?” Jay said his eyes wide.
“Pol feels that there are too many religions and phylosophies in the world to limit himself to just one. He decided a couple of years ago to try each one out, that he can, for a month and see what is worthwhile in it. Then he takes those little things with him into the next month and whatever philosophy he’s moved on to.”
“Doesn’t that get confusing?
“No, it doesn’t…usually. Some of them are very similar though.”
“Jay?” Jay’s mom walked into the room.
“Hello, Fae.”
“Andrew, so what’s wrong with Jay. He was so cryptic on the phone.”
Jay reached into the pack he’d carried in with ham and grabbed the folder. He handed it to his Mom. She looked confused for a moment as she looked through it, and then she really noticed where it said female.
“What does this mean? Jay isn’t a girl.”
“That’s what were here to figure out. I’d like to take some blood and get an ultrasound.”
“Of course. Go ahead.”
“I’ll have a nurse in to take your blood then. Fae, Andrew, if you could come with me?”
They left Jay to it and went down the hall a little to Dr. Pol’s office.
“Fae, I’d like to talk to you about what this could say for Jay.”
“What do you mean?”
“The least this could mean is that he’s sterile. Or at least he’ll never be a father. At the worst, he could…she could be only male on the surface, and female on the inside.”
“How is that the worst? There’s nothing wrong with being female.”
“I personally don’t think that is what is going on here. He is too masculine looking. And that is why it’s the worst. He is very masculine in his mannerisms.”
“Oh.”
“Mom, I’d like to mention to you that you are really going to need to hold back. I can tell you’d like to have a girl. Jay is your child and he needs to be able to express himself as whomever he feels he is.”
They talked for a few moments more before Dr. Pol left the two of them in his office and went back to Jay.
“A little blood? I feel half drained.”
Pol laughed a bit at this.
“So, you ready for that ultra-sound?”
“I guess. What are you looking for?”
“A uterus, actually.”
“What?”
“Yeah, I doubt you have one, as I think I know that exactly is going on, but we need to make sure here.”
The gel was cold, but it didn’t really phase him. You lived with what you couldn’t change. Isn’t that what he’d always felt? But how did that relate to this ‘problem’ he was now dealing with? Jay lay there, worrying about what this would mean if he did have a uterus, or all of the other things that would make him truly female. Could he take that?
He found himself praying to a god he wasn’t even sure he believed in that it would come back negative. He needed it to come back negative.
“Well, I can tell you for a certainty that you are one hundred percent male, physically at least.”
Jay smiled, but then looked up at the doctor with a look of worry on his face. “What does this mean?”
“What it means is just exactly what I assumed when I first saw you. You have something that the medical community calls XX male syndrome.”
“If they include male in that…”
“Yes, at least the medical community considers you to be male,” Dr. Pol said with a slight smile, “Unless you think that you would prefer…”
“No thank you. I like being a guy.” The relief was evident in Jay’s voice.
Dr. Pol chuckled at this. “We’ll check your hormone levels to see if you need to take any pills or shots to keep your testosterone up, but from your hair growth I’d say that won’t be necessary.”
“Thank you.”
“Now for the bad news, I’d like for your mother to be there when we discuss it.”
The two of them walked back to Dr. Pol’s office, and Jay was beginning to be worried. The look on the doctor’s face was one that bothered him. It was almost as if he was about to issue a death sentence.
His mother became worried when she saw both of their faces.
Pol held up his hand before Fae could speak.
“First, I’d like to say that your son is physically male. There are none of the female internal organs visible. That leads us to the other problem. It is very likely that Jay is never going to be able to father children.”
“I can’t ever have sex?”
Dr. Pol smiled at this, “That’s not what I said. In every case I am aware of, XX males are sterile. They just don’t produce sperm.”
“Oh,” Jay said and sat down hard in the chair. It was almost as if someone had given him the best present in the world, and then told him that the batteries were missing. It looked good sitting there on the shelf, but he’d never be able to actually use it for anything other that looking at.
“Honey, I’m so sorry.”
Jay sniffled a bit, but wouldn’t let himself cry. It’s not like it had ever really meant much to him, but what teenager doesn’t tell him, or her, self that when they’re a parent they’ll do something different than their own parents.
Now, he’d never be a parent. He’d just be some in-between freak. And the rest of the school already knew.
“Honey, how about we go home. We can keep you there for a couple of days…”
“I want to go to the batting cages, mom. I need time to think.”
Fae was about to speak, but Coach Peters just shook his head.
“Come on, Jay, I’ll give you a ride.”
Fae began to cry as soon as they left the room.
“Oh my boy, my darling boy. What can I do for you now?”
His life hadn’t significantly changed, really, but now he knew, at the ripe old age of eighteen that he was completely sterile, and it was something he would have to live with for the rest of his life.
Somehow, being a guy, his virility was tied up into everything that was…him. If he couldn’t perform that most basic of human abilities, propagation of his genes, then what good was he?
A stray thought entered his head that he didn’t need to live with this for very long, and he began to consider how he could act upon that thought.
It disgusted him that he would even go to that place shortly afterward, but he did go there, and it was more than just idle fascination. It would be better to be dead than half a man.
He could make it look like an accident…his thoughts continued.
“If you’re here, then I’ll go someplace else.”
“Melanie?”
Her expression showed fury. He knew that she was angry at him, and he probably should have let Coach handle the entire thing this morning, but He'd thought it was important. Jay thought it would be easier coming from another student. Jay told her that.
“Melanie, wait. The only reason I told you is because I thought you should be on the team. Coach tells people when they are cut from tryouts. It’s my job to inform them that they aren’t on the team anymore.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“I’m saying that I wanted you on the team. Coach wants you on the team. The district has declared no.”
“Then how are you on the team?”
For a moment, in trying to explain everything to Melanie so she’d understand the weight of his situation had lifted. Now it hit him again like a ton of bricks and he sat down there in the batter’s cage. He still didn’t cry, but he felt like it even more. Jay just leaned against the fence and looked up at the sky.
“I don’t know how long that will last after the district hears.”
“Well, that’s what you get for lying about it.”
“I never lied about anything,” He said, getting angry. “I never knew, okay? I am male. I don’t care what my DNA says. I have a penis and testicles and that’s all that matters to me.”
Melanie turned bright red and was trying not to laugh. He’d embarrassed and amused her at the same time.
“How does that work exactly?” She asked curiously. She came into the cage and sank down next to me. For a moment he just relaxed in the mere presence of her before he decided to answer her question.
“I don’t know. According to the doctor it’s something called XX male syndrome.”
“There is a whole syndrome devoted to it?”
He chuckled at her tone. “Apparently,” I reply, smiling at her.”
“If only you weren’t my cousin’s boyfriend,” Melanie muttered under her breath.
Jay heard, “I’m not. We broke up this afternoon. Something about her not being a lesbian.” Jay was frowning when Melanie sat up a little straighter, pulling away from him.
“You know, my doctor says I’m a guy.”
“You’re doctor says you’re male.”
“Isn’t that the same thing?”
“I think being a guy is more a case of your state of mind. Being male is physical.”
“Then I just have to find a doctor who can attest to my being a guy.”
They’d been getting closer to each other the longer that they talked. Melanie sat up straight suddenly.
“Jay, I can’t do this. If there’s even a hint of a possibility of me getting on the team…I can’t do this.”
Jay watched her as she got up and walked away.
It was also about that time that he realized that somehow, in the midst of this mess, he’d gotten to like the person that Melanie was, or at least represented. It had been a little over twenty-four hours since he’d met her, but it felt like it was so much longer with everything that had happened to him today.
How long was long enough, really, to get to know someone else properly? He’d seen lots of things that suggested you needed to know someone for years, but he felt connected to Melanie in some weird way. Part of it was that they both wanted to play baseball. He just knew someone was going to bring his DNA into this whole mess and say that he couldn’t play because he was a girl.
Who cared, for the moment, what he looked like? The school had to declare what was, and wasn’t a girl. Would they go with surface?
He climbed out of bed and began to search online for what really defined people’s gender and got more than he bargained for. Not in the skin department, in the education one.
It was eye opening to see all of the people whose mind didn’t fit either their body or their DNA. When compared to them, he didn’t suppose he had it so bad. Imagine feeling like he did now, but looking female. He really couldn’t conceive how difficult that could be for a person.
Or worse, in his mind, he imagined what it would be like if he thought he was always supposed to be female. The fact that he was XX would then be the cruelest joke that the universe could play on him. ;Yes, you’re female, but no one will ever accept you as such.’
He signed off his computer and shut it down. He could hear his parents begin to fight and for the first time he could remember they were fighting about him.
Jay threw on a robe over his boxers and tank top and went out to see what was going on.
“No son of mine would ever be anything like that. These tests are wrong, or you cheated on me. This isn’t my fault.” Dad yelled as Jay came into the room. Jay wanted to smack some sense into him, but restrained himself.
“Actually, dad, this is all your fault. The guy determines the gender after all.”
“What you’re saying you should have been born a girl?”
“No, I’m saying that this is all your fault. You know what, though? It doesn’t matter. You can go on thinking that Candy, or Cindy, or whatever her name is will love you for yourself. Chances are the only thing in your pants she really wants is your wallet.”
His mother’s jaw dropped open and his dad began glaring at me.
“I hear what you guys are saying, and I can figure out what you aren’t. You’re my parents, but you really need to get a clue, alright? I called mom today to be with me at the hospital. Did you know that dad?”
He shook his head and began to reply, “You know how busy I am…”
“Really? Busy? You? You just don’t want to be bothered. It’s been like that for years. Mom is the managing partner in her firm. She not only has to deal with her own clients and, when necessary, protect them in court, but she has to deal with the problems of all of her partners and associates.”
Dad continued to glare in my direction and again opened his mouth to speak, but Jay cut him off, “Dad, I get it that you think you’re important in your company as well, but get a clue. You’re a glorified accountant. That’s what a CFO is. You push numbers around on spreadsheets and try to make them prove your company is solvent.”
Now he was really getting pissed, but Mom was beginning to grin.
“You’re not a girl, Jay. There’s no way any boy of mine…” He began, and then trailed off when he saw mom and Jay glaring at him.
“No way what, dad? No way that any child of yours would be convinced that DNA was wrong? That no matter what they look like, not matter what the world thinks about them, that they know who they are inside?”
His dad mutely nodded, not wanting to voice the opinion he had in the face of two people glaring at him. He said something quietly, and Jay didn’t catch it.
“What was that?”
“Her name is Cynthia. I’m not sleeping with her, but I’ve thought about it.”
Mom looked shocked, “But you said…”
“I know what I said, alright? I feel inadequate compared to you sometimes. You make three times what I do. It bothers me.”
“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Because I’m embarrassed. I feel week and incapable. I invented the fiction of me with a younger woman to try and make you feel as inadequate as I feel.”
“Well, it worked, you know. I always thought I was beautiful for my age. When you started bringing up your…mistress…I felt old for the first time.”
“Can we get back to me for a moment? You can then go on to try to patch things up later, somewhere far away I hope.”
They were both a little startled to see Jay there. It was almost as if they’d forgotten that he existed
“Dad, I don’t think of myself as a girl, and I never have. If I had, I’d like to think that you’d support me, but I didn’t. I love you both, but I need you to put aside your differences, ok? I need my parents to support me, since I’m sure that life is going to be difficult for the next little while.”
“Why would it be difficult? Nothing’s changing for you, is it?”
“That’s not the issue. Someone told the school about the DNA profile.”
“Tell me again how it all transpired that you were talking about it in school,” his mom asked.
Jay knew when his mom went into lawyer mode, and this time was no different. Jay talked about the DNA profile, and how the teacher clued Doogie into the fact that there was something wrong, then about how they talked in the bathroom and then went to talk to the coach.
“Hmm, and it was while you were talking to the coach that Lawrence told you that everyone knew? Did you leave the folder anywhere?”
“I kept the folder with me.”
“Ok, well it’s too late tonight to start working on this, except in generalities. I’ll get on it tomorrow.”
“Get on what?”
“Suing the school district.”
“Why? It’s not like we need any money.”
“Huh? Oh, no not for money, to keep you on the baseball team. If it hadn’t been for the DNA profile then no-one would ever have questioned your right to be on the team. As it is…”
“Mom, if you’re going to do that for me, then help out Melanie.”
“Who’s Melanie?” Mom asked him.
Jay blushed and looked away from her for a moment, “She’s a girl who wants to play on the team, and she’s good enough, but…”
“Honey…”
“Mom, you know how much I want to be on the team. The thing is I wouldn’t feel right being there if she wasn’t allowed to be. Only a slight difference and I would be her.”
“Fae, my son has a point here.”
Jay looked at his father in shock. His Mom was only slightly less shocked.
“What? I can admit I was wrong, about more than just this, but I was wrong. That’s not why I think that he’s right though. If a woman can compete with a man on a level playing field then she deserves to play on that field.”
“If?”
“Look, there are men that can’t compete with women in certain areas. There are women that can’t compete with men in certain areas. Everyone has different talents.”
“Dad, I think you’re digging yourself a hole here.”
“Ok, let me try again. Anyone who can meet the minimum physical requirements of an activity should be able to participate in that activity. Does that work?”
Jay laughed a bit at that and his mom just smiled.
“Now, go to bed, Jay, your mom and I have a lot to talk about.”
Jay blushed and ran up to his room. After a few moments the music came on and Fae laughed.
“I know that I’m sorry won’t ever be enough to fix the problems that I caused. And I still feel inadequate letting you support this family.”
“But you shouldn’t…”
“Logically, I don’t. Logically I understand how it all works. Emotionally, however, it’s a different thing.”
Fae began to laugh at him, “Why don’t you just quit your job, then, Henry?”
“I can’t…”
“You don’t like it, it doesn’t support us at all, and you feel inadequate. So quit. Find something you like better.”
“Who would hire me? You? It’s not like your company needs a glorified accountant.”
He took a deep breath and shook his head. “Never mind. So, what are we going to do about our son?”
“Nothing, Henry.”
“But, Fae…”
“No, Henry. Our son has to make this decision on his own. He states that he wants to be a guy, and we respect that. I don’t want to push him away.”
Henry looked out the window at the darkness and wondered if this was the best of the options that they had in front of them. After a few moments of this he realized that it was really the only option available to them, and he told Fae as much.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”
“I get it now. I do. He has to choose who he is on his own.”
“Isn’t that the way that we all have to grow? We all have to decide who we are on our own as we grow. Some people just have more growth to make than others.”
Fae looked at her husband with new appreciation.
“What? It’s how I’ve always felt, it doesn’t change the fact that I want to protect Jay from the more obvious threats. If being what people expect protects him, then that is partially what I want. It’s hard to let go of the child that you cleaned, fed, and protected for almost eighteen years.”
“Tell me the truth, did you really never sleep with that woman?”
“Not for lack of trying. She invited me over to her house one night. We made out for a while, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how this was killing you. No matter how bad things get between us, I just couldn’t do that to you.”
“But you could lie to me and tell me that you did?”
I’m ashamed of my behavior. I kept telling myself that I could fix it, that I could always tell you later what really happened, but the longer it went on, the more I was pushing you away.”
Fae seemed more angry with Henry than she’d ever been in the past. He couldn’t understand her anger. “Fae…”
“Just don’t talk to me.” She said with tears in her eyes, “On some level I knew you were lying to me. To have you tell me you had intended to do the very things that you’d lied about…just leave me alone.”
Henry hung his head in shame and allowed his wife to go to their room and lock the door.
“Hey, Jay! I have a bat you can play with!”
“There she goes. I wonder why she plays baseball.”
“Dude, you know why. It’s because hitting balls around is the other use she puts the bat to.”
“You should be wearing a dress so the rest of us don’t confuse you for a boy.”
The walk from the front doors to his locker was probably the longest it had ever been. Jay hadn’t thought so many people hated him. He’d thought that he was somewhat liked. He’d never bullied any of these kids, anyone actually, but here they were taking all this hate out on him.
It didn’t really make any sense, he thought to himself.
Getting to his locker didn’t give him any respite. There was a used condom stuck on the dial and he had to remove it before he could open the locker.
He was at a low boil by the time he opened his locker, and what he found just increased the heat of the flames. Someone had dumped an entire bottle of perfume through the openings in his locker. If it hadn’t happened to him, he probably would have thought it was funny. It did happen to him and he still kind of thought it was funny.
The openings in their lockers were almost designed to prevent this sort of thing. The opening itself was at the bottom and then angled up into the locker. They were likely there to make it so someone who got stuffed in one could breathe without difficulty. You could easily slip something solid up there, like a note or something, but volatile liquids like perfume would be another matter.
It had likely been done yesterday, as there was no liquid left, but the smell was overpowering. It was likely that it would continue to linger for weeks. And there was the real reason that someone had gone through the trouble of setting this up.
Jay would smell like a girl until he either got all of his books replaced, or the perfume wore off on its own. And not any high class girl either. The smell was cloying and flowery. It seemed the sort of thing that you would find on a drug addict trying to cover the smells of vomit, unwashed body, and illicit drugs.
“Nice scent, Cinderella” a freshman said as he walked past Jay’s locker.
Something in Jay broke. He grabbed the boy and slammed him into the lockers. The look of terror in the kids eyes only increased Jay’s rage. Jay gut punched the boy and watched him collapse. Jay began to kick the other boy. He smiled in maniacal glee as the boy covered his face with his arms and curled into a fetal ball.
“Jay, what are you doing?”
Jay looked around and saw the terrified faces of his peers, and then turned back to the boy he’d just been beating senseless. All feelings of power left him and he felt his knees give way beneath him.
There was a cut over the younger boy’s eye, and his breath was wheezing a bit.
Jay left his locker open, forgetting everything that had pissed him off for a moment. He picked up the younger boy and carried him down the hall, Doogie trailing after him. They got to the nurses office, and Jay put the boy down on the bed.
“What happened, Mr. Sims?”
“I’m sorry to say I did,” Jay replied, almost in tears. He’d felt the grinding of bone on bone as he’d been carrying the boy, and wondered if that was the right thing to do. Jay wasn’t thinking clearly, only reacting to everything that was going on around him.
“I’m going to the principal’s office now. If the police need to find me I’ll be there.”
Jay walked out, ignoring Doogie for the moment. He needed to do this. He’d probably just gotten himself suspended, not to mention kicked off the baseball team permanently, but that didn’t matter.
What mattered was that there was enough hatred in himself to hurt someone who made a snide comment.
Jay was sure that the kid hadn’t been the one to put perfume in his locker. He definitely hadn’t been one of the people taunting him between the entrance and said locker. He wouldn’t have been the one who started the rumors.
He’d been a freshman not too long ago, and the kid had probably been dared into it, or just done it to prove he was one of the cool kids. Now…he was really hurting bad and it was all Jay’s fault.
Jay walked in and sat down in the principal’s office.
“Mr. Sims, how can I help you?”
No one had told him. Jay had apparently gotten here before even the rumor.
“Mr. Ford, I beat a kid half to death today.”
“Jay, is this some sort of joke?”
Mr. Ford was floored to say the least. Jay was a very smart student. He’d never been a discipline problem, and seemed to be well liked by the other students. Sure, the rumors yesterday had troubled him, but he thought it was just more of the normal teasing that seemed rampant in schools these days. It wasn’t up to what the school board defined as bullying…but.
“Tell me what’s going on in your life, Jay. This isn’t like you.”
“Aren’t you going to suspend me? I really hurt someone.”
“I’d like all of the facts first.”
Mr. Ford was calm, at least on the surface, as he listened to what Jay told him. Underneath was another matter. He knew the kind of rage that Jay was talking about firsthand.
“Jay, I’m not going to suspend you this time. However, you’re going to have to perform some restitution to that boy you hurt. You get to make sure that he is able to get from class to class without hassle. You are going to carry is books for him to and from classes, at least until he heals from his injuries.”
Jay simply nodded at this.
“I’d like for you to take an anger management class.”
“What?”
“This isn’t like you, Jay. I want to make sure it’s never like you. If you take one now, before you begin to form habits, then you should be able to stop something like this from happening again.”
“Okay, Mr. Ford.”
“Unfortunately, I think cutting you from the team would send the wrong message to the kids at the school.”
“But…”
“I’m in charge of this school, Jay. Cutting you from the team would seem to tell them that I can be swayed by bullies. I can’t. If the surveillance system recorded sound, I would suspend every student that was involved with this morning.
“It does have video, though, and I am going to publicly suspend whoever put the perfume in your locker.”
“Mr. Ford…”
“No. This is final, and my decision. Until I take care of this, don’t say a word about what is going on.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jay left his office, and he walked down to the security room.
“Hey, Bill. You know which camera covers locker 419?”
“Yeah. This one over here.”
“Someone poured something into the locker. Could you find out who it was for me?”
“Sure thing, boss. I’ll get right on it.”
There was an edge to the message that no one had ever heard from the normally affable principal. Everyone had heard about the fight that Jay had gotten into this morning, and many wondered if the assembly might not be about that.
The bell rang, and an abnormally subdued student body made their way to the gym.
“I’d like for the following three students to join me here on the court: Katie Laughlin, Rick Alder, and Joseph Kingston.”
There were murmurs as the three students made their way to the front. There was almost nothing that should link the three students together. Katie was a cheerleader and Jay’s ex. Rick was a tight end on the football team. Joseph, or Joey as his few friends called him, was on the chess team and had a GPA as lofty as Jay’s own.
“There is a strict no bullying policy at this school. At an assembly to begin the school year, the entirety of the document was read to you. Every one of your parent’s signed the policy. Over the past twenty four hours, some of you seem to have forgotten what was in that policy.”
He pulled out a dark blue booklet that most of the students recognized as the student handbook, and he began to read: “Section 4, paragraph 9: Bullying is not limited to attacking other students physically. Bullying can be taunts, insults, or cutting remarks. It can be in person, in print, or in digital media like on facebook. Bullying is anything that causes another student to feel trapped to the point that the only option they feel they have is to lash out at themselves or others.
“Section 4, paragraph 10: Anyone who is caught bullying will be expelled from school. There is no appeal. For this reason cameras and other surveillance equipment have been installed at the school. This is for the protection of each student.”
Katie had gone pale. Her small smile of a moment or two before had completely disappeared. Joey looked green.
Mr. Ford looked at the three children standing with him in front of all of their peers, then he turned back to the student body.
“Did you think that I was kidding about any of this? These three former students will be escorted off school grounds by the security staff where they will wait for their parents to come pick them up.”
Mr. Ford looked up into the bleachers for a moment before continuing.
“There is no excuse for the fight that occurred earlier today. I have assigned what I feel is a just punishment to the student who won. The student who lost has punishment enough. I have talked to a number of you about this, and it seems that both students were at fault to me.”
He turned to look at the three who were with him and continued talking, “that is not the case with what these three students did. Not only did they break into the school after hours, but they vandalized personal property.”
He turned back to the rest of the student population, “I will not tolerate intolerance at my school.”
A couple of the brighter students chuckled at this. Mr. Ford smiled.
“Being a teenager is hard enough without someone trying to single you out. Consider for a moment that every one of you has something that they wouldn’t want the rest of the student body to discover before you open your mouth to taunt someone about their secrets.”
He took a deep breath and then continued, “The students still attending this school can return to class.” He turned off the wireless mic and walked slowly back to his office.
You sell drugs to a kid and for some reason the kid thought you were his, or her, friend. They’d tell you all sorts of things, in confidence of course, that they would never have dreamed of telling anyone else.
That lead him to the three who were even now being lead away. Of the three he actually felt sorry for Joey. Well, not that sorry. Hacking was a felony after all.
Truth be told, power was a heady brew and one that he fully planned to sip as he continued to control the school.
Joey’s debt to society was paid by the other job he’d done. The young druggie smiled at the thought. Yes, Joey was debt free after this. The drive with all the proof of his illicit activities was in his hot little hands.
Now, what to do with the video that proved to anyone who cared to watch it that Jay was just the sort of bully that he’d always suspected.
There was no real decision here: it was going to the police.
“Hey, Leon," he said as soon as the phone was picked up.
"Hello, Oscar. I haven't talked to you in a while."
"Yeah, I know, it has been too long."
"You needed time to heal," the voice on the other end of the phone said. "No one could have just bounced back after what happened to you."
"I know. I’m glad to be in a better place, emotionally, but it does have its own difficulties. About those difficulties. You know the Sims boy I told you about? There is video of the assault that is about to make its way to you."
"You decided to send it to me after all? I thought you wanted to handle this in-house, so to speak."
"No, this is not from me. Bill tells me that the entire assault was deleted from our server"
"Oscar, if you had anything to do..."
"I know how bad it looks. Can you just let me finish? The person who will be delivering will likely not be the person who stole it."
"Who do you think stole it?"
"Francis George. Or at least he caused it to be stolen."
"Who would name their kid Francis if their last name was George. That even looks bad in print."
"Be nice. It’s not easy having two first names, Leonardo Andrews
“Anyway, I’ve sent an image of Mr. George to your cell."
"I can't believe I didn't connect him with an ongoing investigation we have. Seems everyone in his organization calls him Pasty, though, so the boys have started referring to him that way. He's a low level drug dealer that we can't ever seem to catch with any drugs. He sends his buyers to individually prepped stashes."
"Really? Drug dealer? That explains this a bit better."
"I would suggest that you let us handle it this time. I mean all of it. Suspending Mr. George won't prevent him from selling at your school anyway. I mean it, Oscar. Don't do anything."
"You know me too well. I leave this in your capable hands Mr. Chief of Police.”
Calling in a favor wasn’t something that he ever felt comfortable with, and he didn’t feel like he was calling in a favor. Unless the freshman or his parent had wanted to press charges he was okay with not sending the evidence into the police. However, now that was out of his hands.
The kid had just gotten beaten up, and now he would be charged with assault for his bullying.
Yes, Jay would also likely be charged with assault and gross bodily harm, but now both of them would be in the system.
This wasn’t the way that he’d wanted things to go. Time to really call in a favor.
“Andrew…what?” Began the older gentleman behind the teak desk. The superintendant wasn't a slow man, normally, but he'd been contemplating the photos of his grandchildren and wondering when he'd get the time to visit them.
“I want you to get your head out of your butt, Harald and let Melanie play baseball on my team.” Andrew was furious and let his friend know it.
“What are you..?” began Harald. He was still on the back foot in the conversation.
“You’re aware that Jason Sims is a girl, genetically at least?”
Harald just opened and closed his mouth at this. He’d known Andrew since he personally interviewed him for his present position almost thirty years ago. He’d been the principal back then, so he’d had a real stake in that school.
But to hear…
“What are you talking about, Andrew? I seem to be a couple of lines short of a complete scene on this one.”
“Melanie Deverau wants to play baseball.”
“Well, there’s a wonderful girls…”
“You didn’t understand me, Harald. She wants to play baseball”
“Oh…and softball…”
“Isn’t baseball.”
“Oh…The board has declared that anyone born female is not allowed to play sports with genetic males where it doesn’t go counter with title IX.”
“And there is the second problem. The wording. Jay Sims is genetically female. So, technically…”
“And she wants to play…”
“He is the captain of the team.”
“He? I thought you said…” Harald was completely lost now.
“I did say he was genetically female. Physically he is completely male.”
“Oh…and if we let him continue to play, then there is no reason…” A small smile appeared on Harald's face.
“There never was a reason. While there is occasionally full contact at a plate, baseball isn’t really a full contact sport. It is outdated to think that anyone who can compete shouldn’t be allowed to compete.”
“But girls are weaker…” Harald didn't actually believe the party line he was spouting, and George knew it.
“Give it a rest, Harald. Girls are usually weaker than boys, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a huge amount of overlap in our capabilities. Women don’t have testosterone, which means they miss out on the easy muscle building that men enjoy. That doesn’t mean they can’t build muscles, just that they have to work harder at it.”
“And I don’t think I work at it at all,” Harald replied rubbing his belly. He wasn’t fat, but he did have a bit of paunch.
“Jay has testosterone. So, that’s the first problem with banning him. He was raised as a boy, which is the second.”
“So, Jay stays, but what about Melanie?”
“Melanie is a great athlete.”
“I’m not going with just ‘she’s a great athlete’ when I tell the board why I’m allowing her to play baseball.”
“Actually, that’s exactly what you tell the board.”
“Pardon me?”
“The only thing that should be judged is whether or not an athlete can compete on the same level as her peers. At the top end of any sport, you get more of a division between men and women, but whether that’s talent or desire I don’t know. It might also be bias from the people who recruit for the sports. They want male players, so they look for male players.”
“That doesn’t change anything…” Harald began only to be interrupted by Andrew again.
“It should. You tell the board that their ruling on this issue is contrary to the spirit of title IX because baseball and softball aren’t the same sport. Boys who want to should be able to play softball, and girls should be able to play baseball if they want.”
“I don’t think…”
“Harald, just do it.”
“Fine, but when this all blows up in my face you are taking the blame.”
Andrew thanked him and walked out of the office laughing.
While she was with him she’d give up anything to make him smile.
That was the problem. The feeling part of the equation was perfect. Even being frustrated with him felt perfect to her.
The thinking part of the thing just didn’t balance out well. She wasn’t some slave to his good looks. She was her own person who had a right to her own choices. She had a right to her desires, wishes, and dreams, but whenever she was near him she didn’t even care about herself.
“What is wrong with you, Girl? He’s just a boy.” She almost threw her books into her locker.
She sighed as she picked up the books for her next class. What was wrong was she was in love, or infatuated, or something. She really wanted to know where a relationship with Jay could go.
If she got on the team, then the relationship could go nowhere. She wouldn’t be just another groupie girlfriend, especially one who was also on the team.
On the team.
For a moment all thoughts of Jay left her mind. To actually be on the baseball team would be the culmination of a dream and a lot of work. She knew she was good. She had a talent for the game. It went beyond talent, though.
Melanie spent all of the time she wasn’t in school playing baseball. Usually it was just with herself, but sometimes with the boys in her old neighborhood.
She missed all of the games out at the old field. Baseball had been big in the town they’d come from. That was part of the problem. No one there would have even considered letting a girl on the team. It just wasn’t done.
Her dad had accepted a job with a new company just so she could get a shot on a high-school team. That was the only way that she’d ever get a shot of going further, to get seen playing competitively.
It was an even greater longshot for her to get onto a college team, but maybe, just maybe…
She sighed again as she took her seat in her next class and waited for the last students took their seats.
Jay wasn’t worth losing out on an opportunity like that, no matter how nice he seemed to be, or how kissable his lips looked…
For a moment, the freshman looked terrified, but only for a moment. He realized that he wasn’t being attacked anymore, even if he was still in pain.
“I’m sorry for what I did,” Jay continued, “I over reacted. I should have let it blow over, but…no buts. I over reacted.”
“I’m sorry too. I should have started running as soon as I called you Cinderella.”
Jay smiled at this, and the freshman laughed.
“What’s your name?”
“Palmer.”
Jay chuckled at that. With a name like Palmer it was a sure thing that the kid had been tormented himself. High school was like that. Palmer smiled at him.
“So, good news is that I didn’t break anything, so mostly it’s just bruises and such you have to heal up from.”
“I almost wish that you had broken something. Then they’d probably give me something stronger for the pain.”
Jay smiled sadly at the other boy. “I’m really sorry about this.”
“No, I’m the one who’s sorry. I knew that we were all pushing you too far, but I thought it would be cool to be part of the majority for once. I never thought that I’d end up hurt for it.”
“That’s life, unfortunately.”
A couple of police officers entered the room.
“Palmer Henderson?”
“Yes?” the boy in the bed said, a little worried.
“You’re under arrest for assault.”
“What?” Jay exclaimed.
“Who are you?” one of the officers asked.
“Jay Sims.”
The officers looked at each other and put their hands on their guns. “Step away from the bed, son. We’ve been looking for you as well.”
“What’s going on here?” A voice asked from the doorway.
“This is none of your concern, ma’am.”
“It is my concern. I’ve been retained by the school to represent the interests on these boys.”
“Oh, a lawyer,” sneered one of the two.
“Yes, a lawyer. Mind if I get your name and badge number?” she asked. There was nothing sweet or pleasant about the way she said it. She turned and winked at the two boys at the bed.
“My name is Hank Laramie.”
He gave the woman his badge number, and then his partner gave his information.
“Alright, so you’re arresting these boys?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
A call came in over officer Laramie’s radio, and he turned away to talk for a moment or two. He was blushing bright red and glaring at the woman when he turned back. “Come on, William, apparently they’ve recalled the warrant.”
“What?”
“Sorry for this, ma’am.”
The officers left the two boys looking stunned. Jay looked at the woman with a bit of awe. “Who are you?”
“Julia Fore. Your principal retained me to take care of the two of you. The main problem the police have is that the person who stole the footage of the two of you fighting deleted it from the school servers.”
“How is that a problem?”
“It means that it can’t be proven that the footage is authentic. It could have been doctored or obtained illegally.”
“Someone stole it. Of course it was illegal.”
“This country still has problems with people being filmed without their knowledge. If it was not one of the school’s security cameras then it was an illegal film of minors.”
“Can’t they just retrieve the data from the hard drive? I mean nothing is ever really deleted, right?”
Julia laughed.
“That is one of the big myths about technology, propagated by those procedural TV shows. Yes, until something is overwritten it can be easily retrieved, because it is only the table of contents on the drive that is altered. The problem is that as soon as it is overwritten it becomes part of the background clutter.
“There are even a couple of minor things that can be done to completely erase data, like overwriting the data with all ones or zeroes and then alternating a couple of times. In the end, however, after something is overwritten the first time it is very time consuming and costly to even attempt to retrieve the old data.”
“Why are you telling us about this?” Palmer asked.
“Because the data on the drive has already been overwritten. When you have as many cameras as that school, with as much data as they do that needs to be encoded at any one moment, you tend to have all of the open portions of the hard drive used at one point or another as a swap file…” seeing their blank looks, she modified what she was saying, “basically, it is the real world equivalent of repeatedly overwriting the drive. That data, if it was ever there in the first place, is gone forever.”
“What does this mean for us?” Jay replied.
“It simply means this: unless there are a number of eye witnesses who suddenly come forward, then there won’t be any charges against either one of you. Especially since any witnesses would also be suspects in the entire morning's events, including the bullying of Jay from the moment he walked in the door.”
Another question came to Jay, but before he could voice it, Julia stopped him, “It’s complicated, just assume for now that I have both of your best interests in mind. If there is ever a conflict I will appoint another lawyer to your case, Jay, okay?”
“Fine.”
Julia said her goodbyes and left.
“So, you okay, then, Palmer?”
“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’m sure my mom will be by later to keep me company.”
“I’m really sorry about this.”
“If you’re sorry, then get me a tryout for the baseball team.”
“Okay.”
“I was joking,” Palmer said a little scared.
“I wasn’t. If you really want to try out for the team, then I’ll make it happen. We don’t have a freshman team this year, but I’m sure that the sophomore team would be glad to have you…provided you’re any good.”
“I’m not good at anything.” Palmer said while looking away from Jay.
“Ok, well, if you want to try out, or maybe just meet somewhere for some batting practice and going over some skills, then let me know.”
“You’d be my private coach?” Palmer said looking a little shocked.
“Yeah, I guess I would. Everyone has to start somewhere, right?”
“That would be kewl,” Palmer replied.
“Well, as long as I want to stay on the team I need to run. I’m going to be late for practice as it is.”
Jay left a smiling Palmer in the room as he rushed out to get back to the school.
“Crap, sorry.” Jay said and turned away.
“What are you doing in here?”
“I was late getting to practice? What are you doing here?”
“Dressing out for the team. Coach though it would be okay if I did, since the entire team would be on the field.”
“Why aren’t you dressing in the girl’s locker room?”
“It’s on the other side of the school.”
“Well, if it’s on the other side of the school…”
Melanie punched him in the arm.
“Hey,” Jay said looking up and preparing to defend himself from any further attacks. He noticed that she’d switched shirts and was just finishing getting dressed. He was doing his best not to think about the glimpse of her in her underwear that he’d just witnessed. She had a seriously smoking hot body.
“Jay?”
“Sorry, sorry. I know you want nothing to do with anyone on the team and I’ll respect that. I’m sorry I looked.”
“Am I that ugly?” she asked, a little anger showing in her voice.
“No, that impossible to ignore. Now, you mind? I need to get changed myself.”
“It’s only fair.”
“I have to put on a jock strap and a cup,” he stated. When she still didn’t move, he continued, “which means I have to get naked…”
“Oh,” she said, going bright red. She turned to leave but Jay stopped her.
“Melanie.”
“What now?” she said turning around.
“I’m really glad to have you on the team. You’re one of the best players we have.”
She smiled and then sashayed out of the room. It’s the only way that he could describe it. He was going to have a hard time getting that cup on.
But NOOOOOO! He sidesteps that little landmine as if he’s a friggin ballerina.
“That’s it, Miss Jay Sims. You’ve made me resort to violence now. You should have taken your licks like a good little…whatever. Now you get to spend time in the hospital with your new butt-buddy.”
He dialed a number on his phone from memory.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Rick.”
“What do you want, Francis.”
Frank’s complexion turned a deep red for a moment, and then reverted to his normal pallor.
“For that comment, Dick, you get even deeper in the hole to me. Here I was thinking of forgiving your current debt, but no. I own you until I’ve used you up completely.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I want you to tear Jay into bloody little pieces.”
“There’s no way I’m doing that. I’m in enough trouble with my folks as it is.”
“As much trouble as when they find out their little boy has sex for money? Oh, and I’ll make sure to tell them that your ‘clients’ are all older gentlemen.”
“You promised…”
“I promised that I’d keep it to myself as long as you fulfilled your end of the bargain. That bargain isn’t done. Beat the tar out of Jay Sims and we’re square. Keep yourself from getting caught and there might even be a little something in it for you. I got a new shipment in just for you.”
“Wait, you don’t mean…”
“Yes, and like I said, the whole thing is yours as long as you don’t get caught.”
“It’s a deal,” Rick said eagerly.
“Hey Melanie, who’d have ever thought you were a girl? You’re a better player than Jay,” Said one of the players, looking for the obvious pickup from the other players.
“Haven’t you heard, Neil, Jay is a girl.”
A lot of the players stopped at that. They’d all known where it was going, but Ramirez had been the only one who was dense enough to actually go there, or so the other players thought.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something, Ramirez.”
“What, Jay?” the other boy asked a little nervously.
“Can I borrow that miniskirt from your closet? It would go fabulously with that pink top we saw the other night at the mall.”
Everyone else busted up laughing with Jay joining in after seeing the look that Ramirez threw his way. After a moment or two Ramirez joined in with the rest of them.
After practice, Melanie stopped him before he went into the showers.
“What happened to you today? This morning you beat that kid up.”
Jay’s smile left, and he began to scowl a bit. “This morning I was a stupid Neanderthal who was only thinking about how people were belittling his manhood. This afternoon I almost got arrested for showing a freshman the error of his ways.
“Now? Now, I realize that it’s part of who I am. I choose not to let my genetics choose my identity for me. I’m a guy, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks.”
Melanie leaned up against him and kissed him on the cheek.
“What was that for?’ Jay said rubbing his cheek. He was smiling the whole time.
“Because you’re a good guy in spite of everything.” After pulling back from him, she smacked him on the butt. “Now, go in and get changed so that I can get through and take a shower.”
“You’re going to…”
“No, in the girl’s locker room. I just don’t want to walk all the way around the outside of the school to get in.”
Jay laughed and went in to get showered and changed.
“Don’t forget, you owe me a view of you in your underwear,” Melanie called out after him. He just waved and went inside.
The scenarios kept going through his mind. All the ways it could easily get really hot in a shower.
He had to keep the water ice cold because of it. After a while even that didn’t work, so he decided to just towel off and go to his locker to change. The other guys quieted down as he entered the room.
“Point that somewhere else.”
“What?”
“We know you’re different than…”
“Huh? Dude, I saw Melanie half naked before practice and she’s right outside the door.”
There were a couple of chuckles around the room and Jay went over to get his clothing. Someone had put a pink frilly braw in his locker.
“Really, guys?” Jay asked, while pulling on his underwear.
He picked the first person to chuckle as his target and threw the bra. “Thompson, keep your bras in your own locker please.”
“It’s not mine,” Michael Thompson said, going bright red.
“I think it’s mine,” said a voice from behind them, a feminine voice.
Jay tried to cover up, but Melanie just laughed, “Looking good, Jay.”
As soon as she was gone, the other guys started commenting on her butt and breasts.
“Guys, she’s a member of the team.”
“So’re you, Jay, but we never let that stop us before.” Davidson smirked at the other guys trying to get them to join in the joke. It had been so hard to play out there today with not one girl, but two, and if only Coach Peters hadn't been there he could have let both of them know how he really felt.
There was a forced chuckle or two as Jay turned to look at the person who’d made the comment.
“Davidson, I think you might want to reconsider that statement.” Coach Peters stood at the door to his office with his arms folded across his chest.
“But Coach…”
“No buts, Davidson. I’ll not permit this behavior if you wish to remain a member of this team. Melanie deserves your respect. She’s has just as much right as any of the rest of you to be here.”
Eric Davidson grumbled at this, but let it go. He wasn’t going to get any traction on this argument, especially not against the Coach. It would obviously take a different approach. Maybe if he could get the other members of the team…
Most of the rest of the players let the cut go, and they joked with Jay as they continued to get dressed and then leave to go to their homes.
Eric simply couldn’t believe what was going on. They were treating the thing as if it were normal. How could they do this? It wasn’t male or female after all. He’d just have to have a talk with his parents about this.
A smile spread across Eric’s face. That was the answer. The other players were just children after all. He’d get his parents to support this, and there would be such an outcry from the other parents.
Maybe they could even get Coach Peters fired over this.
Like a single drop of dye into clean water, the ideas spread from that single point until Eric’s entire mind was consumed by the darkness of the concepts that had spawned.
It wasn’t, but neither her father nor she moved it. It was their chair, and they took turns at vigil in it.
“Hey, Mom,” she said as soon as she sat down in the chair. “I made it on the team. We had our first practice today, and it was really cool. It’s harder than I thought it would be, but that’s not a bad thing.
“You know how I liked the challenge in the past. Well, I’m up to the challenge now. Jay makes it a lot more challenging though.
“I told you about Jay yesterday.” Melanie sat there in silence for a while just listening to the machines that were keeping her mother alive. Her thoughts were in turmoil. She felt elation over being allowed on the team. She felt the pressure to perform well. In general she felt the need to be herself. And under it all, she realized that eventually none of it would matter. From what she’d already experienced with Jay, she knew that if the right guy came along, she’d likely make the same decision that her mother had.
“I wish you could talk back, mom, I could really use some advice. It’s so hard to know what I should really do. He’s a boy though. I can’t throw away my dream for a boy, can I? I know that you gave up tennis for dad, but…”
“You think she’d tell you she regretted her life?” Her father had walked in quietly and stood behind her as she spoke. He didn’t like to interrupt her, usually, but sometimes it was important, like now.
“But she had to give up her dream. She’d been invited to the US Open.”
“Melanie, don’t think like that. Her dream was to be a mother. She loved you as a kid, you know that.”
“But if only…”
“Don’t think that, sweetie,” her father said soothingly. “She made a decision to live her life, and not watch it pass by from on the court. There is a point where everyone has to decide what is important in life. For you, for right now, it’s baseball. Maybe next year it will be fashion.” He laughed at the face she made when he mentioned it.
“You never know, Sweetie. It could happen.”
“I think I’d start dating Jay first.”
Her father got a knowing smile on his face, “Why don’t you tell me about him. I know, it’s easier to talk to your mom, but I might actually give you some advice, and it sounds like you could use some.
Slowly, as if looking for the right words, Melanie began to talk to her father and tell him all about life at her high school.
Taking a deep breath, Jay got out of the car and locked it. He was stalling and he knew it. It was something he could laugh at, this stalling,
He ran out of things that he could effectively do to stall, and walked across the street and into the dojo.
The students were all young. All of the students were young. The Sensei only felt comfortable when teaching children. It was them who he loved to mold and helped to grow. The precepts that he taught were supposed to serve these children for a lifetime, and he had broken one of the cardinal rules.
Jay took off his shoes and kneeled at the edge of the mat.
“Jason?”
“Permission to enter, Sensei?”
The man nodded, and Jay stood and entered.
“I have failed, Sensei. I beat up a defenseless opponent.”
“Why don’t you tell me about it, Jason?”
Standing there Jay felt like he had the last time he’d been to the Dojo. He was ten years old again, looking up into the eyes of one of the men he truly respected. There had been coaches who had taken this man’s place in his life, but they always had to measure up to the example se forth by his first coach. His Sensei.
Tears streamed down his cheeks as he continued talking about his fears for the future.
“Jason, everyone makes a mistake now and then. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. You accepted you made a mistake, and sought forgiveness.”
“But, I could have killed him, Sensei.”
“You didn’t kill him.”
“But Sensei…”
“If it will make you feel better, I’ll accept you as a teacher here. You can help train my young ones to be as considerate as you.”
“Sensei…”
“I know you have baseball practice, so for this to be truly the punishment you deserve, I’ll expect you here for the evening classes on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and three classes on Saturday.”
Jay smiled at that. He wasn’t sure that his Sensei was doing anyone any favors, but he felt better about the direction that his life was now heading.
“Thank you, Sensei.”
“Don’t thank me yet, you have a class to teach. They’re waiting for you already.”
“See you next week, Lisa,” Jay responded to the nine year-old.
The evening classes only lasted an hour, but it had felt longer to Jay. Not because of anything specifically onerous about the task, just that there was so much that happened. Usually, when he was happy, it seemed that time simply sped by and there was no really connection to what he normally associated with a single hour.
This time he was so focused on every minute detail that each moment lasted an eternity.
He went out to his car and let himself in so that he could drive home. He smiled at how his Sensei was going against his normal teaching rule. In teaching the younger kids, Jay learned something that the five years he’d spent as a student had never taught him, and that was restraint.
Not in a way that he needed to hold his emotions in check, but in a way that he needed to moderate his force. If he’d been using restraint earlier today, he might still have attacked Palmer, as he’d completely lost control of his emotions, but he wouldn’t have hurt him nearly as badly.
The time in the class reminded him that there were many ways to take someone down, and you didn’t need to destroy someone to protect yourself. Something else he realized was that he was so far out of practice. If he’d followed the last words that Sensei told him, he wouldn’t have overreacted like he did, and it was an overreaction.
Palmer had just been making a comment, nothing big. It was even mildly amusing. If it had been someone else, Jay might even have laughed at it. There was the real problem. You never really considered how all the little slights that you use in day to day life might affect someone else.
Insults hurt, no matter what all mothers tell their children about sticks and stones. Words may not cause physical pain, but they still hurt. Each one causes another cut in someone’s heart. With each new slight the person dies a little inside.
Jay was as bad as anyone else and he knew it. You joked that way with your friends, but when they took it personally, when you’d gone too far, it was too late to truly make it better. Sure, you usually just laughed it off so that the other person wouldn’t see that they hurt you, but they did hurt you.
And the more that it happened, the more that you lost trust in that person.
That was the reason that friendships died, not because people grew apart, but because they grew tired of being hurt by you, or you by them.
It was all so stupid, really. Sure, there was a moment of glee when you came up with a really creative insult, but happiness was not formed out of moments of wicked glee. Happiness was helping a student like Lisa realize that she could actually throw someone as big as Jay.
It had so surprised them both, that Jay had landed hard, and had the air knocked out of him for a moment. She’d almost been in tears before he explained that he was alright, and that it was his own mistake that had hurt him, and nothing she had done.
After the initial shock of the moment, she had been all smiles, and the rest of her class had looked at her in awe. It was the last time he fell unexpectedly, but that moment had raised her in the esteem of her peers, and given her much needed self-esteem.
Jay pulled into the driveway and shut off his car, still smiling at the lessons that he’d learned tonight.
Something charged into him from the side and he flew a few feet to land in the grass. He was up almost as soon as he came to a stop, looking back the way that he’d come.
“So, you looking for more, then, Champ? How does the bully feel now? I’m here to show you.”
“Show me what?” Jay shook his head to clear it. Nothing felt out of place, but that had been a really hard shove, almost a tackle. The other guy was wearing a mask of some sort, knitted. Probably a ski mask, even with how cliché something like that was.
The other boy didn’t say a word, just came at him. Jay sidestepped and kicked him in the stomach, hoping to knock the air out of him. The boy grunted and grabbed for Jay’s leg. He was a moment too slow, but Jay couldn’t take the risk that he’d get him next time.
The guy was big, and there were a lot of things a big guy could do to you, even if they have no formal training. Keeping out of his grasp became Jay’s number one priority.
The other guy had no training as far as Jay could tell. He was slow, and wasted a lot of his strength moving his body in a parody of a traditional boxer’s cross. It was as if all the guys knowledge of fighting came from watching other people fight.
Jay slid out of the way of each of the attempts at connecting a blow that the other boy made.
“Jay, what’s going on?”
Jay was too engrossed in avoiding getting hit. His dad distracted him just enough, though, that the boy clipped his shoulder. It hurt. For the first time since this fight began, Jay realized he might be in trouble. Sure, he had the better training, even if he was still a little rusty, but even without proper form this guy had a lot of strength to throw around, and it would only take one good hit to end the fight permanently.
The next time the guy lunged forward, Jay slipped to the side and tripped him, again jumping out of the way. The other boy was quick to get up, and he was after Jay without a word.
“Stop this, there’s no reason for us to fight.”
“I have to do this.” The other boy grunted out.
His breathing was a little labored. For a moment, Jay wondered if he’d cracked one of the other boy’s ribs. It shouldn’t have been high enough for that to happen, but stranger things had occurred recently.
It seemed like another eternity, his second for the night, before the sound of sirens approached. Lights flashed and voices called for him to lie on the ground. The other guy slammed into him with his full body weight.
The light went dim, and he could hear shouting from a long way off before everything went black.
Jay was staring up at the night sky when he realized that he was aware of his surroundings again.
“Are you okay, son?”
Jay looked numbly around him and slowly sat up.
“Do you know where you are?”
There was someone speaking, and Jay smiled. The words didn’t register though.
“Jay?”
“Yes, Dad.”
“Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
“We need to question you some more, Jay, if that’s alright?”
“What about?”
“About what happened here tonight.”
“I was getting out of my car, and someone hit me from behind. I don’t really remember anything after that.”
“You can’t remember anything else?”
“He said so, officer. You saw what that other boy did. Jay immediately surrendered. The other boy…”
“We saw, Sir, but we’re still going to have to question your son.”
“What exactly are you questioning our son about, officer,” Fae said as she exited the house. “Does he need to have a lawyer present?”
“At this time of night? I don’t think we need to bother with a lawyer.”
“Officer, you’re being a bit evasive don’t you think?”
“It’s okay, mom, it’s just Officer Laramie. He tried to arrest me earlier today.”
“What?” Jay’s mother exclaimed.
“Julia Fore said that the principal told her something was up, and she stopped it.”
“Of course she did,” Fae said with a little smile. “Let me introduce myself. I’m Fae Sims of Sims, Anderson and Fore. I’m going to have a talk to my partner tomorrow about secrets. Apparently, however, my office has already been retained to represent this boy, which you already knew. I suggest you take the assailant and contact Ms. Fore at my office tomorrow if you wish to speak further with Mr. Sims.”
A couple of EMTs had driven up while Fae was speaking to the officer, and they began to examine Jay. It only took a moment before they were loading him into the back of the ambulance.
“What’s going on,” Henry asked.
“He has a slight concussion, and we want to take him to the hospital for a couple of tests.”
“Henry, go with our son, and I’ll finish up with the officers.”
“Yes, dear,” Henry said with a little smile.
They drove off from his home, and Jay was still a little out of it. It wasn’t that he was loopy or anything, but his thoughts just wouldn’t keep…
There were so many things in the back of the ambulance to look at. Surfaces…
His dad was looking concerned so Jay just smiled for him. It’s not like he was in a fight or anything.
For a moment Jay wondered why they had the ambulance siren on. The EMT asked him to lie back and…
“Jay? Wake up. We’d like to keep you conscious until we get you to the hospital.”
“Why are we going to the hospital?”
“Jay, do you remember what happened?”
“I was knocked across the lawn by someone?”
The EMT looked in his eyes, “Is that a question?”
“No, I was pushed. I know that.”
Jay’s attention wandered as the EMT went back to talking to his dad in a worried voice. The EMT shouldn’t have worried. He just was surprised is all. He’d taken harder hits this evening in the Dojo.
Especially from little Lisa.
He’d never noticed it before, but Lisa looked a little like Melanie. That’s a strange thing to think, he thought a second or two later.
They got to the Hospital and wheeled him into the ER. He only waited there a few minutes before they took him for an MRI. After that he was taken back to a room to wait while the doctors spoke to Henry.
“It just looks like a minor concussion.”
“But it was just a concussion?”
“There doesn’t seem, to be anything else wrong with him. It’s likely just caused a by his head coming into contact with the ground. There don’t seem to be any other injuries, but as a precaution we’d like to keep him over-night.”
“You’re sure that there’s nothing wrong?”
“I can’t be a hundred percent sure, which is why we’d like to keep him here.”
“Ok, I’ll be by to pick him up for school tomorrow then.”
“Lisa?”
“Senpai, what are you doing here?”
“Apparently I got ambushed by a brick wall on the way home.”
“Oh,” she said, her smile fading a little.
“Hey, the lessons we learn are important, Lisa.”
“Not that. I hoped that you might be here to see me.”
“Well, I see you. Why are you here, Lisa?”
“I have to give blood a couple of times a month. We moved here because they have a great research clinic here, and they hope to suppress my illness as much as possible.”
“What illness?”
“HIV.” She said with a sad little smile.
For a moment, the world stopped. She was nine years old, and had to be perfectly aware that she had a death sentence.
“That’s…”
“Horrible? Yeah, I know. I can’t let it affect me, Senpai. I’ve got to live my life.”
“How bout I go up with you?”
“You’d do that for me, Senpai?”
“Of course I will.”
“You can keep my sister company then.”
“You’re sister?”
“She’s parking the car. She sent me in to get signed in. She doesn’t want to be late to school again.”
“Well, if I need to I’ll just let her go and I can drive you to your school.”
“Really? You want to stay here with me?” Lisa said with a little blush.
“Don’t get the wrong idea, Lisa. I’m your Senpai. I feel responsible for you.”
“I know, but a girl can dream, can’t she?”
Jason chuckled a little and then looked at his parents. He’d been driven here in an ambulance so his car was at home.
Seeing his look, Fae responded. “Here, you can drive the Porche, Jay,” she said, tossing him the keys.
“How are you…” Henry started.
“I thought I’d get a ride with my husband.”
“Oh really?” Henry said with a smile.
“Don’t get any ideas. I’m still a little upset with you for lying to me.”
“Well, what can I do to make it up to you,” Henry said as they moved out the door.
“You’re so lucky,” Lisa said watching Jay’s parents banter back and forth as they left.
“How so?”
“That your Mom is still there for you.” Lisa lost all pretense at a smile when she talked about her mom.
“Did you lose your mom?”
“Kinda. The man who…took me attacked my mom.”
“You don’t need to talk about it if you don’t want,” Jay said as he pushed the button on the elevator.
“Lisa, you were supposed to wait for me in here.” Instantly, Jay knew who it was. He hadn’t connected it all together, likely because he’d only gotten first names the night before.
“I’m nine, Melanie, not three. I can go up and sign in on my own. Besides, my Senpai is here and he was going up with me.”
“Oh, it’s your Senpai is it. I’ve wanted to see this older man you have a crush on.”
Jay turned slowly to look at Melanie.
“Hello.” Jay said with a smirk.
Melanie was speechless.
“Wow, I thought only Jay got to my sister like this. She couldn’t stop talking about him last night. Looks like Jay has some competition.”
“All night, huh?” Jay said with a genuine smile this time.
“Shut up.” Melanie said while she smiled and blushed at the same time. She tried to hide her face in her hair, and when that failed, she put her face in her hands.
“Wait…” Lisa said, a smile slowly coming to her face.
“Please to meet you, Lisa. I’m Jay Sims.”
“My sister has good taste for once.” Lisa said with a little giggle. The elevator arrived and the three of them entered it. Melanie hit the button for the third floor.
“I certainly hope so,” Melanie said, “Since it would be really bad to insult him now that you spent almost as long talking about him yourself.”
It was Lisa’s turn to blush. “He is cute, though, you do have to agree,” Lisa said.
“Oh, yes, I agree he’s cute, but you know I can’t.”
“Then can I have a shot at him?”
“Ladies, look, I like you, Melanie, and think of you, Lisa, like a little sister. If I can’t have Melanie, then I don’t want anyone.” Jay realized how what he’d just said could be interpreted, but just shrugged his shoulders. After a moment he continued, “You know, it might not end up going anywhere, but I’d at least like to give it a chance, Melanie.”
“Are you asking me out? Don’t I get a say in this?”
“Of course you do, you can say no.”
“Then no, Jay,” Melanie replied. It obviously gave her no happiness to do so.
“Why not?”
The doors opened, letting them out into a waiting room. They signed Lisa in and then went to have a seat in the mostly empty room.
“Look, Jay, just no, ok?”
“It’s not okay. I think you’re beautiful, and would love to get to know you better.”
“I’m not just going to be the girlfriend.”
“What?” Suddenly Jay was confused. All he’d wanted was a date or two. Now she was talking some sort of permanent commitment.
“I’m trying to be an asset to the team. I don’t want the guys to just think of me as your girlfriend.”
“Ok, that’s not how guys think about it,” Jay said with a smirk.
“What are you talking about?” Melanie asked.
“Well, you see, until you’ve got a boyfriend, then all of the guys on the team are going to think they still have a shot. That means that they’ll continue to ask you out, and generally harass you.
“Now, I understand if you don’t want to date someone on the team, but…” Jay just trailed off, waiting for her to get it.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Melanie said with the shock evident on her face.
“These are teenage boys we’re talking about. When it comes to a pretty girl, they stop thinking, and listening is optional.”
“You don’t act that way…” Melanie said with a little smile.
“Lisa Deverau?” a nurse announced at the other side of the room.
Lisa got up and walked over to the nurse and then followed her back.
Jay turned back to Melanie after Lisa left. “I don’t act that way because Sensei would kill me. And possibly my Mom. Coach Peters…”
“If Coach Peters…”
“He expects me to adhere to a higher standard,” Jay said with a smile. “So, like I said, they stop thinking when it comes to a pretty girl. Most of them will only stop if you get a boyfriend.”
“You really think I’m pretty?”
“Of course I do.”
“And you wouldn’t feel weird about dating a baseball player?”
“Not unless you did. So, will you…”
Melanie shut him up by kissing him.
“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” she said with a satisfied little smile.
“I generally like to get a date first,” Jay said with a little chuckle.
They didn’t kiss again, but they did lean against each other and talk quietly while waiting for Lisa to come out.
“So, I missed out on my chance with my Senpai, huh?”
Jay and Melanie just laughed with her.