In Lie Flynn

This story is about my friendship with a ghost.

A gay ghost, a cute ghost, but still a ghost.

Don't believe me?

The first time I saw Flynn was last winter. I wondered at the time why he was clad in only a pair of knee length Spandex pants, and tap shoes.

It was freezing, first, and secondly that was like female tramp clothing and Flynn was, a guy. Pretty good looking, sandy hair, he had some abs.

Maybe a tiny pooching pot belly, but not much. And he couldn't have been more than nineteen.

And no one else was looking at him. I was walking across campus at Bolingbroke Christian College, and worrying because my best buddy from back home had written me about his goals in transitioning.

I was very supportive of Colin, but I worried that they opened the mail when it came through, and that could get me expelled.

And Dad had told me with a smirk, "I will pay for you to go to college, only at Bolingbroke Bible College."

Thank God they changed the name slightly from when he went there.

It was mostly a preacher's school then, and Dad was too dumb to become a preacher, and after Mom got preggers, (mysteriously) they dropped out and he sells cars now.

But Dad really wants me to be a preacher! So I am majoring in accounting, but I'm minoring in Bible. That's how they say it here, not "Bible Studies" just "minoring in Bible"

The rule is, everyone has to minor in "Bible" so they won't think they're getting a secular education.

And Flynn introduced himself. "I go by Flynn. Like Errol, you know? I loved him in the pictures."

I never heard of Errol, or whatever. We had a great talk, though. Flynn somehow already new I was gay. But he called it being a "fairy."

How did he know? My pals back home knew, and Dad suspected, I used to have to endure his nasty comments about "homosexuals" and "sodomites".

But I'd tried to have a new start at Bolingbroke. I found a girlfriend, Alesia, and she was really nice, and she was grateful that I wasn't pushing her to go to bed.

"It's so rare to meet a guy who is a true gentleman!" Alesia said more than once, beaming at me after I'd given her a chaste peck on the cheek.

But I kept fucking up with Gordo, the guy down the hall. His full name is Gordon Othmar, the Fourth or something.

Gordo's dad and grandparents, whatever, are big deals in the Southern Baptist Convention, and his cousin, Luke Hagemyer, is a damn evangelist.

I can't remember how Gordo and I began fucking and sucking in the shower, though.

They encourage group showers at Bolingbroke, to save money, and just advise "custody of the eyes" so we don't you know...mess around.

But the shower is deserted at five a.m. and that's when Gordo and I meet and boy does he have a monster dick!

I go to my knees on it, and then he does me, and sometimes from behind.

I had to go out of town to get condoms, since they don't sell any in the pharmacies in Bolingbroke Township. The mayor is a school alumnus, and so are the drugstore owners, I guess.

Can't get AIDS if you abstain.

But I can't talk about being gay with Gordo, 'cause he refuses. He is in it just for the sex, and after that, he backs off.

And is he into the sex! Kissing and sucking, slobbering all over my body in the shower, he sure does.

Gordo has a deviated septum and he snores, so he has a single, and now and then he does a code knock on my door, and I sneak down the hall for a little fun. But even after, he just tells me that I'll go to hell for my impure thoughts, and that I should keep my mouth shut, it never happened.

And Gordo never uses a condom except when I insist, because they are sinful, too.

My older brother refused to buy condoms, and he would "wrestle" with his girlfriend for fun, and they always ended up fucking, but he didn't want to get rubbers, because then he'd be "plannin' for it."

And that couldn't be encouraged.

Damned if Trevor didn't get Holly pregnant just like Dad did Mom. And then he took her to that "awful" clinic that he regularly protested in front of , for an abortion even though he couldn't tolerate anyone else going.

"I have my future to think about, Elijah!" he said to me more than once. Now that the operation is over, he and Holly are wrestling again and planning one day to bomb the clinic...r

Ridiculous, right?

I think I discovered that Flynn was a ghost when he appeared once in the shower when I was corn-holing Gordo (Gordo loved that). I said something and pointed, and Gordo saw nothing.

And Flynn waved and...disappeared into thin air.

I couldn't freakin' believe it, but that's what happened.

"Yeah, I been a spirit for a long time" Flynn told me later.

"I got knocked off by a couple of longshoremen back in 1971, and now I just put in appearances to help thems what needs me."

"Who needs you?" I had asked, irritated.

"Why you do, boyo." Flynn grinned. "Eli, you are a mess, boy. Walkin' around this silly school, and there's all kinds of fellas you could be messin' with."

Flynn paused.

"I left seventh grade 'cause I couldn't read anyways, but if I knew what colleges would be like? I was watchin' the football team play, and what a lot of specimens to check out."

Flynn had grinned.

"That's a great word, 'Specimens'. I had a john who was a chemist, or a biologist or some kind of "ist, ", physicist, maybe? and he used it all the time, the word specimen."

"A john?"

"Yup. A client, a man who gives you a ten-spot for doin' what you want to do anyways." Flynn had winked at me, and just disappeared in front of my eyes. Almost like he was Batman.

I had no idea when he'd return!