CHAPTER 2: ABREACTION
The night Coach Henry Jacobs of Jefferson Davis High was living out his fantasies with Asad Udovicic, the school's star quarterback, Anthony Breslin had been the same thing he was doing now- furiously masturbating to his own.
On the whole, Anthony's erotic longings were quite a few shades less disturbing than the Coach's.
Breslin had known Udovicic since well before he even knew he was gay, and they had grown up together in the same boring-ass suburb of Houston, a tiny speck on the map known as Canaan, Texas. They had shared many of the same teachers, and many of the same classes, including Amy Bookman's.
Tony smiled as he thought about Asad banging their Bio teacher. Mrs. Bookman was a cutie, he had to admit, even though a woman like her would have never looked at Tony twice on the street. The situation was typical of the trajectory of Asad and Anthony's friendship after puberty. The awkward little Croatian boy with the funny name shot up to 6'2 practically overnight, their sophomore year, he gained muscle mass, and began to display a heretofore unanticipated aptitude for sports. By the start of junior year, the legend about Udovicic's enormous trouser snake had spread to every corner of Jefferson Davis High, and something like a cult had formed around him amongst the girls.
Not that Tony was a slouch in the looks department per se.
A lot of girls thought Anthony was cute. He had a sensitive, pretty face, with well-defined cheekbones, and a decent jawline, but he knew he wasn't in Asad's league. At eighteen, he had already had a couple of girlfriends, just beards really, but no boyfriends. He had plenty of opportunities, but the time simply didn't feel right to declare his sexuality. He wasn't ready for that kind of scrutiny. Certainly, there were a small number of "out" kids at Jefferson Davis- band geeks, and drama club queens Tony felt he had little in common in with.
"Flamers," his friends called them, and he couldn't help but share their casual homophobia, their implicit allegiance to the idea of rigid gender roles, and their doggedly heteronormative view of sexuality. There's nothing more conservative, Tony mused in private, than a typical teenager in a predominantly white, suburban high school; for Tony to attempt to buck the trend would have been social suicide.
"Flamers", he had repeated, echoing their patriarchal hatred for individuals with the stones to blur gender roles. Inside, Tony had to admit he was quite a bit jealous over how comfortable the out kids were with their sexuality, proudly swishing their hips as they walked down the hallways, ignoring the catcalls from the redneck kids. Someday, Tony would have that courage. As it stood, he had only come out to two people at school.
He was an underachiever in other ways too.
Despite his above average intelligence, Breslin was a solid C student. "Brilliant but lazy" was what his teachers labeled him, and more than once, he pointed out that such a description was clichéd, and thus indicated a lack of effort on their own part.
"Try to think of something a little less pat, Mrs. Crenshaw," Breslin had replied to his English teacher, on one such occasion.
"Don't be such a smartass, Tony. We might be in the home stretch, but you're not out of the woods yet. How would you like to graduate in August?" She replied, with a smirk.
Tony's face reddened, but he had laughed along with the rest of the class. He did not hold grudges, and he liked jokes, even ones at his expense (provided they were amusing, and not merely mean-spirited). At the end of the day, there was nothing that Mrs. Crenshaw could say that could really phase him.
The fact was that Tony disdained of a formal education, and academia in general. He saw college for the racket it was.
As he told his buddy Carson Fujiyama:
"Fuck it, I wouldn't get anything out of it, anyway. I'm not a hard-core intellectual. And anyway, don't most companies prefer an uneducated labor pool they can easily exploit now?"
What Breslin wanted, even more badly than Asad Udovicic, was to be a stand-up comedian. He enjoyed the stand-up of Daniel Tosh, Aziz Ansari, and Anthony Jeselnik. His dream was to take part in a Comedy Central roast, and sit next to Lisa Lampanelli at a celebrity roast.
But that was something that lay far in the future.
At the moment, Anthony lay in bed, cold, blue moonlight slanting though the venetian blinds, throwing a pattern across his sheets. He closed his eyes, and imagined himself walking in on Asad changing in the boy's lockerroom...
His iphone chimed indicating a new text message. Anthony was shocked when he saw that it was from Asad. Speak of the Devil.
Anthony had recently confessed to Asad that he had long harbored a schoolboy crush on him. It was the spur of the moment thing, and nobody was more surprised than Tony that it had happened at all.
Asad's response was to hug him, promise not to say a word to anyone, and then ignore him in the hallways subsequently.
"Hey, man, what are you up to?" Asad's text said.
"Nothin. U?" He replied.
"Nuthin. Bored. Can I come over? I need to talk to you about something."
Anthony paused to consider for a moment. What could Mr. Popularity possibly want to do with him so late in their high school career?
"Yeah," Anthony replied, at last, to Asad's query.
Asad arrived at Tony's ranch style house twenty minutes later.
"Come in," Tony said at the door.
Tony took in the sight of Udovicic crossing the threshold of his house for the first time in years, and had to hide his smile.
"Nothing's changed," Asad said, looking around at the sundry knick-knacks Tony's mother had arranged around the modest living room.
The teen athlete stood a little over six feet, his black hair neatly shaved in a military style cut. He had a ruggedly handsome face, with strong Eastern European features, and a broad scimitar of a nose which led him to being mistaken for a Turk, oftentimes.
His full, rose-colored lips were wrapped around a straw, and Tony couldn't help but flash on something he'd read online as Asad slurped the last of his Big Gulp: according to certain message boards, the color of a man's lips was the same color as the head of his dick.
"Let's go to my room," Tony said, as casually as he could, "bet I can still kick your ass at Dead or Alive."
"Shit, you couldn't beat my ass at Pac-Man."
Asad followed Tony upstairs. Breslin turned on his X-box, and before long the pair quickly fell back into their old familiar rhythms.
As they played for hours, Tony could not stop thinking about how he was sitting just a couple feet from the muse of so many of his most intense sexual fantasies. He struggled hard to keep the satisfaction from showing in his face, and reminded himself that it was never going to happen. Hell, in his khaki shorts, and Birkenstock sandals, Asad already looked the part of the handsome suburban dad he would someday be.
"That was fun," Tony said, when it was over.
"Yeah. What time is it?" Asad asked. He yawned.
"A little after midnight. You going home?"
"I guess I better."
Tony sensed an opportunity. Asad looked exhausted.
"You know...you can crash here, if you want," Tony said.
Asad raised a quizzical eyebrow.
"Can I now?" The jock said, in a playful tone.
"So what did you want to talk about?" Tony said, eager to change the subject.
"I'm going to quit the team," Asad said.
"What? No way!" Anthony said.
"Yeah..."
Silence now. Asad averted his gaze from Tony's probing eyes.
"I guess this is probably the obvious question, but since you don't seem intent on elaborating, I hope you don't mind if I ask why?"
"Just because."
"Weren't you being courted by Tulane, and other schools to go play?"
"It wasn't an easy decision to make, but I...I made up my mind," Asad said.
