Following the events after rugby nothing happened for days. Greg and I only crossed paths during French, our one shared subject. Practice came and it was Rattle -- in a fouler, the sod! The showers came and went. Rattle waited on, still in a mood. Greg didn't look at me and I was certainly not going to him (and risk a hard -- no way).
Still nothing for a week -- I was getting to be a wreck -- I had to say something. I had to know how Greg felt. What was it all about? Was he gay, was I? Was it just something all lads had to go through?
Phillips (nick name Hitler, need I say more) took the following practice (i.e. two weeks after the eventful shower. Frost, though not lingering, had made the pitch rock hard. Still we were made to practice, until Carter gashed his leg from knee to ankle. Practice was called off. It was only three o'clock and I thought this was my opportunity to catch Greg after the showers and sort this thing out.
But no...I had to collect my things and Carter's, and then take the stupid fat slob of an idiot to the school infirmary. Well he was, and he'd ruined my chance to get to Greg. Matron took control of Carter and I trudged off home dejected and with the cloud of a French dissertation to start and finish that night.
My Dad had died six months previous (when I turned 18) of a heart attack; Mum was out working. I went to my room and instead of wanking off as I would have done up to two weeks previous (I was too emotionally cranked up) I got out of my Rugby things and lay on my bed in my jock and started the French -- fucking boring.
I heard mum come back in and shouted down "I'm in my room; I'll be down for dinner."
Usually this stops her coming into my room, but this time I heard footsteps on the stairs and Greg's fetching tenor calls out "It's only me -- want you to help me out with this French shit."
Fuck, fuck, fuck, it was too late to get dressed, too late to do anything! Best to brazen it out, after all it was my bedroom and I didn't have a hard or anything. Greg came into my room -- he'd been there before as previously we had on a few seldom occasions worked on the French homework together. Not since the shower episode though and my mind was racing -- keep concentrating.
"Bloody hell Greg, I thought it was Mum." I told him to grab the other bed and that I had started but got nowhere. He took off his coat -- he had showered and changed and looked a million dollars! Do not get a boner. He had on this T-shirt 'Looking for Mr Benson' -- to keep my dick down I asked him what the band was -- I'd never heard of them.
He then opened up as if I had asked him to tell me his life story. His dad had died around the same time as mine (coincidently when he just turned 18). His dad had a motorbike accident and had gone under a lorry -- instantaneous. This much someone else had already told me. Greg, who up to this had also lived with his mum, had to clear out his flat as his parents had separated. In the flat his dad had left a letter for him and a letter for his brother, each sealed. Is his dad George Smiley? In the letter Greg learned that his dad had rented a lock up (but in a false name) and he wanted Greg to have all the stuff -- the key was in the envelope. Greg took and read the second envelope (his brother Rob's), which didn't mention the lock up but had a key to the flat and that Rob could have it -- it was rented and the rent was coming to him through the will. The flat is the one we now live in -- Rob never got the letter but was offered and turned down the flat.
So what about the T-shirt? Greg went to the garage and was fucked out his mind. Everything was packed neatly away it was books, pictures, leathers and other clothes including the T-shirt. Electrical gear, Bang and Olufsen; Greg was in 7th heaven this was his scene. He never told anyone of the lock up or of the envelope scenario. He moved into the flat and went back to the lock up to get the stuff and put it up in the flat and it was then the bomb exploded. The pictures were four foot black and white Tom of Finland prints amongst others. This was expensive and classy shit. The books were gay fiction the clothes were more than bikers' leathers they were gay scene. The names meant nothing to Greg but the pictures and books were unmistakable and his dad had wanted him to have this -- he knew then! Greg had spent the last five months reading and learning all this new stuff.
This was blowing my mind and still didn't know what this had to do with the T-shirt. I made some quip about no wonder he was having trouble with French! He just went on, "There's more."
